Tag: retro camera

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Review: Pen F ….my choice of gear

pen f review THE-VIEWFINDER-3290010 copy

Totally a camera I would love to have in my bag! The Olympus Pen F…. Awesome retro styled camera with great performance.

Pen F - THE VIEWFINDER
Mounted with the awesome 75mm

DESIGN
Do I need to say more?  Its design is practical, good grip and retro back flipscreen. They kept all the small details of analog cameras in mind when designing this piece. For instance the on/off switch which is a copy of the wellknown film rewind switch on those analog cameras. The camera comes in this black and a silver finish.

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The retro on/off switch

This is a MFT-system camera so it’s nice compact with small yet great lenses. The nice thing is that it has a good electronic viewfinder that’s nicely integrated in this small body design.

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The back finish looks like an analog camera

SPECS
This is the second MFT-system camera that has a 20 megapixels sensor …so it seems like MFT is getting a new max standard, first the 16MP and now apparently the 20MP sensor. The specs of this camera aren’t that new or sexy …yes it has a nice focus system with 81 points and a sensor-shift 5-axis stabilization. Also shoot 10 frame per second and with a max shutter of 1/8000 (1/16000 electronic). To me the specs are okay, but the outer appearance with the retro dials, good grip and awesom finish will make people actually buy this one (I would definitely…). 

CUSTOM
A nice feature is the custom dial on the front of the body next to the lens mount. This lets you customize the color and levels before the shoot. So now you can shoot with customized brightness curves. Really nice to work with!

pen f review THE VIEWFINDER-3290014
Nicely styled filter dial on the front
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Gear review: Small yet big …Fujifilm X70

fujifilm x70 | THE VIEWFINDER-1

..also a great piece of fashion accessory..”

A camera that needs to be highlighted …the Fujifilm X70. Retro stylisch with modern technology. Not only a good camera but also a great piece of fashion accessory for those fashionistas and fashionistos out there.

What makes this a good camera?
For starters this small camera has a large 16 megapixel sensor, APS-C, a new processor and a fast fixed 28mm lens of f2.8. It also has a touchscreen for both focus and trigger option ….which is quite convenient and honestly it works like a charm. This camera performs good in low light situations, that doesn’t comes as a surprise because of the large sensor combined with the fast lens.

Design
Fujifilm is well-known for its retro design so of course the X70 has this design too. It’s design a very close to it’s bigger brother the X100 series. I truly love the retro designs of Fujifilm …that’s why I have the X100 of course. Thanks to its design adjusting the settings is easy and quicker than on other cameras, in my opinion that is.

Lens
On thing you have to keep in mind is that this camera has a fixed 28mm lens, which is quite wide. So there’s no zoom option there, however this will garanty the best quality. As you can see down below the image quality is very nice. So cropping your image after taking it is possible and very usable.

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Gear: My beloved X100 …reborn (after firmware update)

The Fujifilm X100 …still the best looking digital camera out there. I have this piece of awesomeness for quite a while now but never spend time for upgrading its firmware. Now, as I plan on using it more frequently I decided to upgrade the firmware with great results.

Speed

I have to be honest that it really is an improving …the autofocus is really fast now. Feels the same as the X100s (the second generation X100). This way the chance of missing a shot is getting smaller. Also the startup time (from off to on) is faster, which is so nice because I unfortunately missed some shots in the past due to the slow startup time.

Old school manual

Before shooting with the X100 and Canon DSLR I shot with the Olympus OM10 and several Rangefinders. I like focusing manually …it feels like you’re really making the photograph instead of relying on the autofocus doing its job. With the manual focus you can easily focus while framing your shot …something not easily done with the digital cameras nowadays.

Now the X100 firmware update improved the manual focus-ring (by wire) and added the great focus peaking feature, so manual focus has become useful now.

I plan on shooting more ‘on the go’ with this camera, because this one is some compact and easy to take with …this makes it even more possible to get those impulsive street shots with a wider angle (35mm).

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Trend: Retro cameras ..to stay or not?

OLYMPUS E-OM10-3473

Nowadays when looking at the camera designs of the most common brands there are a lot of retro look cameras …those that look like the old film cameras your dad probably owned in his younger years. I personaly like this trend because these cameras make a nice accessory and memory to the film period.

Do you already own such a retro look digital camera? Or prefer the real deal?

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