The Bottom Line

And it ain't about money. Or hoarded toilet paper, either. That would have introduced a bum note into an otherwise dignified scientific discussion... I noticed a small change on the underside of the Fujifilm X-100V camera as I photographed it in the Stirling Street shop. Just a small thing, but different from the other Fujifilm cameras I use. It set me wondering and then exploring the bottom plate of the X-series. If you use a different brand of camera and have several models from the same maker, you might like to haul them out and have a peer as well. The detail that caught my eye was the catch for the battery door - round, ribbed, and sliding to the left. Why round? Why ribbed. Why slide to the left? Firstly, the finger or thumb pressed into a control is not oblong or square. It has no sharp edges - it's a blob. The ridges engage with the whorls of the fingerprint to give traction. The slide to the left is away from the opening edge of the door - had it been different, the operation to get it open would have been much harder to do, requiring you to relax pressure just as you reached the end of travel. When the door flies open you see a retaining latch to keep the battery from launching itself into the mud until you are ready to fumble for it. Fujifilm don't mind you dropping it but they do not want to be seen as responsible for your butter fingers. When they last had it, it was latched in... Note also that the battery is dedicated to the sales floor. It'll go missing, of course, as all things eventually do, but you can't say we didn't try. The rest of the underplate is pretty plain - the tripod screw is set off the central axis of the lens because they didn't have room under the mount to accomodate it. This is also the case for the smaller bodies like the X-T10. A pity, because it makes roatation for panoramas just that little bit harder. Note that in both cases there are multiple functional features; the sound port for either internal microphone or internal beeper ( don't know which ), tiny feet for balancing on a flat surface, and securing screws. Interestingly, the Thai screws on the X-T10 are a mixed head form while the Japanese ones on the X-100V are uniform. I don't want to know... The X-T10 has a harder battery catch to operate but it does have two dedicated location holes that stop an accessory grip from rotating. The X-100V is intended to operate clean without a grip - no holes. When you come to the more complicated X-series body - in this case an X-T2 - you get locating holes plus a dedicated control connection for a battery grip. The weight you'll be toting climbs. If you opt for an aftermarket accessory grip with tripod mounting rail the weight will grow by a considerable amount, but the underplate protection will be immense. Plus you may well get attachment options for straps and other accessories. Whatever you do, get something that will let you access the battery/card door while still bolted together. If you need to unfasten the entire rig to change a battery or card you might as well be using an old Leica M3 or juggling chain saws.