I've had a long standing romance with Fuji, the first camera I bought myself when I was 29 and fell in love with photography was a Fuji, my second and only bridge camera was a Fuji and then I walked away and bought a Canon as my first DSLR, then a couple of years ago I bought a Fuji X-Pro1 and fell instantly head over heels with the yummy high definition colours and the gorgeous images which have helped me bring many a travel image to life. I went back to a Canon for portraiture and I truly believe that Canon make the very best cameras for social photography but when it comes to travel, I am Fuji all the way.
Now I have an extra problem with a prolapsed disk and need to keep the weight off my neck as much as possible, I also want a camera which will take photographs as beautiful and professional as my agency and my own high standards require. So I've just bought the perfect travel bloggers camera, the Fuji X70, it's a new camera and at £499 it's not cheap but it's also smaller than my iPhone 6S, has an integrated teleconverter for switching between 28, 35 and 50mm focal lengths, something I require as they're possibly my favourite focal lengths for travel photography and blogging based images.
The beauty of this camera is undoubtably it's size and it's simplicity, if you aren't an expert photographer then you can simply throw the X70 into auto and it will literally do everything for you and a series of rings like old school cameras I find are easier to understand than complicated digital things, if you are a little more advanced then you are going to find Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and full manual, for anyone who's wondering how I choose to shoot these days, well it's no secret that after perfecting my craft in manual I rarely use anything other than aperture priority but that's because I also know that I know manual settings inside out and can switch between the modes quite comfortably should I need to. I tend to shoot most travel images at f8, portraits at between f1.8 and f2.8 and the X70 offers f2.8 so perfect for my needs, if I'm shooting food in a dark restaurant I find f2.8 is absolutely fine and the Fuji X70 will quite comfortably go to iso 6,400 which is about as much as I'll need but it is expandable up to 51,200 which is insane, my Canon 6D goes to 25,800 and it's only occasionally at evening wedding discos that i've ever needed it so to think of a compact which must literally photograph in a cave is incredible. Incidentally, the X70 is more expensive than my first and second DSLR's.
It doesn't have a viewfinder of course but I can live with that, I often use the screen on the X-Pro1 with my 42 year old eyes! I also love that it has an adjustable screen you can flip out for the occasional selfie and being that it's quite a wide lens (although don't forget to figure in that crop factor as it's not a full sized sensor) you can quite comfortably take the odd selfie.
Video on the go is also another thing which I think i'll probably use in the future but haven't yet, I'm not the biggest fan of vlogging but you never know, I might still fully embrace it and 4k crisp video might just come in handy!
So, downsides, well having just spent a half hour editing through the same process as I do with all of my images it was easy to see that these images are not going to be quite as good as my huge clunky Canon but then I'd be expecting way too much if I'd have thought that. I have to admit to using the wrong film simulation mode today, I usually use Velvia for enhanced colours, today I used the classic chrome and I'm not really a fan, it's a little on the washed out side for me and so there was more post processing than usual. I shoot in Jpeg these days, I have for about 2 years now, I'm just not sure there's a need for RAW as long as you know what you're doing, obviously your opinions may vary but from a bloggers point of view I'm not sure just how many shoot in RAW.
The things I've loved today were the lightness, the small size with such mighty power and it is occasionally just nice to point and shoot!
If think if you are an intermediate photographer who wants a great camera for blogging that you can pop in your handbag or messenger bag then really, the Fuji X70 is the best compact camera for blogging that's currently on the market.
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