Fujifilm X-Pro1 (photos)

Fujifilm carries on its retro tradition with the X-Pro1, and while the camera isn't particularly compact, it's a nice size for people who like a little heft. I do wish the grip were a little deeper, though.

The X-Pro1 comes with a nice-looking leather case, though there's no hole for the tripod mount for those of us who like to use sling straps that attach to it.

The focus mode switch is rather inconveniently placed on the bottom left side of the camera.

The X-Pro1 lets you dial in both shutter speed and aperture, with a real old-fashioned aperture ring on the XF lenses. Putting the ring in A is effectively shutter-priority; putting the shutter speed in A puts you in aperture-priority. If you put both on A you've got full auto. My one complaint with this scheme is the slavish adherence to history means that you're stuck with full-stop shutter speeds in shutter-priority mode: I've gotten used to shooting at speeds like 1/80 sec. On the other hand, the lens' aperture dial does support third stops, which is a nice feature.

There's only one user-assignable button, the Fn button next to the shutter button. Given that there are multiple relatively unused controls (like three of the navigation buttons) this is a bit disappointing, and I suspect might be changed in a later firmware update. Not only does the camera lack a dedicated movie record button, you have to be in movie mode to record (and unlike the rest of the world, Fujifilm considers movies a drive mode), so I ended up wasting the Fn button by mapping it to movie mode. On the plus side, the X-Pro1 has 7 custom settings slots that are easily accessed in the quick menu.

Overall, I found the control layout and button design comfortable, though the learning curve will be a little steeper if you're not used to Fujifilm's mindset. Down the left side of the LCD are the drive mode, metering and AF-area selection buttons. On the right, the AE/AF lock button and quick menu button sit on a plastic protrusion that provides a little extra stability when you're gripping the camera. Of the four navigation buttons, only one is hardwired -- to macro, which I used a lot because of the odd minimum focus distances of the lenses (7 inches for the 18mm lens and 11 inches for the 35mm lens). It's kind of annoying that when you hit the macro button you then have to arrow over to macro mode; it should just toggle.

Getting the right viewfinder display can be a little confusing. The View Mode button on the back rotates among the optical and electronic viewfinders and auto eye sensor, and this switch on the front toggles between the optical and electronic viewfinders. There's a framing-corrected view overlay for the OVF, but ultimately I found the EVF the most useful.

Though the 18mm lens is a pancake, this 35mm lens is a standard prime. The lenses really are beautifully designed and built.