Once in a while image-editing software can breathe life into a shot we thought had little or no potential. The images below were almost deleted, but it was worth an extra hour or two at the computer. The unprocessed RAW images can be seen below.

Recovery

Just minutes before leaving to go to our local wood, my mother took ill and passed out in her kitchen. Although she wasn’t badly hurt in the fall, it was a very anxious time. Thankfully a few weeks later she was back enjoying the walk she had missed.

On the same day as her return to the woods, I dusted off the old Canon EOS 5D I’d bought back in 2006. It had been lying on a shelf for seven years after being damaged during a hike through the Mourne Mountains. A small sponge strip that absorbs the impact of the mirror had been dislodged, lost somewhere in the grass and heather at 2000ft. Fortunately I was able to use an almost identical part from my 90s EOS 50 film camera. Out of the seven original batteries I still had, only three held a full charge.

If you’re thinking of buying an EOS 5D, first released in 2005, while I enjoyed using it I’d hesitate to recommend it. Apart from the weight – it’s heavy! – you’ll appreciate better high ISO performance, SD cards rather than CompactFlash, the inclusion of live view, and the much improved LCDs on more modern cameras. You’ll probably prefer more megapixels too. If it’s a used full-frame EOS camera you’re after, you might want to consider a 6D instead, or a modern Canon mirrorless model.

If you’re just getting into photography I can also recommend the Fujifilm X-T range of cameras. I recently bought a used X-T3. It’s an impressive camera.

In 2014 I bought a barely used Fujifilm X100 and case for a very reasonable price. Unknown to me, and the seller didn’t go out of his way to tell me, it was from an early batch that had an infamous problem that became known as “sticky blades”.

In their early mirrorless days Fujifilm messed up a few times. Apart from the company making absurd claims about the focussing speed of the X-E1, Fujifilm’s R&D department overlooked faulty shutter blades in the original X-100, and the sensor in the X10 that turned small areas of bright light into weird “orbs”, or “…the peculiar circular, hard-edged appearance of clipped specular highlights” (DPReview, 2012).

I haven’t used my X100 extensively as yet—it lay forgotten in a drawer as some gems do—but it’s likely I’ll be facing the sticky blades problem at some stage. Until then the 2011 X100 impresses me. My style of photography means the focussing speed isn’t a problem. Nor am I bothered by close focussing softness and 12MP images.

Even today the X100 would be a useful travel camera, but I recently discovered its used price is now almost twice what I paid for it in 2014. And if you’re after the X100V (or its successor) you may have to wait.

If you’re getting the original X100, make sure it’s not a unit from the batch manufactured with those bothersome sticky blades!