Episode 5 of my irregular photo journal - 10 years of the Fujifilm X system
March 2022 marks the 10 year anniversary since the release of the original X-Pro1, the first Fujifilm X series mirrorless camera and the camera that has made me fall in love with photography not just again, but probably for the rest of my life.
I have been shooting on and off before this time with some Canon and Sony DSLRs, but it was never work I was super happy with nor proud of to a degree at which I could see myself doing it long-term.
But then I picked up the X-Pro1 and dove into snapping monochrome candids of life in the streets of central London head first. I finally found what I have been missing. It was the spark that I needed to ignite this not just street photography fire in me, but my documentary passion alltogether. It was the first piece of a puzzle that set off a cascade of events leading up to me writing, storytelling, going off to capture war stories, photographing weddings and more and more. Needless to say it was the best thing I could have done with my money back then.
Don’t think of it as the perfect camera though. It was pretty far from it. The controls were rather clunky, the speed was pretty disappointing and the feature set wasn’t as robust as other cameras of the same price range offered. But it had wonderful image quality, gorgeous colours and noise properties and that, for its time, seriously unique form factor that made it not just stand out, but just perfect for the photographer it was intended for.
Since then the cameras just kept getting better and better with the fourth generation X-Trans sensor and processor already about to get replaced by a newer model. The current X-Pro3 seems to have gone discontinued which makes me wonder. What is Fujifilm preparing to show on the ten year anniversary in two months? I, for one, am pretty excited for what they have got ready to offer for the next ten years. It has been a wonderful ride full of incredible images.
Here is a collection of 48 of my favourite X-Pro1 images I took in my first year of owning the camera.
