It’s funny how some cameras just don’t engage, or only engage when it comes to appreciating the images they create. Then again, plenty of cameras are a blast to use, but don’t produce the best quality images.

I’m going to file the Fujifilm X-Pro2 in the category of producing great images and being great fun to use. I’ve talked before about why it’s a great camera, but it’s been over a year and I’m still using it regularly, which says something.

The X-Pro2 is not a Leica, it’s closest in spirit to a Contax G2, but the shooting experience is incredibly unfussy. The camera never gets in the way. Unless you want there to be, there’s no complexity to the controls. The autofocus is great, even continuous autofocus gives very accurate results with very few disappointments.

All of that is before you get to the great glass Fuji makes: the 23mm and 35mm F1.4 lenses are some of my favourite lenses for any system.

Also, I really like the jpegs From Fuji cameras straight out of the can: while I will process from RAW for the best results, it doesn’t bother me at all using/printing/posting a SOOC JPEG, because they are very presentable regardless.

There’s a great JPEG workflow of processing pictures in camera to taste from RAW, uploading them direct to my phone and applying finishing touches in snapseed. The results look professional and the effort is minimal.

If I have to be critical I wish the Fujifilm Camera Remote app allowed for selection of pictures on the target device as well as on camera (because sometimes you are travelling and don’t want two devices in front of you to juggle), but that’s a pretty minor concern.

Subjects don’t react to the X-Pro2 the way they react to a DSLR or a mirrorless DSLRalike camera. They often think it’s a film camera. It allows me to take images I’m not sure I would have captured with another camera.

Talking about the X-Pro2, the obvious question would be whether it might be better to buy an X-T2. I think that comes down to use case. If 4K video or handling with larger lenses is important to you, the X-T2 is a better choice.

The X-Pro2 is an unobtrusive camera, perhaps most at home in the urban environment for stills photography. The distinctions have blurred over time as the X-Pro2 gained some of the AF functionality of the XT2.

Ultimately, this is a camera you want to pick up and use, it looks great, produces great images and doesn’t remodel your shoulder carrying it around all day.

That last point is key, because I’m sufficiently old and weary these days that taking a range of lenses for a system out with me ends up being a compromise in relation to weight and the range of what I carry.

There’s a definite advantage in a system that fits in a bag the size of a briefcase (I have a Billingham Hadley pro that I stash it in). All in all a camera that’s just right in so many ways.

Thanks, as ever, to all who posed for these photos.

Taken with my Fujifilm X-Pro2, 14mm F2.8, 23mm F1.4 and 35mm F1.4 lenses.