Overshadowed by the terrible events in Japan (my thoughts, hopes and best wishes are with the people of Japan), I would like to present you some news on the Fujifilm X100, which recently went on sale in Japan, and will be available for purchase in other parts of the world soon.

The British Journal of Photography have received a review unit with the final firmware, and went for some (admittedly pretty uninspired) street shooting with it. These lines in their article I found particularly noteworthy:

The retro design look is just perfect, and, as Adrian Clarke of Fujifilm told us earlier this week, was a conscious choice to appeal to professional photographers – the initial design for the X100 was too “futuristic,” Clarke told us, and engineers had to go back to the drawing board.

(…)

(…) [W]hen it comes to autofocus, you can run into a few problems, especially if you’re a budding street photographer trying to grab the “decisive moment” – you’ll most likely miss your shot.

(…)

The hybrid viewfinder is a beauty. Switching from electronic to optical is fast and simple. Without any doubt, it’s the camera’s best feature!

Here’s the flickr gallery with their first sample shots. While they look decent, I find nothing “special” in the look of these images. Might be that they’re straight-from-camera JPEGs, though.

On Leica Rumors, the X100 vs. X1 comparison continues with sample pictures both as straight-from-camera JPEGs as well as SilkyPix developed RAWs. The X100 RAW developed pictures look a lot better than the JPEGs, in my opinion. But please make your own judgement.

Again, my thoughts are with the people affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I sincerely hope that, with the help of the world’s nations, life Japan will return to “normal” soon.