Fujifilm X-Pro1 review
Design
Fujifilm X-Pro1 review - Design
The X-Pro1's bold yet understated design makes it look like a camera from years gone by; yet it still looks rather elegant and contemporary. 
The design may be bulky, but the camera feels great in the hand, buttons and dials are positioned well and the camera feels right whether utilising the viewfinder or rear screen to shoot.
The camera's magnesium top and bottom are painted in a black finish that, while it looks the part, isn't as hardy as it should be - after just a couple of days some of the paint was coming off due to knocking against other metal parts in a camera bag. To avoid this you'll want to invest in the leather case and get soft pouches for any lenses. 
As the camera is a rangefinder, the optical viewfinder doesn't see exactly what the lens sees (known as parallax error). However, the Hybrid Multi Viewfinder has a clever way of solving this: when using the electronic overlay in the optical viewfinder, the camera will calculate the focus distance and adjust the position of the crop marks accordingly. Framing isn't exact, in part based on the 90% field of view crop marks, but it's the same method that the X100 uses which means interchanging between the two cameras will also feel natural.
Using the X-Pro1 isn't anything like most modern designs; it's akin to the Leica M9 or other similar rangefinder models. There's no ‘mode dial' to be found here: Instead each lens has a traditional aperture ring (each adjusts in 1/3rd stops as well with full stop markings) as well as an Auto or ‘A' setting. Pair this with the shutter dial on top of the camera - which ranges from 1sec - 1/4000th of a sec, or there are Bulb, Time and Auto settings - and the camera can be set to full Auto, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or full Manual control by selecting a combination of the two. No menu digging required.
There's also a +/-2EV exposure compensation dial to the rear of the camera, which is recessed into the body to prevent accidental knocks.
The three launch lenses, and to our knowledge all Fujifilm XF lenses to follow, do not feature leaf shutters as per the X100's lens. Instead a standard focal-plane shutter limits flash sync to 1/180th second maximum, which rules out faster flash sync shooting opportunities.
Have your say!
Latest comments
March 19 13:05
Ian Jackson
It all sounds great. Really looking forward to trying one but delivery was supposed to be mid-march and still no-one seems to be able to say when it'll hit our shores. Anyone know different?
March 23 21:23
sgoldswo
Received mine yesterday. It's fantastic!
March 27 04:08
Hasan
2.5 inch LCD (Electronics) There is nothing wrong with my old Vivitar dtaiigl camera, but it only has about 3MP quality at it is pretty basic. When I saw this yesterday I instantly fell in love, it fitted nicely into my hand and just looked well designed. Knowing that my dad has a Fugifilm DSLR that he has always been very happy with, I treated myself to this. At the same time as I was going for this a woman in the shop was also going for , which is nice and colourful for the women.Advertised for the teen and twenty something market, I say forget that. I only really take pics on holiday and special occasions (parties, family get togethers, etc), I'm not someone who has photography as a hobby. This has a lot of functions, but to be honest most of the time my pics will be taken on auto mode, although since I charged the battery up yesterday I have been snapping everything in sight probably making a nuisance of myself. For the casual photographer, which lets face it most of us are, this is ideal, and I am more than pleased. It is a nice small size to fit in your pocket or bag, it is a doddle to use, once you get used to all the different functions, and is a nice size to hold.The accompanying software was easy to download, with absolutely no problems, and there is a manual on disc as well. This is going to be ideal when my sister visits me from Stateside, and my pictures will be even better from my holiday than last year. Of course you will need a memory card for this, although it does have something like 18MB internal memory. I got myself a 4GB SDHC card at the time as I only have much smaller cards for my old camera.For the price you can't really go wrong, and this should give you years of enjoyable use, also this camera did get 5 stars in one photography magazine. Obviously there are a lot better cameras on the market, but for someone like myself it has all that I need a camera to do, plus the price isn't exorbitant.
March 31 00:01
JBV^_^
Can't afford it at the moment, gonna start saving. Always loved rangefinder cameras, and while this isn't a true rangefinder, I still love the looks. Question: When dumb lens adapters come out, will the manual focus zoom still work? It doesn't on the NX series, which is a pity, cuz most of the lenses I use are from the '70s and '80s.