Autofocus
The wide aperture range and large sensor allow an impressive control over the depth of field
The autofocus system is contrast-detection-based but benefits from being optimised for use with just the one lens – and a nice, wide, bright lens, at that. In regular lighting it is quick and accurate at finding focus and is certainly better than many advanced compacts on the market. For its documentary-style shooting, low light is an area in which the X100 should excel but, although the AF illuminator helps, in difficult light the camera struggles and fails to find focus where an entry-level DSLR wouldn’t have had an issue.
For such a wide lens it has a long minimum focus distance of 80cm. Although the lens will go down to 10cm it requires you to switch on the macro mode but, when cameras such as the Canon PowerShot G12 offer focusing down to 1cm, even this seems somewhat limiting. Using the manual focus feels a little disconnected from the lens due to the electronic control of the ring, and when in the macro focal lengths it takes an extremely exaggerated amount of turning to get down to the closest focus distances.
