Sony cameras - Is performance everything?

To me Sony offers the best cameras when it comes to performance and reliability. During my recent trips to Ney York, London, Berlin and Frankfurt I shot about 30.000 images with barely one of them being out of focus or non-editable. But is that enough or is there more a camera should offer? At least for somebody like me, who isn’t doing photography for a living.

Since I switched over from Olympus to Sony full frame (first a7c, now a7iv) I feel I can rely on my camera in every situation. But in the same time I felt I didn’t enjoy the process of taking photos as much as I should. It was more about getting as many files on the sd-card as possible. The fun part started off while editing the images in Lightroom. This leads to the fact that I only went out to shoot when the conditions were ideal (rain, fog, late night) and I knew exactly what I wanted to go for. This applies especially in my hometown. In the past, I enjoyed it more to just stroll around with a camera and taking random shots. In order to get that feeling back, I started to experiment with film. But honestly spoken, I realized quickly that this wouldn’t be my main way of photography in the future. Although it can be fun sometimes. Many photographers I talked to, started to switch to Leica at some point just because of the same thoughts and feelings. I tried this too but feel I am not the Leica type of guy - at least not now.

During my last trip to London, I realized that many local photographers shoot with Fuji. While talking to Bal (aka. mrwhisper on Instagram) and watching a lot of videos by Eren (aka. erenjam on Instagram) I felt that there is something different in the way they talk of taking photos. A more emotional and crafted way. Without any clear purpose, I started to dive deeper into Fuji cameras and quickly the feeling came up that the older xPro2 could be the right option for me - at least as a second camera. I entered the market for a used model together with a lens with my beloved 50-55mm focal length (the Fujifilm 35 f1.4). My first impressions are absolutely positive. The camera feels much more emotional and less technical in hand. More thoughts on it will come later when I had time to test it out more intensively.

Is this beginning of switching to Fuji completely now? I don’t think so. At least not for now. So far my Sony camera will still be my number 1 option when it comes to getting as much out of an ideal situation as possible (e.g. a heavy rain shower, fog, snow, a trip to a new city). What I can imagine is, taking the Fuji when I just want to enjoy a random photowalk or shooting a place I go to very often - like in my hometown. But who knows what the future will bring.