A Present for the ‘F’

I have had a sudden rush of blood to the head and bought a little present for my Fuji X100F. I have posted before about this great camera and the small additions I have made to its equipment. The accessory I have just purchased has made one of those I mentioned in the previous post redundant.

This has all come because I watched Thomas Heaton talk about his first outing with his new Fuji X100VI on his YouTube channel. The shoot was actually in China, and the camera was a prize for being voted the best influencer by Amateur Photographer magazine – what a git! I’m only joking, I really enjoy his YouTube channel, and he is a fine photographer.

Anyway, Thomas was using his new X100VI (snarl), and he had dressed it in a nice leather brown half case and matching strap. I must admit I was rather smitten by the look, proper old-school with digital excellence. So I started to look on Amazon for any such cases that might still be made for the eight-year-old ‘F’.

I found a few, but a lot of them, whilst they boldly pronounced “leather” in the title listing, when you delved deeper, they were then called “nu-leather”. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re that way inclined, but I wanted some real cow-skin, so I carried on looking. It would also have to have a door in the bottom to make changing the memory card or battery quick and easy, and its method of fixing was important. I have a Fuji half-case for my venerable XPro-2 which is basically held on by two leather loops over the strap lugs and doesn’t have a tripod screw in the bottom. Nevertheless, it is a very nice half-case and fits well.

I eventually found a brown case for the X100F made by Megagear and sold through Amazon, and it also came with a matching leather strap. I bought it.

It arrived in a small box with strap rings, leather strap lug protectors, the case and the strap. Here’s where I had to remove the camera grip I had previously purchased and put it to one side to mount the new case. The case’s attachment to the X100F is via a screw into the camera baseplate, which doubles as a standard screw fit for a tripod head if required with the case fitted. The battery and card compartment is covered by a door in the case, which is kept closed with a clip. The stitching around the case is neat, and the case itself does not cover any controls. There is a cut-out for the focus-type switch on the left side of the camera.

In use, the case gives the photographer a little bit more to hold on to with this small camera, although it’s probably not as good as a bona fide attachable hand grip, but as this case is being fitted for aesthetic reasons, you take your pick. I have attached the new strap to Peak Design clips, and when on the camera with the case, it does look very nice indeed.