Karin Nelson

Well, I completely messed this up, didn’t I? I’m not even new to this game. I was able to snag a PS5 for my son at 2 AM from the online store of a grocery chain. I preordered cameras before. I knew I had to be awake, online, or call ahead to be on the list. I had to move early, but I didn’t.

Not I’m 118th in line for the Fuji X100VI, paid the purchase price in full and I have no idea when I will actually get the camera. That sucks.

The story starts in 2010. Tired of full-bodied, heavy cameras and lenses, I fell in love with the looks of the original X100 from Fuji, and I bought it as soon as it was announced. But the camera was flawed, and my love affair didn’t last long. But my love affair with Fujifilm as a camera company would last, with a small interruption in the fall of 2023, when I ogled over at the Sony side and thought that the A6700 would be the perfect camera for me. Hindsight is 20-20, and it turns out, it is not.

On paper, the A6700 has everything I want from a camera. An 26 megapixel ASPC sensor, smallish build, a flip out screen, fantastic video options (e.g. optically and digitally stabilized footage), and a killer autofocus. The camera is compatible with pretty much every 3rd party accessory maker out there, it has a huge range of lenses to choose from, Sony, Sigma, you name it. It has amazing technology which allows to attach a microphone to the hotshoe without needing a cable, and a battery that lasts and lasts and lasts. All that for under $ 1900 (Canadian). What’s not to like, you ask, and why the heck do I now want another Fuji camera that has LESS features for MORE money?

I wish it was easy to explain. See, I bought my second X100 – the “V” (for the Roman numeral 5), in March of 2020. And for the three and a half long years, that camera was by my side, through thick and thin. Pandemic, hiking, travels, family get togethers, professional portrait shoots – it did it all. The one thing I didn’t do well was 4K video, and no flip out screen.

I have a YouTube channel, you see. I figured, I needed a better camera for 4K videos and the possibility to film myself without needing a monitor, microphone cables, gimbals for stabilizing video while walking, and and and. I sold my trusty X100V and with the proceeds I purchased a Sony A6700, with a 15 mm f1.4 lens, perfect for indoor studio filming.

I couldn’t wait to get started. My studio setup had shrunk down considerably and was a lot less complicated. No more cables, not more lights, no more power required. Just prop up the camera, flip out the screen, and start filming. Yay! Just, start filming. I said, START FILMING…!

Did you ever plan for something, and the planning and preparation became more enjoyable than the thing you were planning for? Once you are all set up and ready to go, you just… don’t want to go? That was me. I had my camera set up, my microphone plugged in, all engines fired up but I had nothing. Nothing to say, nothing to show, nothing that I itched to share with my audience. I just felt stupid.

Why do I need a flip out screen and stabilized footage and no cables for microphones when I never, ever, EVER ONCE filmed myself walking and talking – your typical “vlogging” setup? Why did I waste all this energy and money to prepare for something I don’t even want to do? Add to this that the colours that come out of my A6700 never really satisfy me. The dynamic range is overcooked, the colours are all either too yellow or too purple, and the camera has no soul. Every photo looks great. But there is no life in them. It really is hard to explain.

I tried to throw money at the problem. “Let’s buy better lenses!”… Lens lust was another thing that while owning an X100V never became a problem. Because the X100 series cameras have a fixed lens – firmly attached to the camera. No dust problems, and no lens lust. But with the Sony camera, I bought 4 lenses in a short amount of time. The camera quickly became way more expensive than I ever thought possible. And with the additional lenses, a new problem arose. Which one should I bring? The zoom? The prime? The pancake? The wide angle? 2 of them? ALL OF THEM? Even if I brought all of them, I never felt I wanted to even stop and switch them. And the bag became ridiculously heavy – just like in 2010 when I carried the Nikon D90 with a complete set of lenses around Disneyland and swore I would get rid of it all.

Had I learned nothing?

Obviously not. In early 2024, when the Fujifilm X100VI was announced, I glanced at the press release and read that it didn’t have a flip out screen. There, problem solved. I don’t want another camera without a flip out screen. It’s not the camera for me. I need a camera like the A6700. For all the reasons previously mentioned. But then the first reviews came in. In camera stabilization. Great video capabilities. Amazing sensor. Sharp. Light. Beautiful. I wanted to turn away and not watch yet another YouTube video by yet another reviewer, but I couldn’t. I kept on watching. And with every video, my resolve started to shrink, minute after minute. But I kept insisting, I need a camera with a flip out screen. A true hybrid camera. Because vlogging…!

The preorder day February 20 came and went. But I slept. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to care. Let them buy that camera, I thought. I’ve been there, done that. I outgrew the X100. I don’t want it. I don’t need it…

I placed my preorder at our local drug/camera store on March 3. A full 2 weeks after launch day. The camera store at the time had 30 preorders left, for estimated delivery on March 28. After waffling for a few hours, I put down my credit card and preordered. Sure, take the full amount, the wait isn’t going to be too long… so I thought. But then the reality set in. 500,000+ preorders for a camera of which only 15,000 can be made a month. And I was 2 weeks late with my order….

March 28 came and went. A friendly customer service representative counted my spot in line and told me I was 118th. When the entire chain of stores only gets 5 cameras for each delivery, it will be a while before I get mine. How long? Nobody knows.

Why am I so obsessed with this camera now, you ask, when I didn’t even want to get one in the first place? Because I had one before. I remember what it felt like using it. Taking pictures with it. Holding it. Gosh, just looking at it sitting on a shelf made me happy, for 3 long years. Until I thought I wanted to become a vlogger.

Today, I checked Facebook Marketplace. Other people are starting to dump the cameras they got with their preorders. They woke up early, they called around. They’ve had the camera for a month already and now they are trying to sell it for a profit. Some may be disappointed with it, don’t know how to use it, don’t see what the fuss is all about. Others may be scalpers who do this sort of thing for a living – selling high-in-demand items for a steep markup. I found one in the next town, for $ 400 more than what I paid for. I am seriously considering buying it. How crazy is that?

Stay tuned…