Recently went to San Francisco and I really didn't want to lug a DSLR and lenses around, SO I got myself a Fuji X-Pro 1! I think they're about to announce the X-Pro 2 really soon so there are a lot of deals at the moment. It was a camera I've wanted since it came out. Why this camera? It's small, light and the images off the sensor are very nice indeed! There's about a stop and a half difference in ISO performance between this an my older D5100. The other big factor is that Fuji continually improve their products through firmware updates. There is a world of difference between the camera as it is now and the one that launched in 2012 - what other camera manufacturer does that??! Well done Fuji, have some of my hard earned cash!
So what's it like to shoot with? It all depends on what you had before and what you shoot. If you had a DSLR, then you have to get used to the lack of mode dial/s. If you had a film camera, then the LCD and hybrid viewfinder will be a Godsend! The viewfinder is this camera's trump card; You get the option of optical, electonic and hybrid views through the eyepiece. Even though the EVF is a little laggy, it is useful for reading without constantly having to look at the meter. The OVF was useful in low light when the EVF would be slow to refresh. The HVF gives an optical view with a frame window and exposure info overlayed on top. In a street environment, this camera excels. It does not have a DSLR's size which means people will less likely be intimidated by it. A lot has been said about the AF, I really didn't have any problems it at all. It's definitely not as fast as my D5100 but I certainly didn't miss a shot due to slow focus. If you already own lenses then they can be attached (via adaptors) to the xpro1. Obviously you lose AF but you do get focus peaking and a maginified view to help you manually focus. If you want to make the camera look truly like a Frankenstein creation, you could attach a 600mm zoom on it...
After shooting with it for around two weeks solid, there were some things which were annoying: Shooting in a continuous burst rate means that camera has to write to the card and this is too slow (I used a Class 10 card). I can't see why this can't be fixed through firmware. You need additional batteries. Just walking around all day shooting (without the LCD and EVF on where possible) would kill the battery completely! The wake from sleep mode takes about 2 seconds. This does not sound a lot but this is more of a reason to miss shots than the AF! The RAW files are roughly 25mb in size so expect longer transfer times too (this isn't necessarily a drawback but something which needs to be considered when purchasing storage)
It was very warm and sunny in SF so this was a very challenging situation with such contrasty light. The camera performed fantastic in this situation especially with the recovered details in the RAW files. Fuji also show off their film stock heritage in the film simulation modes - Velvia was my particular favourite. Although these only come in the JPEG files, Adobe Lightroom has added these colour profiles in the Camera Calibration tab in the Develop module which means you can develop the RAW files with these presets.
So who's this camera for? Street shooters, casual holiday snappers, retro enthusiasts, studio shooters definitely. If you're a sports or wildlife shooter then I'd be a bit more hesitant due to the slow write speed and lack of phase detect focus. It more than meets my needs for my particular style and methods a of shooting.
PS Pics of the SF are in the #fivedayblackandwhitechallenge section.