I do not usually write reviews or analyzes on photographic equipment as there are people more prepared for it who have done it before, however this time I have read things that do not correspond to my experience and I want to comment on my experience.
BUILD QUALITY AND HANDLING:
The build quality is good, everything is in place, the buttons and wheels do not have the premium feel of a team of several thousand but it is certainly very good, the body has a metallic finish, except the battery cover, in general It is well finished, much better than my XT-10 and even better than my X70.
The included hand strap is pretty good, I don't feel the need to replace it with any of mine.It only has two physical FN buttons (I would have liked one more), and one of them is not comfortable to operate, the joistick is not the most comfortable in the world either but it does its job, the touch screen does not respond very well, it has some lag, and it is underused, it reminds me of the touch screen of my A6500, it is not remotely similar to a good implementation such as the one of the panasonic GX80 that I was able to test just a month ago.
The most criticism of its design in my opinion is the lack of a tilting screen, not only to shoot from a tripod or from the waist, but also to avoid certain reflections, something important in a camera without a viewfinder.The grip is small, but due to the size and lightness of the camera it feels comfortable.
Despite all these drawbacks, it is a comfortable and intuitive camera, the truth is that I can complain about many shortcomings, but when I use it I do not feel any of the limitations that I have mentioned so seriously and it has not frustrated me in no moment, rather the opposite. I have to give it a positive evaluation here.
IMAGE QUALITY (Raw):
The image quality is good, as good as any interchangeable lens camera, the lens is decent within its size and aperture limitations, and the image sensor is competent.
OPTICS (Raw):
As I mentioned before, the lens is nice, it has a good central sharpness and also in the corners, very well-controlled chromatic aberrations, very little distortion, as a negative point it has a "ghost effect" or blurred to f2.8 in high contrast whites. This happens at the corners of the image and is not too pleasant.
On the sharpness it is necessary to qualify a couple of things, it is not the same with a subject located at 10cm, as with one located at 1m, 6m or 200m.It is sharper up to 6-8 meters than thereafter, I suppose it is due to the ability to focus at a minimum distance of 10cm. I also have to say that the excellent central sharpness falls faster than in other lenses, if we divide the frame in three, the sharpest area would take 1/3 in the center and lose it quickly in the remaining 2/3, as a positive point the difference between those last two thirds it is not accused, and the extreme corners are good because it does not have to correct any type of distortion.
Bokeh is better than you might expect for a 28mm f2.8 apsc, also don't expect really creamy backgrounds at portrait distances, those backgrounds are only possible at the minimum focus distances, for photo detail.Ultimately, the optics are very good for a compact camera, really sharp, and can be easily pushed in the editing of the raw or in the JPG parameters of the camera if desired.
But how does it compare to a "normal size" lens?
Well, since I am a curious person I have made some comparisons with my closest fixed lens to the FL of this Xf10 (Samyang 21mm f1.4, 31mm equiv). I have shot a library full of books and the results have been as expected, in the center they are the same, but in the remaining 2/3 of the image Samyang is sharper, both at f2.8 and at f5.6 and at f8.0. I guess comparing this tiny lens to one that weighs more than the entire Xf10 isn't too fair, but it had to.
SENSOR (Raw):
As I mentioned before the sensor is competent, it has enough dynamic range and the ISO performance seems good, nothing to object here.
But how does it compare to an interchangeable lens camera?
I have compared it with my Sony A6500, despite the age of the sensor of this camera and what DXO says is one of the cameras with the best dynamic range (both iso base and high isos) that I have tested and also has one of the best ISO APSC performance, in fact it doesn't have much to envy an FF like Sony A7II that I've had the opportunity to test several times.
I have tried shooting the XF10 and A6500 at -2EV, -3EV, + 1EV, + 2EV. In underexposed shadow recovery it has no problem with the -2EV and handles well with the -3EV, a performance very similar (maybe a bit less) than the A6500, in terms of light recovery it may cost a little more but there is not much difference with the Sony A6500 either.
I have used Capture One for shadow and light recovery, the final appearance of the A6500 images is more "natural" than that of the XF10 and the dynamic range is slightly higher, but only a bit, which is very well performance, I wonder if the difference is because the XF10's base ISO is 200 instead of 100.
