The hardcover book camera

Even a blurry picture

tells a story

Reading a book on your Kindle or as a true book shouldn’t make a difference. The content will remain exactly the same. Furthermore, the Kindle is lighter, you don’t have to get the book in a book store or wait for it to be delivered, and you don’t need to store it somewhere once you’ve read it.

However, despite the Kindle’s advantages and the content remaining identical, few would argue that reading a hardcover book is the same thing as reading it on a Kindle. The Kindle lacks the particular smell of a new book, it doesn’t have the haptics of the paper, and you don’t hear the sound of the paper when turning a page. While a Kindle provides many advantages, it doesn’t transport you into the world of the book the same as a hardcover book does, it makes reading a different experience.

I believe it is the same with cameras. My iPhone 14 Pro is a fantastic device and has an amazing camera. It has three lenses, provides a ton of flexibility, and the photos I take are more than sufficient as memories. Yet, I felt that it didn’t invite me to capture these memories. Taking pictures with an iPhone has a beautiful simplicity to it, but similar to the Kindle, it lacks aspects that make taking a photograph an experience. So this spring, I began looking for a camera that would turn capturing memories into an experience.

And after stumbling over the Fuji X100V in an Instagram reel, I fell in love with the pictures it takes as well as its looks. After a one-month-long odyssey to buy the camera, I finally ended up getting one in early March.

Since then, I’ve taken almost 2’500 pictures with it. While barely a third of these pictures made it to my photo library, they all tell a story. I captured day trips with my friends, date nights, impressions of my farewell party before leaving for a year, but also moments with my late grandmother, and away game trips in my last season with my football team. The iPhone has the capability of capturing these moments as well, yet the Fuji’s magic is its ability to inspire to capture them.

I feel like it is the experience of taking a photo with the Fuji that inspires to capture these moments. The feel of cold aluminium top as you take the camera out, the clicking of the dial when turning the camera on, and the satisfying rotation of the aperture ring when setting the aperture. The way the soft shutter first reaches the focusing point and then, with just a bit of additional force, takes a picture. The almost silent movement of the leaf shutter indicating the capture of another memory. Even though, after all the Fuji takes photos, just like the iPhone does, the haptics and the sounds make it so much more enjoyable.

My use of the Fuji isn’t much different as I would use my iPhone, I use it as a point and shoot. Almost all the time, ISO and shutter speed are on automatic. I found a film recipe I like and shoot with it on all the time, Furthermore, I only shoot JPG’s and don’t edit them once they’re shot. My goal for this camera was never to take the perfect photographs but it was to capture more meaningful moments and for this the Fuji X100V is perfect.