I took the shot above in the San Joaquin/Sacramento River delta area, near Rio Vista. Having lived in Florida for 14 years, the delta feels like familiar territory.

The sunset this particular Sunday was spectacular, but even when it’s cloudless, there’s a still blueness [sic] that settles over the place. Not quite sure how else to describe it. It’s just this blue-tinged ambiance that’s so pervasive, it’s tangible.

I’ve been shooting with the Olympus E-P5 and a variety of lenses for @borrowlenses. All said and done, it’s a great camera. Fast, responsive, light, great image quality, everything you can want in a device.

I’m still stuck on my Fuji.

Warning: I’m about to indulge in personification.

Hardware can have soul. Not in the theological sense, but — my vocabulary fails me here — in a different sort of extramundane way. A few companies have gotten really good at creating objects that fairly scream to be personified. Apple, Leica, Hasselblad, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Panerai, and Jaeger-LeCoultre, to name a few. If there’s a formula these folks use to make these coveted products, I have no idea what it is.

Fuji is a recent entry into this category. From the original X100 to the new X100s and all the products in-between and after, they’ve managed to create a camera that, like Leica and Hasselblad, you form an immediate emotional attachment to.

I showed some of my delta images, taken with the Oly, to a colleague. I extolled the virtues of the camera, including the iPhone-esque touch-to-shoot feature, the great image quality, the awesome lenses. He agreed with all my points.

Then we both looked at each other and spoke at the same time.

“Ehhh. But it’s an Olympus.”

Tools do matter.