THE 100V

- a personal review -

A bit of Background

My father has been a photographer all of his life, I have been around cameras since.. ever. I’ve shot lots of film before the digital era. After that I’ve shot  the first digital cameras that had tiny sensors of 5 Mpx at best. Since the Canon 5D I’ve only shot full frame DSLRs, an amazing journey to say at least. I am not old, just fortunate.

I’ve always had the urge to take a shot, right there, right then, sometimes seeing it before it happened. This urge has been filled by the smartphone camera, but… The pictures were lacking the photography factor, they were just… soulless.

I stumbled upon a Fuji XE2S and everything changed. I went down the rabbit hole and found the V. Had to have it! Got it! (before the madness). And so it goes:

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At first, I’ve had a hate-love relationship with the V, as I did not understand the purpose of the camera. I wanted it to be the camera for the price: snappy autofocus, perfect sync with the app, a RAW delivering machine. I did not get that. I wanted to sell it a few times, but, I got a camera that shoots amazing JPEGs, that allows me to slow down and document my life with photographs that have soul.

It brought me joy, curiosity and a new found love for photography. It allowed me to love my skewed shots and the “no purpose shots”.

It's all about the filmsims!

Yeah, the lazy photographer’s choice, as I thought about shooting JPEGs. But, I want to be lazy, I want to have a look baked in that I choose and customize prior to taking the picture. I love the grain (noise-ish since it is not actual film) and I love the looks of the camera. I know that being a professional photographer, the look of the camera is the least of the things that matter, but when I am shooting the V, I am not a professional photographer, I am a photo geek, a guy with a camera. I might as well look good 🙂

I mostly shoot a recipe that I will post at the end of the review. It has been changed and tweaked, and I don’t remember the starting point to give credit to the original creator. I also use Kodak Ultramax, kodakrome64, from FujiXweekly.com and do not forget Yakisugy!

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What is this camera for?

This camera is for everithing photo:

A fishing trip:

Nightshots:

First snow:

Snapping around:

Spotting another V in the wild.

No one was harmed.

Trips:

Friends, family and life!

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The recipe!

The recipe, everyone looks for it. I can say that you have to custom tweak one you find appealing, and you will click. Have the slots filled and assign a button for switching between them. There is one for every situation, here is mine:

Name: Gruia’s Classic neg 🙂
WB: auto R1 B-5
Film sim: Classic Neg
Grain: Large Strong
Color chrome: Strong
Color FX Blue: Strong
DR: 400
Tone curve H:-2 S: 0
Color: -1 ( also +2 sometimes )
Sharpness : 0
Noise Reduction: -3
Clarity: 0
Ev compensation: +1 – +1 1/3

Happy shooting!