I’ve had my X-T10 for three weeks and took it with me on my holiday to the South of Spain a week ago. I thought i’d share my hands on experience.
I also have a Nikon D700, which is (and will be) my main camera, with 3 primes (50/1.8 - 85/1.8 and 105/2.8) and love all of them. But on my last city trip, i found this combo to be too heavy and bulky. Not very handy when walking down crowded streets and taking the busy underground.
For travel (and hiking), it occurred to me that i also miss the versatility of a good medium zoom lens. A while back i rented the 24-70 for the D700, liked it, but found it way to heavy for traveling. So i decided to look for a smaller camera+zoom lens combo for traveling instead. My wishlist was simple:
• Preferably APS-C sensor in a small package.
• Good glass available from system brand
• Tilt screen
• Viewfinder (OVF or good EVF)
• Customisable buttons
• Good ergonomics, not too small.
• Compact
• RAW+JPG
• About €1000 max
Fortunately i was able to look and test the cameras i had my eye on at a photo convention we had in Holland. The X-T10 was a strong contender from the beginning, because of it's versatility, ergonomics, customisability and, yes...looks. I liked it better than the Sony a6x00 and Olympus & Panasonic equivalents. So, i pulled the trigger on a black X-T10+18-55/2.8-4.0.
Coming from another system
I took me a while to get used to the camera and get a workflow going. Fortunately i had lots of time to test it. I took me about a week in total to get comfortable and have everything tweaked the way i like it. This camera obviously does not have a PASM dial, but the settings are there. The aperture (menu or ring) as well as the shutter speed can be set manually or on automatic mode. If you set them both on automatic mode, you get the "P" mode. I found that opening up to a different way of shooting can be refreshing. So, i let go of the Nikon-way and started to learn the Fuji-way. You learn a lot faster that way.
Camera uses:
• Traveling
• Landscape
• Citytrips
• Around the house (kids, family and stuff)
• Parties
Screen and viewfinder
Positive: I was never a fan of an EVF when the first Sony 7 series came out. Bleh… But EVF's have improved a lot since then. A viewfinder was a deal beaker for me, as it sort of shuts me out of the environment en concentrate more on the pciture and framing and it provides some stability when you press the camera against your eyebrow. I was really positively surprised when i tested the X-T10 out. Works really well on sunny days.
The tilting screen is also brilliant. It makes you take pictures from nice angles which you (I) normally wouldn't get. It enhances (my) creativity. Also like the live histogram! View mode makes you choose, LCD only, EVF only, or eye sensor. I have it set on the eye sensor and do not agree with some findings that it is over sensitive. Works perfectly.
Negative: Nothing really, maybe a better grip/tab on the screen to pull it out?
ISO200, 40.7mm, f/5.6 1/180s - monochrome
Focusing & drive
Pos: Lots of focus points. On S-mode it focuses fairly well. Focus area also highly adjustable. I like it. Nice high 8fps max, very handy. I really like the mechnical shutter sound too :-), very discrete. You can choose to have the 4-way buttons on the back to control the focuspoint position by default, or have that option brought up with a set button or in the menu.
Neg: On continuous focus, it often misses focus on moving subjects. For example when taking pictures @8fps of my son going down a slide, tracking could be better. And the buffer on JPEG-only fills up after a second and a half. After that it slows down to the rate your card can handle. With RAW, it obviously goes even slower when the buffer fills. So make sure you have a fast card ( i use a 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro Class 10, U3 95MB/s). For me it's not really a problem, you just have to time your shots better (every negative has a positive ;-). And, i don't really shoot sports anyways.
Fieldtip: When trying to focus on an isolated small subject with lots of space behind it (ie a flower sticking out). make sure you select a small focus point. Otherwise the focus might hunt. Don't let the focus point size overlap too much of the subject.
Controls
Pos: 7 customisable buttons (the 4 directional arrows, Fn, movie and push-in of the front dial), with lots of options. Dedicated drive, shutter & exp comp. dials plus an aperture ring on the lens are all excellent. Buttons feel very well made and are nicely laid out. Also, when lending your camera to someone not familiar with it or with photography, just switch it to full auto.
My custom layout:
up: ISO
down: Photometry (aka metering)
left: select focus points
right: focus mode
Fn: film simulation
movie: wi-fi conn.
push in front dial: preview depth of field
Neg: nothing really, perhaps a ISO dial would be nice, but that'd make the camera bigger.
Q-menu
Pos: Brings up a menu with 16 items one can adjust according to your taste. I have things like, highlight and shadow tone, color, shutter type, face detection, white balance set up there. You can also make 7 custom settings which you can recall here. Very handy if you'd like to tweak your film simulations a bit and store that setting. Very well thought out and laid out. Took me a while to figure this last thing out, but it works well.
Neg: things like wifi can be placed under a direct button, but not in the Q-menu. Why do we not get to choose between all the options?
Film simulations
Oh boy, what a treat!
Pos: really nice, lots of different sims. On the custom settings, the film sim is included, so you can tweak and store it to taste. Most of them do have very strong contrast applied to them (coming from a guy who loves contrasty pictures). This is where the shadow and highlight adjustments come in handy. I use a lot of different ones, well really because i’m testing everything right now. The Provia is the one i use most, but i like Astia, Velvia, classic chrome and the monochrome ones too.
Neg: Sometimes a little too contrasty (coming from a contrasty kind of guy), but this can easily be adjusted.
Classic Chrome
Astia or Soft
Provia or Standard
Velvia or Vivid
Image Quality
I was a little disappointed at first. With my D700, I shoot RAW only, so i started from there. I really don’t like how LR processes the files. They lack punch and sharpness and detail especially. The just look flat. First i thought i maybe had a bad copy of the 18-55, but when i switched to JPEG’s it was a lot better. OOC JPEG’s are very good in fact. Anything above ISO200 introduces a little noise floor when viewed at 1:1. I don’t, by any means, see this camera as an high ISO king. But i haven’t done a good comparison at different ISO’s yet. I kept it at ISO200 most of the time and that’s fine. Colours are very nice and they pack a lot of punch. But cannot comment on RAW quality yet.
Pos: JPEG’s are very good
Neg: processing of RAF in LR not recommended. I have yet to try an alternative. No high ISO-king.
ISO25600, 55mm, f4.0, 1/50s monochrome - perfectly usable for social media
Tip: RAF’s can be processed in camera and you can apply film simulations and lots of other adjustments to them. Very nice feature and works well.
The 18-55/2.8-4.0 lens
Well, a very versatile range and reasonably fast too. I like the build, weight and rings. The aperture ring can easily be adjusted while holding the camera in shooting position. Feels very solid and robust. Zoom ring is smooth and firm, perfect. No negs.
Battery life
Very good. These MILC cameras have a bad name, so i bought a second battery along with the camera. But i never needed it. Had to charge on day 4 for the first time. I expected it to quit after an hour or so, but no way! I wasn'y shooting long periods at a time, i must admit. But it did surprise me positively.
Final thoughts
It is very strange. This camera makes me take different kinds of pictures than my D700 does. Maybe it’s the tilt screen, or the live preview of the film simulations. I don’t know. Seeing a very nice b/w rendering though the viewfinder just stimulates creativity. Besides being a more than capable camera it is also a lot of fun to shoot with the X-T10. I needed a smaller, capable package to take with me and it has been a breeze. Light and solid. The 18-55 does the job well. Maybe i'll add a fast prime or two in the future who knows.
I am really happy with the X-T10, it can handle a wide range of photography styles. The only one i would not recommend it for is sports or other fast moving subjects which need tracking. Thanks for reading!
