RIP Fuji X100s

I’ve had this camera for nearly 10 years now, in that time it’s been repaired twice, and unfortunately it’s now broken again. I’m struggling to justify sending it off to be repaired another time. There is a view that cameras are tools, there to do a job, and then be replaced and upgraded as necessary, but not for me. I always get ridiculously attached to my cameras, I’ve only ever sold two cameras, and I regret them both. As you can probably already tell, I hold a real sentimental attachment to this camera. Especially as this is the camera I bought when I started getting really immersed in photography.

It was shortly after I moved to Bristol, which was an exciting time. I was in a new city, and just having fun going out and exploring and shooting loads of photos. Learning through trial and error, making mistakes, and shooting loads of photos with this camera.

I also took the first photo that I was really proud of with this camera. By then I had started to develop a little more knowledge and an idea of what I wanted from the finished photo. I had started using a tripod, and was slowing down and being a little bit more deliberate with my process.

It’s very old (for a digital camera) and it’s pretty delicate (as you can tell from the amount of previous repairs). I was rushing, dropped my bag on the floor heard a clunk, and I immediately knew what had happened. I had that sinking feeling in my stomach as I took it out to test it, and as soon as it powered up (a good sign) the screen was weird and glitchy, none of the buttons work, and I had to remove the battery completely to turn it off. The fact it still turns on means it’s not dead dead, but it’s certainly not looking good.

For now it’s safely tucked away, I’m a hoarder so there is no way I’l ever throw it out, even if it is definitely broken. I have this optimistic conviction that if I leave it long enough, one day I’ll put in a fresh battery and it will start working again. It sounds far fetched, but something similar has happened before.

I was really hoping to get the shutter count higher than this one day, but inevitably something else broke first.

This is very similar to a blog post I have already done, but it’s a good excuse to share some of favourite photos taken with this camera. It’s very on brand that one of the last photos I ever took with the camera was with a burnt out motorbike, which feels very appropriate, incidentally the last photo I ever took with it was of a goat, but they can’t all be bangers.