The XPro1 really is a great camera though and I enjoyed my time with it. The OVF is spectacular and can be customized to show as little or as much information as you desire. I tried to keep it simple with some frame lines, a focus point and a meter throughout my week with the camera and hardly activated the EVF. I love how the user can choose between viewfinders with the flip of a switch and can see how fun it would be to pair the XPro1 with some Leica glass.
The main impetus of renting the camera was spurred on by my first big college Gameday. My girlfriend is from Athens Georgia, went to UGA and is obsessed with the Bulldogs. I didn't really pay any attention to college football until I started dating her and have become a pretty big fan of the SEC and it's rabid fan base. We finally had a chance to pay her hometown a visit and check out a home game in all of its glory, so I naturally came up with a short term project or theme for the weekend. I originally wanted to cover the day in crisp, contrasty and vibrant Kodak Ultramax 400 and photograph the spectator scene inside the stadium. Only problem with this plan was we never got our hands on tickets, so that plan became a bit of a wash. New plan, and honestly way more fun, was to hang with my girlfriend's friends at their favorite bars in Athens throughout the day. I used the new game plan as an opportunity to try out the XPro1 and see if I could live with it as a travel companion.
It's quiet operation let me use it just about anywhere and was a great relief from the audience alarming clank of my BessaR. I photographed a DC Council Hearing with the XPro1 before our trip to Georgia and the XPro1's near silent shutter made my work almost completely unobtrusive. I shot RAW+Jpegs throughout my week with the camera and after reviewing the results I can generally say that Fuji bakes quite a bit of magic into their Jpegs. I prefer the Jpegs over working with the RAW files in almost every instance except when a considerable amount of color correction is needed.
The autofocus was expectedly tough to work with when dealing fast moving subjects, like Tim Tebow blowing by you on a souped-up golf cart but I doubt I would have been able to grab that unexpected opportunity with a Rangefinder anyway.
The XPro1 was great to carry around for the general stuff I'm drawn to when traveling and could be a great piece of additional kit. People seem to really react well to it too, wondering what type of camera it was and how much it looked like an old camera.
