I’ve always been interested in photography and I remember my first serious SLR - a Russian made Zenit 35mm camera. I can’t for the life of me remember what I used to photograph and no images have survived to this day unfortunately -but I do remember having fun. Then along came the point-and-shoot compact cameras with digital screens, only in turn to be replaced by mobile phones. It was sometime in 2016 when my interest re-surfaced and after careful consideration I invested in my first “proper” DSLR - the Nikon D5300 and kit lens. Unusually for me I had resisted going for the top of the range models, sensibly realising that it was more about the user than the kit! I had learned that lesson, strangely, from years of playing golf poorly and always investing in new clubs rather than lessons from a pro!
I’m not sure what finally attracted me to the Fuji brand. In the first instance the type of photography I started to get interested in was broadly “street” - this required something small, simple and unobtrusive - I traded in all my Nikon gear and bought a Fuji X100T which I absolutely loved. However as my interests grew into other areas such as landscapes I realised that a fixed lens systems was too restrictive so switched again to the Fuji XT2 which was still small(ish) and unobtrusive but benefited from interchangeable lens capability. This is where we come full circle, because it strongly resembles the rangefinder design of my beloved Zenit SLR. It’s the perfect camera for me and I love it. The only thing that may tempt me to change again would be for the same camera with much more resolution (43MP versus 24MP), not because I think it will necessarily take better photos, but as an amateur I tend to be a bit lazy about composition so often require images to be cropped. More mega-pixels are better in order to compensate - although I guess I could always save my money and stop being so lazy. Maybe I haven’t learnt my lesson after all……..
Zenit-e SLR
Fuji XT-2