4th of July happenings.

The campaigns for the candidates running for congress in the New Jersey 11th district were invited to march in a local 4th of July parade, so, I marched with the candidate that I am supporting. This was the candidate's hometown so her volunteers were out in force. I brought the X100F with me. I had a few problems with the camera. My thumb accidentally hit the button labeled "drive" which switched the camera to video mode. I had to stop and figure out how to switch the camera back to normal photography. Also, there were a couple of times where I did not notice that the AF didn't know which face in the crowd I was trying to focus on. The X100F might not be the ideal camera for shooting fast moving events. The next time, I will bring a SLR. All in all though, out of the 20 or so exposures that I took, I got five that I liked, which is not a bad percentage at all.

It was sweltering hot. During the hour before the parade started, I felt heat exhaustion coming on and  sat down in the shade drinking water and holding ice cubes to my head. When the parade ended, I got word that one of the civil war reenactors from the New Jersey 7th infantry brigade collapsed from the heat.

A teacher from my high school volunteering is being interviewed by media. My shyness go the best of me and I sort of slipped away so I wouldn't have to talk. I am much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

A marcher very much in the spirit of the day.

The candidate in front of her crowd...

...and greeting people at the side of the road.

Fuji X100F : The camera you have with you.

This is not going to be a digital camera review site, but, I just wanted to get this in. I do not have a single bad thing to say about this little jewel of a camera. I think that it's just prefect. The title of this review comes from the age-old answer to the question of "what is the best camera". You can own an $8,000 professional kit, but If you leave it at home, or in your hotel room because it's too heavy and bulky, what good is it?

The X100F is the latest on the Fuji's X100 series of digital compacts. It's a great weekend camera for the working pro, and a great every day camera for the rest of us. I bought a full leather case to protect it so I can keep it in my work bag so I can always have a camera with me. I always buy used cameras, this is the first camera that I ever bought NEW.

So what is it? It's a modern camera designed after classical fixed-lens rangefinders. It has a beautiful, solid metal chassis that has a confidence-inspiring weight to it. It fits in the hands perfectly. The controls are right where the gods intended them to be. The lens is a 35mm equivalent f/2 Fujinon that is sharper than anything I ever shot with. It has two command wheels, neither of which I use. I only use the old-school physical dials.

The one viewfinder is really two: straight optical and electronic. In electronic mode, a shutter simply slides over the front of the optical sight. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) assists with manual focusing. I prefer the optical viewfinder (OVF), so I keep the camera set to autofocus.

Now, here is a tricky part that had me confused and made me think that the camera was broken. The X100F has an eye detector near the eyepiece. The camera will only switch between EVF and OVF when it detects your eye near the eyepiece.

You can shoot either RAW or JPG. Shooting JPG gives you an extra treat. In JPG, there are a number of film simulation pre-sets (Fuji films, of course, except for one called "classic chrome). I tend to keep the Acros simulation on because it is really cool.