My current go-to camera is my Fuji X30. This is a compact mirrorless 12mp camera with a fixed 4x zoom lens.

While it doesn’t have the most impressive specs, the main features that drove me to it are:

• compact size/weight
• awesome electronic viewfinder
• built in level display in the evf
• fully manual if you want it
• shoot in RAW
• in camera JPEGs are nice with lots of film simulations available
• takes great video

I was taking a digital photography class at the local community college a year or so ago and one of my friends had one of these and let me check it out. Shortly after that, a local camera shop (Tempe Camera) awarded me a $100 gift certificate for one of my photos that I entered in a contest at the community college, which took the sting out of the purchase.

The two things that really sold me on it were the electronic viewfinder, and the built in level.

I hate to admit it, but as the years progress I can’t see things that well close up, and I was having a horrible time seeing anything in the viewfinder of my Nikon D5000, especially when outdoors. The Fuji’s display is bright and crisp, and shows a lot more information that what is displayed through the viewfinder of the Nikon.

The other problem I was having with the Nikon was that most of my photos I was taking were a bit askew. I mentioned that to the lab tech at GCC while holding my Fuji and he looked at me and said “you know, there is an electronic level available in that thing”. I took me about 5 minutes to find the setting, but sure enough, there it was.

The Fuji RAF format is supported in the latest couple of versions of the Adobe products, along with some of the linux utilities such as Raw Terapee. I’m hoping to add RAF support to our pixeltin product in the future.

Unfortunately, in their infinite wisdom, Fuji has discontinued the X30. A couple months ago I thought I lost the X30 and was looking at replacements. The closest thing I found was the Fuji X-E2s, which is a much better camera with interchangable lenses, but at twice the cost. Luckily, I wound up finding my X30 in a backpack that I had forgotten about.