The x200 isn’t a camera I’ve used previously; I’ve used it’s distant cousins and younger entry level friends but I haven’t actually used the x200 itself. For the most part the camera followed the same structure and build as the others I’ve used, Multiple control centers for the zoom and recording functions, rings on the lens to control focus, zoom and aperture, and a clean HDMI out. Sadly I don’t think we’ll be getting much use out of that.

The camera itself is a solid thing, personally I don’t like the way it carries but I don’t think we’ll be doing so much hand-held with it. I’ll check one out myself to get some practice with it. I still feel more comfortable using my D800, and I’ll probably stick with that for the time being. There’s something to be said towards knowing how to set white balance quickly and comfortably, and I struggle with that on the x200.

We went on a remote location activity to get establishing shots of the market. Our group was pretty efficient as a few of us had been to the market multiple times at this point. We got a couple of cars travelling beside the market to set a somewhat mid-day vibe for the shots, and tried to get a couple of people entering or leaving the market with varying degrees of success. Definitely prefer my DSLR to the XDCam

After checking out the camera I began to play with its capabilities. Funnily enough there isn’t much in the way of online tutorials for the camera; most of what you find online are reviews or functional videos which don’t do much in the way of instruction. One facet I’ll have to explore in future is the NFC/WIFI options that the camera comes with; apparently white balance can be set remotely, as can the record and zoom functions. This was released in a firmware update, so I’ll have to wait and see how that actually works.

We were also given the reading of Tim Cresswell’s ‘Place’, a book which from the introduction offers a nice counter narrative to that of Parag Khannas ‘Connectography’. I shall read it over cheap wine and skittles.