Kathy’s birthday is coming up soon, so of course I did the sensible thing and bought her a camera.  I think she’s going to let me use it. 😉  Actually, I did buy a new camera, but it’s for me.  For her birthday I think we’ll plan to go somewhere fun for me to use it.

When I migrated from Canon cameras to Fuji cameras in 2015, I bought the X-T1, followed by a “backup” X-E2.  When it was all said and done, I had a pretty enviable collection of lenses, both zooms and primes.  The whole kit weighed a fraction of what my literal suitcase of Canon gear weighed, the Fuji cameras and lenses are excellent and I paid for most of the Fuji stuff for what I sold the Canon stuff for.  Wins all around!

Now, 5 years later the camera technology has improved, to the point where when Fuji announced the X-T4 I knew it was time for an upgrade.  The X-T1 & X-E2 are still excellent cameras.  In fact, my youngest son is going to embark on his own photography journey with the bodies and two of my lenses.  So they will go to a good home, and by keeping them “in the family” maybe I can borrow them back at some point! 😉 Not really, but I wrote that for his benefit….

I had looked seriously at the X-T3 when it came out, and it is an excellent camera.  I actually rented one to try out about a year ago.  The timing wasn’t right, I felt like I still needed a second body and it was going to require different batteries, memory cards, etc., and at the time I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do.  But after all the travel we’ve been doing the last year or so, the more I realized that I was just carrying too much stuff.  I’ve always said – jokingly – that the more lenses I carried with me the more likely it was that I had the wrong one on the camera.  So the idea of having to choose from 2 camera bodies and 8 lenses – or heaven forbid carry all of it with me! – seemed like things were getting out of hand.

Backing up a bit – several years ago we went from a 2003 Acura to a 2016 Honda.  While we thought the Acura was a pretty sophisticated car, the 13 year difference with the Honda was astounding.  The years do (usually) mean an improvement in technology, engineering and performance.  Same thing holds true for cameras , even though in this case we’re talking about a difference of only 5 years!  At the time I am typing this I haven’t even turned the camera on, but reading through the manual (YES, I did!) I am amazed at the improvement in just the custom settings alone.  I can’t wait to see what the photos look like.

I’ll write about my initial impressions once I have had a chance to take it for a spin and see what it will do.  But for now suffice it to say that the X-T4 is a pretty fine looking piece of equipment, I like the silver look instead of the all black of my X-T1, and I can’t wait to see how it performs in real life.  Stay tuned for more thoughts and many more photos!