Jeff Biscuits
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I picked up an X100VI recently and used it for the first time at the weekend. Although I’ve only used it briefly, I’ve used its predecessors a fair bit (mainly the V but also the T, S and original) so I’m familiar with most aspects of it and am fairly attuned to the differences. So these are my thoughts on the X100V with regard to the changes—some good, some bad—that Fujifilm have made over the V. And I don’t mean the things you can infer from the spec sheet: the ways in which IBIS lets you shoot, for example. You already know that sort of thing, and if you don’t then any review will tell you. This is primarily about how the fine details affect usability. Almost all of them are solely down to firmware, though sadly I’m not optimistic of improvements there.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first, because it’s pretty well-discussed: the new custom settings behaviour is a mess. No longer is it a way to purely apply recipes; but neither is it useful enough to support different ways of shooting (partly because it’s fundamentally at odds with a traditional “hard” control interface, and partly because when you look at the settings that Fujifilm have included in the behaviour and those that they left out, it just makes no sense). I shouldn’t even call it the “new” behaviour. It’s been in for a while now and they still haven’t sorted it out. Suffice to say, in using the X100VI I find that recipes are now a thing of the past: the VI is a “raw only” camera for me, and for the most part I just flip between Acros R and Classic Neg (though I don’t actually use either of them without recipes, because Acros doesn’t have enough contrast for my liking and Classic Neg has too much).
Let’s move on to something more positive. It is now possible to dispense with any of the five “view modes” that you don’t need—which is great, because five is just silly and frankly two of them made no sense at all. Crucially this means that you can narrow the list down to two, so a function button can be used as a toggle between two modes. (The viewfinder lever and the button within it are both ideal for this: it keeps all the view controls in one place.) This absolutely transforms the camera for me. With the V, I only ever used “viewfinder plus eye sensor”, whereas now I can easily toggle between that and either “eye sensor” or “LCD only” (on the V this was three clicks, or was it two, to get from one to the other; and then two clicks, or was it three, to get back again—every time I changed I had to stop and think about it and look at both the EVF and the LCD to see what mode it was in).
Fuji have also applied this “never wade through what you never use” approach to the “AF all” mode as well, so it’s now easy to skip between only the focus patterns you use. In my case, I like a medium-sized single box most of the time, but occasionally I’ll use the teeny tiny box, or the 3x3 matrix, and these are the only three options I ever have to see. Choose what you want, including the custom configurations. Nice.
Unfortunately Fuji didn’t see fit to apply this to other places where it’s sorely needed; primarily the ever-growing list of film sims. This is more important than ever before because (as above) Fuji have broken the ability to use recipes, so if you want a different image style without trampling your current settings for things like AF, you’ll have to do it by just changing the film sim. But honestly, who needs all of them? I never use Astra or Provia, or any of the monochrome ones, or Reala Ace. (And does anyone at all use Sepia?) Why can’t I just offload those like I can with the view modes? And why not the same with aspect ratios? (OK, “image quality”.) Again, a list that’s in a completely unfathomable order, stuffed full of things that just get in the way of the options that I use.
While we’re on aspect ratios, what happened to 7:6? I use this all the time on my 50R and there’s simply no reason for it not to exist on… well, any of Fuji’s cameras. There must have been a conversation at Fuji where someone pointed out that the GFX bodies support several more aspect ratios and that these could be ported to X, and someone in product management must have said “yeah, ok, but not 7:6!” Why? I mean, I can just about concede that the absence of 65:24 on a fixed-lens camera without a “multi-aspect sensor” design is justifiable given the dramatically tighter field of view, but 7:6? Makes more sense than 1:1 from that point of view. Anyway… I’ve been using 5:4 but somehow it just doesn’t light my fire like 7:6 does.
Let’s pop back to a nice improvement, which is build quality—at least compared to my copy of the V. My V had play in a number of controls: the focus ring, power lever and viewfinder lever all had some noticeable wobble to them; on the VI these are all beautifully solid and well-damped. The aperture ring, too: on my V it felt dry; on the VI, again perfect. My only slight niggle would be that the power lever is a little too easy to move; not as bad as the T was, but a little more resistance would help prevent it being knocked on while in a bag.
Also nice is the fact that the eye sensor is disabled when the screen is tilted. A little thing that makes a good difference to usability. (Though I confess that once you can toggle easily between “viewfinder plus sensor” and “LCD only” it’s achievable that way as well. All that’s left is for “LCD only” to be automatically selected when you pull the screen out and automatically reverted to whatever the previous mode was when you push it back in… I mean, why would anyone ever want the screen out but the viewfinder active?)
