Fuji X-S10 Cold Weather Performance

I've had the X-S10 for a few months now and I've noticed a significant drop in performance when I use the camera outside in the cold (as in 40F or lower). Pressing the shutter button, I get the "Storing" screen for a good second or two before I can get another shot. Fortunately this isn't my wildlife camera so I can manage with the slower speed, but I'm curious whether anyone else has had this experience.

For context, this was usually in auto mode with a film sim applied, writing direct to jpeg. Worth noting that during the summer, I never have processing time problems using the same settings.

Purely anecdotal, but when I bought my X-S10, the first major trip I brought it on was to northern Japan over my New Year's vacation, where I spent the majority of the time in sub-0°C (<32°F) temperatures and experienced no such issues with write speeds or usability. I shot everything in RAW+JPG, max res and JPG Fine. Even shooting bursts I didn't have any trouble. I did primarily shoot in M, though. Also Film Sims are always applied to the JPG files no matter what, as far as I can tell.

Interestingly enough, the body supposedly being rated to -10°C (which I think is actually not even true) was actually one of the reasons I chose it over the competition - I only learned after the fact that the kit lenses I got with it were not rated to similarly low temperatures and I got very, very lucky that they weren't damaged/destroyed during the trip.

Have you tried using a different memory card, especially of a different brand? It's the first thing to try if you have write issues.

wantfastcars wrote:

Interestingly enough, the body supposedly being rated to -10°C (which I think is actually not even true) was actually one of the reasons I chose it over the competition - I only learned after the fact that the kit lenses I got with it were not rated to similarly low temperatures and I got very, very lucky that they weren't damaged/destroyed during the trip.

I think it is highly unlikely that the lens will be damaged/destroyed by cold temperatures.  (I'm an electrical engineer / integrated circuit designer). It is more probable that the performance will degrade, or (non-destructive) errors will occur under more extreme conditions.  Most electronic and electro-mechanical devices work well beyond their rated temps.

For example, the only difference between chips I designed that are sold to military/aerospace grade vs consumer grade is that the former have been individually tested to the temperature extremes.  The consumer chips aren't but 99%+ would pass to the mil-spec temperatures if they were.

I have never hesitated to use my consumer grade lenses in sub-zero (F) weather with no problems.

I used my X-S10 in cold weather and never had any issues.

Hi,

I guess your problem is related to the SD card. I shot various cameras in sub zero temperatures and never had any problems. Only difference is that you need more batteries.

This is taken at -22 degrees Celsius with a Canon G7X.

here it was also rather cold and windy. Taken with the X-T1. No problems at all.

Gear isn't damaged by cold, it works again when you warm it up slowly.

(-30 for my X-E3 and 23/2 for a couple of hours)

40F (4C for any Europeans) isn't cold and it shouldn't affect the camera at all.  It is domestic refrigerator temp so you can play around to your heart's content.  Freezers will be -10C or less, -15C IIRC, if you want to extend the experiment.

this was usually in auto mode with a film sim applied, writing direct to jpeg. Worth noting that during the summer, I never have processing time problems using the same settings.

Try aperture priority with the same settings in summer and winter. In auto mode, it happens that the camera does some extra post processing depending on the type of scene the camera sees.

There is one special setting in particular that takes a lot of extra time. I think one of the settings about the noise. But I don't know exactly what setting it was. But if I flip that on, the camera takes a very long time to post process the picture. I think that the camera uses that setting in auto from time to time.

piphoton wrote:

this was usually in auto mode with a film sim applied, writing direct to jpeg. Worth noting that during the summer, I never have processing time problems using the same settings.

Try aperture priority with the same settings in summer and winter. In auto mode, it happens that the camera does some extra post processing depending on the type of scene the camera sees.

There is one special setting in particular that takes a lot of extra time. I think one of the settings about the noise. But I don't know exactly what setting it was. But if I flip that on, the camera takes a very long time to post process the picture. I think that the camera uses that setting in auto from time to time.

Clarity is one. Not sure if it's the only one. Make sure it's 0.