The Fujifilm X-Pro3 | Stay Curious – Stay Different

Note:

On the last day of this decade, this is my last post about the new Fujifilm X-Pro3 – at least for this year! There you can find the parts one, two and three.

Basically, in photography there is just two controls: one is where you stand, and one is when you press the button.

David Hurn

Oh man, I really didn’t make it easy with the X-Pro3. So much that I slowly became afraid of getting too old and too inflexible in my head.

In my most detailed post, I have previewed/reviewed the Fujifilm X-Pro3 extensively – mostly from a very nerdy perspective. In other words: I was very much interested in details that I liked or didn’t like very much. What I didn’t mention at all – or at least only very little – was the question about the Fujifilm X-Pro3 shooting experience.

This brings me back to one of the central opening questions of that review. Is there such a thing as “Pure Photography”? Furthermore, can a camera – in the end a technical, soulless device – convey or at least stimulate that? Does using the X-Pro3 change my shooting experience and maybe even the results?

At the moment I tend to affirm the first part of the last question, but to deny the second part.

In his review, Patrick Laroque has attested the X-Pro3 “the most film like experience [he has] ever had with a digital camera”. Even though I can understand this well in one way, I personally feel differently. I started photography at age 14 or so – which is almost 35 years ago now. I still remember very well how the magic of (analogue) photography felt back then. But every magic is usually bound to a certain time and to certain emotions – and can disappear at some point. By the way, the vapours and the stuffy air in the darkroom weren’t always that great.

Actually, I don’t think it makes always sense (or fun) to imitate analogue processes 1:1 with digital technologies. Most of the time I don’t even wish the analogue times back – they definitely weren’t always better. However, it may well make sense to imitate at least a certain analogue feeling and speed without losing all the advantages of digital at the same time. Not out of nostalgia, but to actually jump out of the omnipresent high-speed train we call life, at least for a moment.

And that’s what the X-Pro3 stands for. It will remain – like the X-Pro2 – my very personal windows to the world – helping me to live out my curiosity about the world. Just, somehow different… and more focused.

In the beginning, I was a little annoyed about this and that. At some point, however, the adaptation and the trying out gave way to a phase of calm. Suddenly, all that’s left is this one camera you grab and go out with.

Damn, this can be so liberating! No more, but no less…

There is always light somewhere – go out and shoot!