But to finish off, I’ll come to the one thing (custom settings aside) which has unexpectedly ruined the X100 for me.
When Fujifilm introduced the joystick, they also introduced My Menu. When they removed the D-pad from certain bodies, it was My Menu that made the cameras still work (I know there are varying opinions on this, but go with me for now). The reason being that there were still roughly enough function buttons to hold the functions that you’d need on a shot-to-shot basis, while My Menu could hold the things that you needed a bit less often. Crucially, once you’d got your My Menu set up and stable and had become accustomed to it, it was really quick and required no thought. I’d know that when I pressed the “Menu” button, I knew what would be immediately selected. If I hit “Menu” and then clicked down one slot, I knew what was there. Two clicks down, the same. Everything that I needed could be mapped: I want to toggle the IS mode? Menu, three clicks down, click. Edit a recipe? Menu, click.
In the X100VI, pressing the “Menu” button now takes you to the last place in the menu that you visited.
That could be anywhere: My Menu, somewhere in the AF options, the Fn button settings… If you want to get to your carefully curated My Menu, now it’s a completely unpredictable route. First you have to figure out where you are, then get to the top level, then scoot along to My Menu, go into that, then go to the option you want (not necessarily starting from the top, either). As a quick access feature, it’s been destroyed.
It makes no sense that Fujifilm have done this, at least not without an option to behave the old way (which, by the way, is an option in the Panasonic GF1 that I also own… a camera from over 15 years ago, and that’s despite the fact that the “don’t go back to the last used” place didn’t even make much sense back then because the menu wasn’t customisable in the way that My Menu is). Rather, I can see the sense in the new behaviour for people who don’t use My Menu at all, but Fujifilm seem to have ignored the excellent role that My Menu used to play in providing quick access to functionality without requiring physical buttons across the rear panel.
Of what’s left, the less interesting stuff… the image quality is great, the lens is great, it handles like an X100, IBIS is really useful, it’s a great camera. I’m finding that high ISO sucks (and between that, the custom settings and My Menu, I don’t know how long I’ll keep this thing), but that’s a separate discussion. I’m of the view that all cameras at this level are basically plenty good enough in terms of every aspect of image quality thank you very much, but the real differences lie in how well the usability and handling have been thought out, and how seamlessly a camera fits into how you want to shoot with it—and while Fuji cameras are generally well thought-out and fare better than most for the ways I want to shoot, even they make some disappointing decisions and—concerningly—seem to be making more of them, having peaked some time around X-Trans III/IV, and doubling down on the existing ones.
There you go… just some observations of things which I mostly didn’t know before buying the camera because few if any reviews mention them. Maybe it’ll help someone who looks for the same sort of details that I do.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first, because it’s pretty well-discussed: the new custom settings behaviour is a mess. No longer is it a way to purely apply recipes; but neither is it useful enough to support different ways of shooting (partly because it’s fundamentally at odds with a traditional “hard” control interface, and partly because when you look at the settings that Fujifilm have included in the behaviour and those that they left out, it just makes no sense). I shouldn’t even call it the “new” behaviour. It’s been in for a while now and they still haven’t sorted it out. Suffice to say, in using the X100VI I find that recipes are now a thing of the past: the VI is a “raw only” camera for me, and for the most part I just flip between Acros R and Classic Neg (though I don’t actually use either of them without recipes, because Acros doesn’t have enough contrast for my liking and Classic Neg has too much).
Let’s move on to something more positive. It is now possible to dispense with any of the five “view modes” that you don’t need—which is great, because five is just silly and frankly two of them made no sense at all. Crucially this means that you can narrow the list down to two, so a function button can be used as a toggle between two modes. (The viewfinder lever and the button within it are both ideal for this: it keeps all the view controls in one place.) This absolutely transforms the camera for me. With the V, I only ever used “viewfinder plus eye sensor”, whereas now I can easily toggle between that and either “eye sensor” or “LCD only” (on the V this was three clicks, or was it two, to get from one to the other; and then two clicks, or was it three, to get back again—every time I changed I had to stop and think about it and look at both the EVF and the LCD to see what mode it was in).
Fuji have also applied this “never wade through what you never use” approach to the “AF all” mode as well, so it’s now easy to skip between only the focus patterns you use. In my case, I like a medium-sized single box most of the time, but occasionally I’ll use the teeny tiny box, or the 3x3 matrix, and these are the only three options I ever have to see. Choose what you want, including the custom configurations. Nice.
