Back in May we reported how Devin Allen, an X-shooter living in Baltimore, photographed the protests and city life there and how one of his images made the cover of the TIME magazine. As to expect, the shot he took with his 16MP APS-C Fuji changed his life… and maybe Fujifilm should think to hire him as an offical Fuji X-Photographer, too.

Now you can read and see the story behind TIME’s iconic X-cover at the Flickr-Blog here.

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“My life changed on the 30^th of April 1975 [Note: last day of the Vietnam War], because on that day – when Americans flew from the roofs of Saigon – a skilled Vietnamese thief was able to steal a [shoplink 38356 ebay]Leica M3[/shoplink] of an American. I met him at the market of Saigon a few days later and bought that camera. Wonderful. Simple. For 100 Dollar! It became the camera of my life. […]

The nice thing of that camera is, that it is very easy to load the film, that’s very important. […] You keep it around your neck, turn, open, insert film, close and – trum-pum! It’s ready to use. Easy. And once you selected shutter speed, aperture, black & white, 400 ASA, you take the picture. You simply cannot do anything wrong!

And then there was an almost erotic aspect, I mean, you put this camera for example at 1/125 and when you take the picture it makes a “cloc-cloc” that is such a joy to hear!”

I start this article quoting this excerpt from Tiziano Terzani’s wonderful and highly recommended book “Das Ende ist mein Anfang“ (The End is My Beginning)“, just to make it clear right from the start: to me, there is much more in photography than mere specs. Sure, specs are exciting, yes, but I need more.

And like Tiziano Terzani fell in love with the easy and intuitive use of his [shoplink 38356 ebay]Leica M3[/shoplink] and even with its “almost erotic” shutter sound, to me it’s the overall shooting experience in real life that makes my Fuji X-T1 so much superior than the Sony A7rII. That’s why I called my controversial article Fuji Fun Vs. Sony Specs. But I guess I simply belong to a very small niche of people, who, for example, gets more excited by a camera with a dedicated shutter speed dial (Fuji X-T1) than by a camera with 42MegaPixel (Sony A7rII).

But that’s just me, my very personal taste. For your shooting style, the X-T1 might be crap. To each his own. There is no right or wrong. I respect every personal taste in this matter.

However, there are some other folks out there, who, like me, also prefer Fuji’s overall shooting experience, like littlebigtravelingcamera, who compared the Fuji X-T1 with the Sony A7r. He says:

“On paper the Sony clearly wins. […] But there is more that makes a great camera. It is not just the sensor. The shooting experience plays an important part too. The Fuji X-T1 just disappears when I shoot it. Everything feels natural. I never have to use the menu. The Sony is different […] Shooting feels less natural […]. There is no need to dig into menus most of the time if you set it up clever but it is just not like shooting with the Fuji.

Regarding cameras to me it is a tie.”

Believe me, I’m honest when I say that Sony makes great cameras, is a great innovator and makes the best sensors out there. Everyone who bought a Sony made an good choice. But there is something I miss there.

Now, I won’t go so far to say like Diglloyd that Sony is “a company that really does not understand photography”… but there is something I can’t find in the Sony World, but only find in Fujifilm so far. But you have to look behind the specs to see it.

I’ve fastened my seatbelt and put on my helmet… I’m ready for the shitstorm ;)

have a GREAT day,
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P.S.: Even some Hardcore Sony Shooters (who own the A7rII) agree with this post ;)