I have, for a few years now, been doing an occasional photography project Dark Edinburgh. Occasional because, well, it’s not always dark and I can’t always be bothered. But hey, plus ça change.

You can see lots more photos like the ones in this post by following Dark Edinburgh on Facebook.

Anyway, having recently acquired the sublime, delightful, extraordinary (stop me if I’m going overboard) Fuji X100S, I thought I’d try it out in the street at night and see what happened. I wouldn’t normally post Dark Edinburgh pictures here but I think it might provide a useful resource for anyone considering the X100S with a view to street/night photos.

Suffice to say, I was blown away. I took a little beanbag tripod thinking I would have to get some sort of stability but it never left my bag. I shot mostly on f2 and -2 ev quite a bit and managed to get lots of shots entirely hand held. Most shots didn’t need to go above ISO1600 at 1/60 sec. The difference between using the 5D and the X100S was enormous. Everyone sees you coming with the 5D, with the X100S you can ghost about the street making NO noise. I think this lack of obtrusiveness probably made me bolder too. I only got a funny look once.

White balance was a little tricky, had to have a few attempts to get something I was happy with.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve been shooting at night with the X100S, there are more over at Dark Edinburgh.

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