My Best Photo

This year, Fujifilm is celebrating the 10th year of its X-Mount cameras.

As part of the 10-year anniversary of its X mount, Fujifilm says it will be releasing a collection of videos featuring photographers around the world who use Fujifilm’s X-mount cameras. Fujifilm is also starting a hashtag campaign. Each month, Fujifilm will select a theme as a photo prompt for X-mount users. The theme for January is " My Best Photo".

To be part of this celebration one needs to tag your theme photo with the hashtag #10YearsOfXMount

I decided to participate but it is not so easy to decide on which photo is one's own best photo.

My own Fujifilm journey started in January 2014 - thus eight years ago this month.

It was triggered by the Nikon DF camera. Let me explain...

Back in November 2013, Nikon announced the Nikon DF camera. A retro-looking camera with a 16-megapixel full-frame sensor (and a huge price tag)!

In December, Nikon South Africa gave me a loan unit to test. Somewhere in January, I showed it to my friend, Gus Washefort, who owned a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and was an official Fujifilm X-Photographer. We compared the camera's feature implementations and ergonomics and we concluded that the X-Pro1 is functionally a better implementation of a retro camera than the Nikon.

He then also lend me his X-Pro1 to test.

And I was hooked.

But I did not necessarily like the X-Pro1's rangefinder-style and decided to wait for the then highly-rumoured X-T1 to make its appearance. I returned the Nikon DF to Nikon as well as reluctantly gave the X-Pro1 back to Gus.

In late February Gus introduced me to Fujifilm South Africa's marketing manager, Elsie Basson. Not long after that meeting, I had a Fuji X-T1 loan unit in my hands!

What an amazing camera!

I received it the day before our annual Photo Paradise Landscape workshop week in Lady Grey, South Africa. I left well before sunrise that next morning with my Nikon gear in my normal camera bag and the FujiFilm X-T1 with just the 14mm F2.8 and the 56mm F1.2 lenses in a small shoulder bag.

I passed Bloemfontein at sunrise but did not see any inspiring scenes that were worth stopping, but, then, about an hour south of Bloemfontein, I noticed some interesting cloud formations and slowed down searching for some foreground interests.

I found the above scene with the two poplar trees and one willow tree at a crossing of a dirt road with the main road. The way the wind was blowing the willow tree's branches created a good balance with the leaning poplar tree on the right.

This was the first photo I took with the Fujifilm X-T1. And as such, I have a great emotional attachment to this photo.

But it is most likely not my best photo of the past 8 years.

(By the way, for that full duration of the workshop, I never used my Nikon gear - the Fujifilm X-T1 was just too much of a joy to use)