The Billingham Hadley Pro

        I've been a long time user of the Lowepro camera bags, I had a total of 2 backpacks and a shoulder bag. They are pretty durable, although their weather cover is a bit flimsy, and once wet...its very wet. But let's be honest they carried whatever I put in them, and my Flipside 400 AW has been with me all over the world filled with a minimum of 12 kg of camera gear. After I started selling my lenses, and my D700 had taken it's place on the shelf next to my Nikon N90s, I no longer needed a big backpack. Google has been by my side helping me with what decisions to make from the very beginning. The search ended when I came upon a camera bag company from England, named Billingham. For one or another reason (price and availability in BG) I had never heard of them before. I was amazed to find out that there were people out there that had one of those bags for over 20 years, and they were still doing the job. Tradition, high quality, great design, real leather and waterproof canvas/fibernyte and a huge amount of satisfied customers all over the world - my next bag was going to be from Billingham.

Picture: Kai Sheng - flickr.com

        The next question was which one? They have a huge variety of shoulder bags, and for a long period of time I had my heart set on the Hadley Small. Why would I need something bigger? My x100s was so small, and I wanted to be free from all that weight that I carried with me in the past. But literally in the last possible moment before I ordered it from amazon, I decided to get the Hadley Pro, a little bigger + a handle on the top. When it finally arrived I didn't regret my decision, the Hadley Small..would have been too "small", ironic eh? And after all you are paying quite a lot for one of  those bags, you better be able to use it for a longer period of time, and not for just around your city but for travelling as well.
        Speaking about money, we come to the price tag, and it is a shocker for many, at 300$ that's quite a substantial sum of money for an accessory, luckily I funded it's purchase from the sale of my lenses. The combined price tag of all my Lowepro bags is well over 400$, so is it that much really? But anyway you rationalize it, the reason you buy it is because you love it, and you can't put a price on that.

The x100s

       You can shoot in different frame sizes, from 3:2 to 16:9 and 1:1; Then you have "advanced filter" - toy camera (shaded borders and a greenish haze), miniature (top and bottom blur), pop color, high and low key a bunch of partial colors and some more that I don't intend to use. You have the option of choosing signature fuji film colors - astia, velvia and provia. There is also a pretty good macro mode. A thing to mention is the video, in the many reviews I've read of this camera they say its ok-ish and nothing special. But from what I've seen so far at 60fps full HD, the image quality is awesome, and that's a tool that I will definitely explore more in the future.

Picture: Gary Cruz - flickr.com

       Autofocus is pretty fast, even in the dark it will lock on, but you have to look for contrast in the frame, that's the easiest way to get a lock. And even if you can't do that..then you have the amazing Manual Focus. Equipped with focus peaking and split image, focusing manually is an absolute joy. Don't expect the battery to be as good as on your DSLR, the battery of my Nikon D700 can last for days, and up to 2500 frames or more. Fuji says that you will get around 330 frames out of this battery, but you can probably extend that if the camera is not in high performance mode, you don't use the screen as much and you are taking single images, not bursts. I've solved this problem by buying 2 additional third party batteries for 10$ each instead of paying Fuji 50$ for one. Thats true for other accessories as well, as the third party options are most of the times as good as their Fuji counterparts for a 1/4 of the price, check out JJC photo accessories.

Next stop, the camera bag.

     

Film meets Digital

           The Fujifilm x100s. First things first, it's gorgeous! The moment I saw it I knew that was the next camera I wanted to have. It looks like it came straight out of the 1960's, and that is no coincidence as its looks are based on the Leica M3. It has goregeous manual controls and an incredible Electronic View Finder (EVF) which gives you the ability to see how the picture looks before you fully press the shutter.

Picture: by the Author

Picture: by the Author

           It's price tag of around 1300$ or 1100£ is a lot for many people, given the fact that you have a fixed lens of 23mm (35mm Full Frame equivalent). But what a lens it is, incredibly sharp and at f/2 it works as a great portrait lens as well. I personally relish the opportunity to get back to the frame itself, rather than wondering about changing lenses, zooming and so on. Going from high quality zoom lenses to a fixed focal lenght lens is a challange, but a challange that I look forward to. I funded the purchase of the camera by selling two of my lenses, and I can say that I don't regret it for a second. I haven't felt the need for them since I got the x100s. Due to the fact that the camera itself is pretty rare, accessories are quite difficult to find, and I had to resort to ordering them from amazon.co.uk all the way to Bulgaria. The first thing I added to it was the leather strap from an old Zenit M12s film camera, which is one of the lightest and softest straps I've ever used. Next I added to additional batteries and a screen protector. I am still waiting for an adapter ring, lens hood and a leather case from the UK.
          As I mentioned earlier, switching from the familiar DSLR to a new system is a big thing, and you don't really know what to expect. For the first few days it was like starting to get into photography all over again, everything was foreign to me, I had no idea how to set things the way I wanted to, but after a while it all became more familiar and the camera started to do my biding...