Unfortunately Fuji didn’t see fit to apply this to other places where it’s sorely needed; primarily the ever-growing list of film sims. This is more important than ever before because (as above) Fuji have broken the ability to use recipes, so if you want a different image style without trampling your current settings for things like AF, you’ll have to do it by just changing the film sim. But honestly, who needs all of them? I never use Astra or Provia, or any of the monochrome ones, or Reala Ace. (And does anyone at all use Sepia?) Why can’t I just offload those like I can with the view modes? And why not the same with aspect ratios? (OK, “image quality”.) Again, a list that’s in a completely unfathomable order, stuffed full of things that just get in the way of the options that I use.
While we’re on aspect ratios, what happened to 7:6? I use this all the time on my 50R and there’s simply no reason for it not to exist on… well, any of Fuji’s cameras. There must have been a conversation at Fuji where someone pointed out that the GFX bodies support several more aspect ratios and that these could be ported to X, and someone in product management must have said “yeah, ok, but not 7:6!” Why? I mean, I can just about concede that the absence of 65:24 on a fixed-lens camera without a “multi-aspect sensor” design is justifiable given the dramatically tighter field of view, but 7:6? Makes more sense than 1:1 from that point of view. Anyway… I’ve been using 5:4 but somehow it just doesn’t light my fire like 7:6 does.
Let’s pop back to a nice improvement, which is build quality—at least compared to my copy of the V. My V had play in a number of controls: the focus ring, power lever and viewfinder lever all had some noticeable wobble to them; on the VI these are all beautifully solid and well-damped. The aperture ring, too: on my V it felt dry; on the VI, again perfect. My only slight niggle would be that the power lever is a little too easy to move; not as bad as the T was, but a little more resistance would help prevent it being knocked on while in a bag.
Also nice is the fact that the eye sensor is disabled when the screen is tilted. A little thing that makes a good difference to usability. (Though I confess that once you can toggle easily between “viewfinder plus sensor” and “LCD only” it’s achievable that way as well. All that’s left is for “LCD only” to be automatically selected when you pull the screen out and automatically reverted to whatever the previous mode was when you push it back in… I mean, why would anyone ever want the screen out but the viewfinder active?)
But to finish off, I’ll come to the one thing (custom settings aside) which has unexpectedly ruined the X100 for me.
When Fujifilm introduced the joystick, they also introduced My Menu. When they removed the D-pad from certain bodies, it was My Menu that made the cameras still work (I know there are varying opinions on this, but go with me for now). The reason being that there were still roughly enough function buttons to hold the functions that you’d need on a shot-to-shot basis, while My Menu could hold the things that you needed a bit less often. Crucially, once you’d got your My Menu set up and stable and had become accustomed to it, it was really quick and required no thought. I’d know that when I pressed the “Menu” button, I knew what would be immediately selected. If I hit “Menu” and then clicked down one slot, I knew what was there. Two clicks down, the same. Everything that I needed could be mapped: I want to toggle the IS mode? Menu, three clicks down, click. Edit a recipe? Menu, click.
In the X100VI, pressing the “Menu” button now takes you to the last place in the menu that you visited.
That could be anywhere: My Menu, somewhere in the AF options, the Fn button settings… If you want to get to your carefully curated My Menu, now it’s a completely unpredictable route. First you have to figure out where you are, then get to the top level, then scoot along to My Menu, go into that, then go to the option you want (not necessarily starting from the top, either). As a quick access feature, it’s been destroyed.
It makes no sense that Fujifilm have done this, at least not without an option to behave the old way (which, by the way, is an option in the Panasonic GF1 that I also own… a camera from over 15 years ago, and that’s despite the fact that the “don’t go back to the last used” place didn’t even make much sense back then because the menu wasn’t customisable in the way that My Menu is). Rather, I can see the sense in the new behaviour for people who don’t use My Menu at all, but Fujifilm seem to have ignored the excellent role that My Menu used to play in providing quick access to functionality without requiring physical buttons across the rear panel.
Of what’s left, the less interesting stuff… the image quality is great, the lens is great, it handles like an X100, IBIS is really useful, it’s a great camera. I’m finding that high ISO sucks (and between that, the custom settings and My Menu, I don’t know how long I’ll keep this thing), but that’s a separate discussion. I’m of the view that all cameras at this level are basically plenty good enough in terms of every aspect of image quality thank you very much, but the real differences lie in how well the usability and handling have been thought out, and how seamlessly a camera fits into how you want to shoot with it—and while Fuji cameras are generally well thought-out and fare better than most for the ways I want to shoot, even they make some disappointing decisions and—concerningly—seem to be making more of them, having peaked some time around X-Trans III/IV, and doubling down on the existing ones.
There you go… just some observations of things which I mostly didn’t know before buying the camera because few if any reviews mention them. Maybe it’ll help someone who looks for the same sort of details that I do.
