Could Fujifilms X100T be a gateway drug to photography? For me it was! Here is my story.

First let me state that I was a reluctant convert to digital photography. I loved everything about film and nothing about the digital medium. After giving up film in 2006, I desperately tried to make the switch to digital. But for me, there was too much of a disconnect between me and the process of digital photographing. I accepted the fact that I was an analog guy living in a digital world and walked away from photography.

Then, over the holidays in 2016, my wife encouraged me to get back into photography. She had seen that I was missing using a camera and we missed our photographic outings. So the search was on to find that something special that I was missing.

Long story short, I found the Fujifilm X100T, a retro styled camera with a dial based interface, and a hybrid viewfinder reminiscent of Leica rangefinder cameras. When you pick up the Fuji X100T, it feels solid with its all metal construction.  And I love the fact that it has a marked aperture ring and shutter speed dial. Somehow Fujifilm gets it! Some photographers need cameras to operate the way cameras use to.

The Fuji X100T is a small robust camera full of features. It is just at home shooting fully manual or as a point and shoot. The viewfinder can be used as an optical viewfinder that has an incredibly accurate parallax correction! I absolutely love using this feature and I will go into this in more detail in a later post. But if an optical viewfinder is not your thing, just flip a switch and you have a wonderful bright electronic viewfinder. The aperture ring, shutter speed and exposure correction dials each provide a nice positive click with just the right amount of tension when adjusting the exposure. In many ways, the Fuji X100T reminded me of my favorite 35 mm film camera, the Nikon F2, but the X100T is smaller, lighter, and digital. But I use them the same way.

So, is the Fujifilm X100T a gateway drug. If photography can be considered a drug, then it most definitely is! It sucked me in, all I wanted to do is find something to photograph and think, what if, what if. The Fuji X100T led to the purchase of a Fuji X Pro1, then the Fuji XT1, then the Fuji X Pro2, with a smattering of lenses sprinkled in there. Somewhere in there I started an Instagram account. Me, an analog guy starting an Instagram account!  The Fujifilm X100T got me hooked, it got me addicted once again to photography!

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