Discreet, Cheap, Film-Like EDC Street Photography Camera in 2024

Like many photography hobbyists I get a bit of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) and am constantly looking for a new camera to play with. That said I've already pieced together my ultimate camera: The Sony a7rIV with the Sony 20-70mm f/4 and the Sigma 100-400mm lenses. That setup is super capable, covering a wide range of focal lengths while remaining very sharp.

Of course such a powerful kit comes with a cost. Certainly it's not a cheap set of equipment, costing around $4,000 US for the used body and two new lenses. But the other costs are that of size and an unwillingness to take it into riskier situations. Since I live in a big city I like to experiment with street photography. Having a big camera is too distracting for my subjects, and having an expensive camera is too distracting for myself.

The camera I'm writing about in this post is a combination of a Fujifilm X-E1 body and a TTArtisan 25mm f/2 lens. The body, used, was $404 from eBay after tax and shipping, and the lens, new, was $70 after tax and shipping. I also had to buy some camera strap eyelets and a new battery. Overall this camera cost around $500 USD. That's something I'm a little bit more comfortable losing. In other words, it's an EveryDay Carry (EDC) camera. But how does it hold up?

What Convinced me to Buy it

As I mentioned my primary camera is pretty beefy. I'll go on a drive early in the morning with a tripod and a lens collar and take sunrise photos of a foggy hillside with a set of filters. Or I'll take it out to a parade and zoom right into performers for nice portrait shots. But I just don't find myself taking it out for casual walks. I recently had my first baby as well and that usually means I only have one free arm anyway.

In fact, since having a baby, I found myself taking my Minolta X-370 + 50mm film camera out daily. It's a rather small SLR-style camera, no batteries, no menus, fully manual zoom but it does come with a meter to automatically set the shutter speed. Compared to the Sony a7rIV it is very small, light, and simple. I mostly only use it with a 50mm prime lens and can even set the focus one handed. That said, film isn't cheap and the turnaround for sending baby pictures to the family is slow.

Overall I wanted a camera that was similar to my film camera. It had to be small and fun. Ideally I would be able to set some basic settings then stay out of menus for the remainder of a walk. I love vintage looking cameras, especially when the tops are silver. I also like the shape of rangefinders compared to Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras. A decent sensor size and a decently large aperture is nice. Manual focusing is also acceptable but super slow auto focus isn't.

The last camera I assembled to fit similar needs was a Panasonic GX1 + Panasonic 20mm (40mm full-frame equivalent) micro four thirds camera. And while it scratched a lot of the itches - small and cheap - it otherwise fell short in many ways. I wasn't ever able to get a portfolio-worthy photo from it. The small sensor just couldn't do much more than a cellphone camera. The dynamic range was also limiting and the metering kept blowing out the sky. Auto focus was really slow and manual focus feedback was too laggy. And finally, a lack of dedicated aperture and exposure compensation knobs just felt too artistically limiting.

I suspect the auto focus of the X-E1 might not be up to snuff as well, seeing as it's over 10 years old. Thankfully a manual lens can make up for a camera with slow autofocus. I'm going to try my best to not get into the Fujifilm X mount lenses and treat this camera as if it was a fixed lens. The Sony E mount system already has enough of my money and covers a huge range of focal lengths. Not to mention choosing a lens before heading out is a hindrance.

And finally, I don't want to spend all day editing. While useful and something I want to archive, ideally I wouldn't have to touch RAW files. The Fujifilm cameras are famous for their in-camera color tuning, affectionately referred to as "recipes". Usually I use color Look Up Tables (LUTs) anyway when editing photos, so the capabilities of even the old X-E1 can theoretically obsolete the need for editing (at least for me).

My EDC camera must-haves:

• Dedicated physical aperture dial
• Dedicated physical exposure compensation dial
• Has an Electronic ViewFinder (EVF)
• Ability to produce RAW files
• Normal field of view (35mm - 50mm full frame equivalent)
• Preferably a prime lens
• Inexpensive

Pros of the Fujifilm X-E1 + TTArtisan 25mm f/2

Here's some of the things I like about this setup:

• It's even smaller than the already small Minolta X-370 + 50mm
• Small enough that it doesn't attract attention
• The distance scale on the lens allows one to shoot-from-the-hip with mild confidence
• The JPEG photos Straight out of Camera (SooC) are pretty nice
• There's a large number of community created film recipes available
• The 25mm lens (37.5mm full frame equivalent) is great for street photography

Cons of the Fujifilm X-E1 + TTArtisan 25mm f/2

Everything isn't sunshine and butterflies:

• There is a decent amount of flaring from the lens
• The lens doesn't include f/11 aperture
• Whitebalance settings can't be associated with custom profiles (sticky note time)
• The tripod screw is too close to the battery door for the Peak Design Anchor Mount to fit
• The lens cap is slow and loud and will probably get lost
• The display slightly lags between manual focus / what happens in the world and displaying it
• Cannot charge the battery inside the camera, must travel with an external charger
• The lens has no electronic contacts and can't trigger a focus assist zoom when manually focusing
• Focus assist zoom is triggered by pressing jog wheel in which feels fragile
• My copy: bad battery, loose battery door power cut-outs, no eyelets, scratches, mushy exposure dial

The Final Verdict

So far it seems like this combination is a keeper. With the f/2 aperture (which I believe is about f/3 full frame equivalent) I'm able to get pretty decent subject-background separation and also shoot in low light. The cost isn't too high, it looks stylish, and it's easy to grab when I'm heading out.

I might add a few upgrades to the camera. A stylish lens hood can be had for less than $10 which is a trade-off between size and reducing lens flare. I might also get a shutter button cap which can help reduce the ugly scratched paint on my camera. Finally, I might get a sized nylon rope strap as the Peak Design leash looks too complicated for such a simple looking camera.

I might do a follow up post with tips about how to use this camera combination, further commentary on the ergonomics, how I configure it, etc. Let me know in the comments if this is something you'd be interested in.

Thomas has contributed to dozens of enterprise Node.js services and has worked for a company dedicated to securing Node.js. He has spoken at several conferences on Node.js and JavaScript and is an O'Reilly published author.