As for the ISO performance, my tests are not conclusive, I mean the ISO performance is good, along with A6500 up to ISO 3200 and something worse from there. However I have a problem with Fujifilm's ISO, and it must be up to me because I haven't read anything about it anywhere. If I put my A6500 and my XF10 with the same speed and aperture parameters, the iso that both cameras require to make a correct exposure is not the same, it is as if 1600 ISO Fuji equals 1200 ISO Sony. This is something that I have noticed with my previous Fuji cameras, but I attributed it to the X-trans sensor that all of them wore, however this one has a Bayer (possibly the same as the A6500 itself) so I cannot understand it.
But if we trust what each manufacturer says about the ISO of each image, the performance is very good, even at 1600 ISO removing all noise reductions, the image of the XF10 has seemed a bit cleaner to me, it is a pity that the Performance doesn't go that way on higher ISOS, however my maximum APSC ISO is usually 3200-4000, at most I can use 6400 so I'm not too concerned.
In short, a sensor performance and an IQ at the height of any larger APS-C camera.
AUTOFOCUS:
We arrived at one of the most controversial points of the camera, but I have to say that my experience does not coincide with that of many, when I received the camera I did some tests and the AFS seemed fast and accurate, at that time I thought it would be updated to its latest version (1.2), however I checked that it was version 1.0.
Regardless of that I updated it, the AFS works well, it is fast and accurate, the Face and Eye-AF work well, they are also fast and accurate. AFC does not work as well, obviously it is not a sports camera. Let's say AF is between a camera with good contrast detection AF and a phase detection camera.
No, it does not have the AF of my A6500, it would not even face the AF of my old A6000, but it is ahead of the AF DFD of the Panasonic cameras that I have tested (for example).In short it is perfectly usable, reading what is read out there I was afraid, but the thing is not like that, it does not cause me problems.
That said, I have found a small "incidence", which may be the cause of out-of-focus shots that are so widely discussed out there, when you press the shutter button halfway, the camera calculates the focus by moving the lens, if at that time it does not take the shot and recompose slightly (move the camera half a centimeter forward or backward ...) and press the shutter button halfway again the camera considers that it has not moved and does not recalculate the focus, simply check the boxes confirmation green, but the lens does not move. If you are 40 cm from your subject at f2.8 for example you move half a centimeter and the focus is not recalculated resulting in an out of focus shot. I have noticed that it does this quite frequently if you press the shutter button halfway, you do not shoot and you do not substantially change the frame or focus point when you press it again.It does not seem anything serious to me due to the type of camera that it is and for what it is intended, it does not seem to me a bad AF, in fact it is somewhat better than that of my X70 and nobody complained about that one in its day.
The Snap-Focus or as Fujifilm calls it does not convince me, I have tried a few shots with the VS AF and I always get better results with the AF, both at 2 and 5m.
COLOR (Raw):
As a person who works in a graphic arts company I know that the color is relative to each person, but even so I can not fail to mention it, the colors that the camera reproduces are pleasant, although I usually edit in raw most of my photographs and not is something that worries me. Pleasant does not mean true to reality, however, if I had the spectrophotometer at home and put the image produced by the A6500 and this XT10 I am sure that the AE would be much lower in Sony, however the greens that the Fuji reproduces, Despite being less precise, they are more pleasant to me.
IMAGE QUALITY (Jpg):
I do not usually put a point on the JPG image quality since there has not yet been a camera that does not allow me to achieve the desired colors with the modification of its parameters, much less with the modification of the Raw files, and in a travel camera that you do not control the lighting is usually essential to work with the DR in PP, however it is one of the strengths of this camera and I wanted to comment on it, it has one of the best balances I have seen in terms of color, dr and noise reduction , it simply offers nice Jpg files.
This is also a matter of taste and perception, for example for me the Velvia simulation is exaggerated even to shoot flowers (reason that usually benefits from the extra saturation), Classic Crome is my favorite but for limited uses, the modes in B&W are quite Better than average, at least interesting. As I say there is nothing similar to my Capture One with all the color LUTs I have and what I can achieve with a little dedication, but it is appreciated that it produces nice files.
One nuance in terms of noise reduction, is that it works well up to iso 3200, at 6400 it does the typical watercolor effect and takes away too much detail in my opinion.
VIDEO:
I don't make video, sorry. However, it does not seem to be the strong point of this camera.
28mm VS 35mm (personal opinion):
I have to say that I adapt well to any focal length, I have been using fixed lenses from 18 to 75mm for whole days and I have never had problems shooting my way, I assume what I have and my head automatically starts working at that focal distance.
