An Autumn Conundrum

I took a walk earlier this week along the local canal, my favourite haunt as those of you who’ve read more than one post of mine will know.

But when it came to grab a camera, remember I use the first that comes to hand, I had a conundrum. The nearest was the Nikon D800E but I have really been enjoying the Fuji X100T recently and would have chosen to take that. In the end I compromised by removing the 70-200 f2.8 from the Nikon and replacing it with a 35mm DX lens. It puts the full-frame Nikon into crop-mode but reduces the weight considerably.

Railway Bridge and ferns – Nikon D800E

Now, you are probably thinking that what comes next is that epiphany when I finally renounce my big DSLR in favour of the flavour-of-the-month Fuji. Well, sorry to disappoint but no. I still love using the Nikon despite its relative weight simply because it handles so well.  The 35mm DX lens didn’t perform as well as I’d have liked, the 36mp sensor is very unforgiving, and if I’m honest it was a compromise I am unlikely to make again.

Back at home I found that the in-camera JPEGs did not have the same instant appeal as the Fuji’s but as ever the RAW files provided everything that I could possibly want. I suspect that if I took the time to tweak the in-camera JPEG settings I could get a much better final image but to be honest I don’t use the D800E for instant results so it’s unlikely  that I will do so.

Zac – Nikon D800Eand 35mm DX lens wide open

So rather than reaching that “ditch-the-DSLR” moment I am even more convinced after this outing that there is room in my photography for both systems so for the moment I am going to forget about comparing and contrasting the two systems with a view to picking one and just enjoy using both and getting even better acquainted with the Fuji X-series.

Incidentally I took the Fuji X-100T with me on the same work the following day -a few sample images in the next post.