About 3 months ago, as some of you probably already noticed it, I bought my first mirrorless: the Fujifilm X-E1 . And after these months I think I get a proper idea of how good or bad is this camera.
This is not going to be an extremely detailed review of the performances of this camera, I didn't do any scientific tests, apart a few photos to compare with my Canon 6D, it's just my experience with this camera.

Why I bought this camera
The main reason I wanted this camera was primary to have a good camera always with me, as I don't like to carry my heavy DSLR with me all the times, and maybe because I'm getting older my back told me that he had enough of heavy camera bags, so I needed something light & small, but at the same time I wanted to have a DSLR-like image quality, something that I can't have with a more traditional compact camera or even a prosumer.
Now, if you spend some minutes looking at my website, you will notice that I'm not the kind of photographer who gets stuck with one specific type of photography. I shoot music, I shoot landscapes, portraits, street, anything I find interesting, in one way or another, it ends up in a photo.
Also I wasn't looking for a replacement for my full frame DSLR, I'm not that silly, and as maybe some photographers can easily claim that they sold they DSLR in favour of a mirrorless and they are happy with it, it's not my case. For how good can be, a mirrorless camera, any of the mirrorless cameras I saw, can do what I can do with my Canon 6D, alongside the pro lenses I bought over the years; and for many reasons: the AF is not as fast as my DSLR, the low ISO and high ISO performances are not as good as my DSLR, and etc...
I wanted a camera that as a "good enough" performances for the moments I don't carry the big brother around, that's it. Something I can use mainly for street photography and some occasional landscapes or portraits, but I didn't need a replacement, but just something to fill a gap.
So after months of reading reviews online, thinking which camera would suits me better, I opted for the Fuji X-E1. I knew the X-E2 was already out, but the improvements of the newer model over the old one it didn't justify the extra money I had to pay for. So after I sold my old and beloved Canon 7D, with that money I went straight to one of the local camera store and I got the little Fuji with the kit lens, the Fujinon 18-55 f/2.8-4 XF R OIS, a bit dark lens for what I'm used to, but still a really good lens for that price.

A couple of weekends ago I was bored. Really bored. So bored that I forced myself something to do, so I decided to take a photo of my brand new camera, the Fuji X-E1. I was partially inspired by this article by Laya Gerlock, where he uses a black granite tile for some of his still life works, which gives great results on the cheap. But where the heck I can find a black granite tile in Dublin? Well maybe if I go to citywest I can find someone who sells it, but without a car going there is nearly impossible, especially if then you have to carry a piece of granite, which it's definitely not lightweight, and I didn't want to wait a week before even try to find something, so I turned on the little MacGyver inside my brain, and I found a similar solution, not as good as the granite, but somehow and with the help of Photoshop it worked.
Essentially I reused an A4 size black cardboard I bought for another photo I did in the past for a client, and on top of it I've placed a glass from a frame I had, and voit la! I had my black glass surface, not as good as the black granite, as the thin glass creates two reflections, one on top and one of the bottom, but still better than nothing.
So then what I tried was to use my backdrop holder with a bed sheet to use it as a background, but while I thought it was a great idea, it didn't work at all, simply because the bed sheet let the light pass through, so you lose part of the light and unless you use an heavy weight, or you iron the sheet, which I really didn't want to do at that hour of the night, it just can't create a compact and clean surface, it will be just full of folds and it wasn't just right, so I put back the backdrop and I used what I had to use in first place, the wall.

I've never been too much attracted by mirrorless cameras, most of them are ok but I personally think they are still too far away from the quality I can get with a proper DSLR, or even just the simplicity of control the camera settings, as I'm always shot in manual mode, so I constantly play with aperture, shutter speed and ISO, and I don't really want to get lost in some silly menus like most of the mirrorless. Ok this video shows up the differences between two of the most popular mirrorless you can find on the market, but what it actually stands out on this video is the image quality of the Fuji X-E1, especially on the dynamic range and high ISO performance. Personally that's the only mirrorless camera I would actually buy, maybe even because I always loved their cameras as my very first prosumer camera was a Fuji S7000, which nowadays it looks way outdated but back in the mid 2000 was an amazing little camera. Anyway, if you are thinking to buy a mirrorless and you are undecided between the Sony NEX-6 or the Fuji X-E1, you should see this video made by Chris Niccolls of The Camera Store.

(via The Camera Store)