Few years ago I would have said 35mm, due to snobbery, or simply ignorance. To this day I have it clear, the wider the better. This is due to several factors, in the past it was impossible to find anything below 35mm distortion free, however now we have all kinds of wide angles with well controlled distortion, and this 28mm is one of them. Another reason is that the 28mm allows you to crop if necessary (quite feasible with a 24mpx sensor) however no focal length can "widen". I like 35mm, I really like 45mm, however 28mm seems more versatile to me as a single lens.
CONCLUSION:
I don't like shooting without a viewfinder, all my cameras have it and therefore I never shoot with the rear screen, the way of shooting with the rear screen is different and it feels like something "new", a different way of interacting with the environment that It can be beneficial on certain occasions.
Most people (not fond of photography), are used to photographing with their smartphones, when someone sees you approach the eye of a camera viewfinder to photograph on the street, they feel it as a kind of "assault" on their privacy or something like that, however this camera is seen as something friendly and not very threatening, something that helps in social and street photography.
Someone will be thinking why not photograph directly with the Smartphone that is even more discreet, well there are several reasons, the first is ergonomics and pleasant use, it is something that is light years away, the second is image quality, I have a mid-range Smarphone , its main lens is f1.7 and its main sensor 1/2 "(larger than the average in Smatphones) quad Bayer, and despite all that the difference in image quality is a real abyss. With Smarphones it always happens the same, the last one arrives and I say wow that good quality, I shoot for a couple of days and then I pass the images to the big screen, they disappoint me and I go back to my compacts.
This small compact camera has surprised me for several reasons, the first for all the "hatred" or misunderstanding it has generated (even in the Fuji community), the second for its price and the third for how satisfactory it has been considering the two previous reasons. I am not new since I started with the compact cameras of "always carry with me" I have had an X70, an Rx100 (Mk1), an Rx100 (Mk3), an LX100 and I have even been using my old A6000 with the kit objective since that the LX100 got dust on the sensor, they all did their job and they all had their strengths and weaknesses, I am not going to say that this is the best, but as a quality compact camera to always carry with you I would not change it for any of the previous ones.In short, a compact APSC that really fits in your pocket, with a 28mm f2.8 fixed lens for € 358, there is not much to think about, even at its usual price of € 425 it is fine, if you like the concept of a fixed lens, Do not think about it.
BUILD QUALITY AND HANDLING:
The build quality is good, everything is in place, the buttons and wheels do not have the premium feel of a team of several thousand but it is certainly very good, the body has a metallic finish, except the battery cover, in general It is well finished, much better than my XT-10 and even better than my X70.
The included hand strap is pretty good, I don't feel the need to replace it with any of mine.It only has two physical FN buttons (I would have liked one more), and one of them is not comfortable to operate, the joistick is not the most comfortable in the world either but it does its job, the touch screen does not respond very well, it has some lag, and it is underused, it reminds me of the touch screen of my A6500, it is not remotely similar to a good implementation such as the one of the panasonic GX80 that I was able to test just a month ago.
The most criticism of its design in my opinion is the lack of a tilting screen, not only to shoot from a tripod or from the waist, but also to avoid certain reflections, something important in a camera without a viewfinder.The grip is small, but due to the size and lightness of the camera it feels comfortable.
Despite all these drawbacks, it is a comfortable and intuitive camera, the truth is that I can complain about many shortcomings, but when I use it I do not feel any of the limitations that I have mentioned so seriously and it has not frustrated me in no moment, rather the opposite. I have to give it a positive evaluation here.
IMAGE QUALITY (Raw):
The image quality is good, as good as any interchangeable lens camera, the lens is decent within its size and aperture limitations, and the image sensor is competent.
OPTICS (Raw):
As I mentioned before, the lens is nice, it has a good central sharpness and also in the corners, very well-controlled chromatic aberrations, very little distortion, as a negative point it has a "ghost effect" or blurred to f2.8 in high contrast whites. This happens at the corners of the image and is not too pleasant.
On the sharpness it is necessary to qualify a couple of things, it is not the same with a subject located at 10cm, as with one located at 1m, 6m or 200m.It is sharper up to 6-8 meters than thereafter, I suppose it is due to the ability to focus at a minimum distance of 10cm. I also have to say that the excellent central sharpness falls faster than in other lenses, if we divide the frame in three, the sharpest area would take 1/3 in the center and lose it quickly in the remaining 2/3, as a positive point the difference between those last two thirds it is not accused, and the extreme corners are good because it does not have to correct any type of distortion.
