Two years ago I switched from shooting sports on digital DSLRs with long lenses to shooting nothing but film with small ancient lenses and camera bodies. I learned a lot from it (that’s another article) but it was time again to move back to digital. I settled on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 as it was small and similar to a film rangefinder, but had great technology and great lenses. It was time to put it to the test.

It had been a while since I had shot any concert photography. Almost 3 years to be exact. It was time to jump into it again, but I was a bit nervous. What would I do without a DSLR? Would the X-Pro2 be able to handle things? How would the ISO performance be? Most importantly, how would Auto Focus performance be.

Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, Maryland.

They all performed wonderfully. It didn’t start that way though. I initially started shooting with the Electric Viewfinder (EVF) enabled. I noticed that everything felt really laggy and that auto focus seemed to be missing focus more often. I am guessing this is due to the strain of trying to render the image in the EVF, the auto focus and write to the SD at the same time.

After switching to the Optical Viewfinder (OVF) things improved considerably. Focus didn’t seem to lag which made shooting in general smoother. I had to trust in my skills a little bit more, but you should be trusting in yourself anyways! ISO performance was fantastic. All photos featured in this article were ISO 4000.

I think as a first try shooting a show with this setup went extraordinarily well. Given some more experience with the camera body and it’s quirks, I think it will get even easier. Especially once I get some faster SD cards (thanks Black Friday deals!).

Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Fuji X-Pro2 is perfectly capabile in difficult situations. I’m officially a believer. Don’t let the big DSLRs at the shows bully you!

As an aside to all of this, I shot most of the show with the Fuji 56mm f/1.2 lens. It performed beautifully. Beautifully sharp photos, fast auto focus and a perfect focal length for a show.