I've made a recent upgrade in studio camera gear as I felt I was lagging in technology and also had a need for better quality video as clients are asking for more video micro snippets during most of my still shoots. I also do a majority of my shooting in the outdoors and on travel so I needed to stay mobile and consider the physical size and weight of my gear too. Other things like lens quality, touchscreens and other technologies helped tipped the scales in my decision too.
So, after hours of research and renting gear to try out, I have decided to move away from Canon and have opted for the mirrorless Fuji X-H1 as my main body. As all you photographers know, changing gear brands is a HUGE deal as we all have a considerable investment in camera bodies, lenses and accessories so I was super anxious in making this move. The X-H1 got my vote for the smaller physical size (even with a battery grip it's still compact), fast frame rate (up to 14 frames per second), 4k video, in-camera stabilization, pivoting touchscreen, amazing autofocus and weather resistance. I love the manual controls on the X-H1 as they are kind of old school and similar to my old Canon AE-1 film camera that I shot growing up and the aperature ring makes the aperature settings for me feel mechanical, which I really like.
For the Fujifilm lenses, I have always preferred Canon prime lenses and figured I would invest in Fujifilm primes as well but was surprised to see that the quality of Fujifilm lenses is so good that I'm getting extremely sharp shots using Fuji zooms. For my outdoor fly fishing photography I am usually wading in a river and the convenience of a zoom is especially nice as I don't have to physically move myself to reframe the shot. I am slowly building my kit and have started out with the XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR wide angle zoom (24mm - 84mm equivalent) and these shots of my pup, Juno, in our winter wonderland here in Bend, OR were shot using the XF80mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro (122mm equivalent) that I use for portraits, product and food photography. I am very happy with the choice to upgrade to the Fujifilm system and am looking forward to getting out to shoot with it more!