Bokeh is better than you might expect for a 28mm f2.8 apsc, also don't expect really creamy backgrounds at portrait distances, those backgrounds are only possible at the minimum focus distances, for photo detail.Ultimately, the optics are very good for a compact camera, really sharp, and can be easily pushed in the editing of the raw or in the JPG parameters of the camera if desired.
But how does it compare to a "normal size" lens?
Well, since I am a curious person I have made some comparisons with my closest fixed lens to the FL of this Xf10 (Samyang 21mm f1.4, 31mm equiv). I have shot a library full of books and the results have been as expected, in the center they are the same, but in the remaining 2/3 of the image Samyang is sharper, both at f2.8 and at f5.6 and at f8.0. I guess comparing this tiny lens to one that weighs more than the entire Xf10 isn't too fair, but it had to.
SENSOR (Raw):
As I mentioned before the sensor is competent, it has enough dynamic range and the ISO performance seems good, nothing to object here.
But how does it compare to an interchangeable lens camera?
I have compared it with my Sony A6500, despite the age of the sensor of this camera and what DXO says is one of the cameras with the best dynamic range (both iso base and high isos) that I have tested and also has one of the best ISO APSC performance, in fact it doesn't have much to envy an FF like Sony A7II that I've had the opportunity to test several times.
I have tried shooting the XF10 and A6500 at -2EV, -3EV, + 1EV, + 2EV. In underexposed shadow recovery it has no problem with the -2EV and handles well with the -3EV, a performance very similar (maybe a bit less) than the A6500, in terms of light recovery it may cost a little more but there is not much difference with the Sony A6500 either.
I have used Capture One for shadow and light recovery, the final appearance of the A6500 images is more "natural" than that of the XF10 and the dynamic range is slightly higher, but only a bit, which is very well performance, I wonder if the difference is because the XF10's base ISO is 200 instead of 100.
As for the ISO performance, my tests are not conclusive, I mean the ISO performance is good, along with A6500 up to ISO 3200 and something worse from there. However I have a problem with Fujifilm's ISO, and it must be up to me because I haven't read anything about it anywhere. If I put my A6500 and my XF10 with the same speed and aperture parameters, the iso that both cameras require to make a correct exposure is not the same, it is as if 1600 ISO Fuji equals 1200 ISO Sony. This is something that I have noticed with my previous Fuji cameras, but I attributed it to the X-trans sensor that all of them wore, however this one has a Bayer (possibly the same as the A6500 itself) so I cannot understand it.
But if we trust what each manufacturer says about the ISO of each image, the performance is very good, even at 1600 ISO removing all noise reductions, the image of the XF10 has seemed a bit cleaner to me, it is a pity that the Performance doesn't go that way on higher ISOS, however my maximum APSC ISO is usually 3200-4000, at most I can use 6400 so I'm not too concerned.
In short, a sensor performance and an IQ at the height of any larger APS-C camera.
AUTOFOCUS:
We arrived at one of the most controversial points of the camera, but I have to say that my experience does not coincide with that of many, when I received the camera I did some tests and the AFS seemed fast and accurate, at that time I thought it would be updated to its latest version (1.2), however I checked that it was version 1.0.
Regardless of that I updated it, the AFS works well, it is fast and accurate, the Face and Eye-AF work well, they are also fast and accurate. AFC does not work as well, obviously it is not a sports camera. Let's say AF is between a camera with good contrast detection AF and a phase detection camera.
No, it does not have the AF of my A6500, it would not even face the AF of my old A6000, but it is ahead of the AF DFD of the Panasonic cameras that I have tested (for example).In short it is perfectly usable, reading what is read out there I was afraid, but the thing is not like that, it does not cause me problems.
That said, I have found a small "incidence", which may be the cause of out-of-focus shots that are so widely discussed out there, when you press the shutter button halfway, the camera calculates the focus by moving the lens, if at that time it does not take the shot and recompose slightly (move the camera half a centimeter forward or backward ...) and press the shutter button halfway again the camera considers that it has not moved and does not recalculate the focus, simply check the boxes confirmation green, but the lens does not move. If you are 40 cm from your subject at f2.8 for example you move half a centimeter and the focus is not recalculated resulting in an out of focus shot. I have noticed that it does this quite frequently if you press the shutter button halfway, you do not shoot and you do not substantially change the frame or focus point when you press it again.It does not seem anything serious to me due to the type of camera that it is and for what it is intended, it does not seem to me a bad AF, in fact it is somewhat better than that of my X70 and nobody complained about that one in its day.
The Snap-Focus or as Fujifilm calls it does not convince me, I have tried a few shots with the VS AF and I always get better results with the AF, both at 2 and 5m.
COLOR (Raw):
As a person who works in a graphic arts company I know that the color is relative to each person, but even so I can not fail to mention it, the colors that the camera reproduces are pleasant, although I usually edit in raw most of my photographs and not is something that worries me. Pleasant does not mean true to reality, however, if I had the spectrophotometer at home and put the image produced by the A6500 and this XT10 I am sure that the AE would be much lower in Sony, however the greens that the Fuji reproduces, Despite being less precise, they are more pleasant to me.
IMAGE QUALITY (Jpg):
I do not usually put a point on the JPG image quality since there has not yet been a camera that does not allow me to achieve the desired colors with the modification of its parameters, much less with the modification of the Raw files, and in a travel camera that you do not control the lighting is usually essential to work with the DR in PP, however it is one of the strengths of this camera and I wanted to comment on it, it has one of the best balances I have seen in terms of color, dr and noise reduction , it simply offers nice Jpg files.
This is also a matter of taste and perception, for example for me the Velvia simulation is exaggerated even to shoot flowers (reason that usually benefits from the extra saturation), Classic Crome is my favorite but for limited uses, the modes in B&W are quite Better than average, at least interesting. As I say there is nothing similar to my Capture One with all the color LUTs I have and what I can achieve with a little dedication, but it is appreciated that it produces nice files.
One nuance in terms of noise reduction, is that it works well up to iso 3200, at 6400 it does the typical watercolor effect and takes away too much detail in my opinion.
VIDEO:
I don't make video, sorry. However, it does not seem to be the strong point of this camera.
28mm VS 35mm (personal opinion):
I have to say that I adapt well to any focal length, I have been using fixed lenses from 18 to 75mm for whole days and I have never had problems shooting my way, I assume what I have and my head automatically starts working at that focal distance.
Few years ago I would have said 35mm, due to snobbery, or simply ignorance. To this day I have it clear, the wider the better. This is due to several factors, in the past it was impossible to find anything below 35mm distortion free, however now we have all kinds of wide angles with well controlled distortion, and this 28mm is one of them. Another reason is that the 28mm allows you to crop if necessary (quite feasible with a 24mpx sensor) however no focal length can "widen". I like 35mm, I really like 45mm, however 28mm seems more versatile to me as a single lens.
CONCLUSION:
I don't like shooting without a viewfinder, all my cameras have it and therefore I never shoot with the rear screen, the way of shooting with the rear screen is different and it feels like something "new", a different way of interacting with the environment that It can be beneficial on certain occasions.
Most people (not fond of photography), are used to photographing with their smartphones, when someone sees you approach the eye of a camera viewfinder to photograph on the street, they feel it as a kind of "assault" on their privacy or something like that, however this camera is seen as something friendly and not very threatening, something that helps in social and street photography.
Someone will be thinking why not photograph directly with the Smartphone that is even more discreet, well there are several reasons, the first is ergonomics and pleasant use, it is something that is light years away, the second is image quality, I have a mid-range Smarphone , its main lens is f1.7 and its main sensor 1/2 "(larger than the average in Smatphones) quad Bayer, and despite all that the difference in image quality is a real abyss. With Smarphones it always happens the same, the last one arrives and I say wow that good quality, I shoot for a couple of days and then I pass the images to the big screen, they disappoint me and I go back to my compacts.
This small compact camera has surprised me for several reasons, the first for all the "hatred" or misunderstanding it has generated (even in the Fuji community), the second for its price and the third for how satisfactory it has been considering the two previous reasons. I am not new since I started with the compact cameras of "always carry with me" I have had an X70, an Rx100 (Mk1), an Rx100 (Mk3), an LX100 and I have even been using my old A6000 with the kit objective since that the LX100 got dust on the sensor, they all did their job and they all had their strengths and weaknesses, I am not going to say that this is the best, but as a quality compact camera to always carry with you I would not change it for any of the previous ones.In short, a compact APSC that really fits in your pocket, with a 28mm f2.8 fixed lens for € 358, there is not much to think about, even at its usual price of € 425 it is fine, if you like the concept of a fixed lens, Do not think about it.
