Fujifilm cameras: a guide to the best models | Articles | Photo, video, optics

Vin­tage style has become the hall­mark of Fuji­film devices. Pho­to: gsmarena.com

Fuji­film cam­eras are the epit­o­me of style. The case when you buy not just a cam­era, but a lifestyle. But Fuji devices are famous not only for their aes­thet­ics, but also for the per­fect com­bi­na­tion of advanced tech­nol­o­gy, ease of use and mod­er­ate pric­ing. We have pre­pared for you a guide to all cur­rent Fuji­film cam­eras — from soap­box­es and ini­tial crop mir­ror­less to top medi­um for­mat mon­sters.

Fuji­film soap dish­es
Entry lev­el Fuji­film cam­eras
Midrange Fuji­film Cam­eras
Best Fuji­film Cam­eras
Fuji­film “spe­cial” cam­eras
medi­um for­mat

Fujifilm soap dishes

Fujifilm FinePix XP140

Pros:

• Excel­lent val­ue for mon­ey and qual­i­ty;
• advanced body pro­tec­tion;
• shoots under­wa­ter.

Minus­es:

• “blurs” small details;
• 4K video only at 15 fps.
• sound in mono.

The time of soap dish­es has passed, but pro­tect­ed water­proof mod­els can still be rel­e­vant — for under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phy, beach hol­i­days and as the first cam­era for chil­dren. From this point of view, Fuji­film FinePix XP140 ful­fills one hun­dred per­cent: it can be “drowned” by 25 meters and dropped from a height of 1.8 m.

Oth­er­wise, this is a clas­sic soap box that does every­thing for you, you just need to press a but­ton. The pic­ture will be at the lev­el of aver­age smart­phones, and it is bet­ter not to shoot video in 4K at all. But Full­HD is avail­able at 60p, which is good for shoot­ing scenes with fast move­ment.

Entry level Fujifilm cameras

Fujifilm X‑A7

The X‑A7 comes in bright and bold col­ors. Pho­to: dpreview.com

Pros:

• good video per­for­mance;
• very com­pact;
• cool back screen and user friend­ly inter­face.

Minus­es:

• no viewfind­er;
• Not the best in class bat­tery.

The Fuji­film X‑A7 is an entry-lev­el crop mir­ror­less cam­era released in 2019. She imme­di­ate­ly col­lect­ed pos­i­tive feed­back from jour­nal­ists and users, and this is no coin­ci­dence. The cam­era has the same sen­sor as the midrange X‑T30, so you get great pho­tos in both JPEG and RAW. And she shoots good 4K video with­out crop­ping.

The cam­era also fea­tures a large 3.5‑inch dis­play and a begin­ner-friend­ly touch inter­face (which will appeal to any­one tran­si­tion­ing from a smart­phone to a full-fledged cam­era), while the body has two con­trol dials and an aut­o­fo­cus joy­stick, which is unusu­al for entry-lev­el mod­els.

Of the minus­es — not the longest-last­ing bat­tery with a rat­ing of 270 shots (although the cam­era can be recharged on the go via USB from a pow­er bank) and the lack of a viewfind­er (which is typ­i­cal for many ini­tial mir­ror­less cam­eras).

Over­all, this is a sim­ple and easy to use cam­era with a styl­ish design (avail­able in bright col­ors) aimed at begin­ners.

Fujifilm X‑T200

Pros:

• cool JPEGs and straight from the cam­era;
• large bright dis­play with user-friend­ly inter­face;
• head­phone jack.

Minus­es:

• not very high qual­i­ty video in 1080p;
• weak bat­tery.

In many ways, the Fuji­film X‑T200 is the X‑A7, but with a viewfind­er. The cam­era also takes great pho­tos and high-qual­i­ty 4K video, and it has the same 3.5‑inch dis­play with an inter­face geared towards begin­ner pho­tog­ra­phers. If you often pho­to­graph out­doors, espe­cial­ly in sun­ny weath­er, the X‑T200 will be a clear favorite thanks to its viewfind­er (albeit a small one).

Of the minus­es of the cam­era — the same weak bat­tery for 270 shots and not very impres­sive video qual­i­ty in 1080p. Some­one thinks that the con­trols and, in par­tic­u­lar, the joy­stick are not very well locat­ed, but we must be aware that this is an entry-lev­el mod­el — often they do not have such func­tions at all.

Midrange Fujifilm Cameras

Fujifilm X‑E4

Pros:

• beau­ti­ful pic­ture;
• fast con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing with AF;
• very com­pact.

Minus­es:

• min­i­mum phys­i­cal con­trols;
• no grip;
• face aut­o­fo­cus is not as reli­able as com­peti­tors.

The Fuji­film X‑E4 is a mid-range mir­ror­less cam­era with a 26-megapix­el sen­sor bor­rowed from the top-end X‑T4.

This is the most com­pact mod­el of the X‑series, also due to the design in the style of a rangefind­er cam­era (with­out the viewfind­er tak­en out of the body). If you screw a pan­cake lens onto it, for exam­ple, Fuji­film 27mm f / 2.8 R WR, the cam­era will be no more than a soap dish. But you have to pay for com­pact­ness with the lack of a grip (although you can buy an option­al exter­nal han­dle) and a min­i­mal set of con­trols — most of the set­tings will have to be done from the menu.

The device has quite good aut­o­fo­cus, although the face recog­ni­tion sys­tem some­times sees them where they are not.

The X‑E4 shoots qual­i­ty 4K/30p with 8‑bit F‑Log record­ing to an SD card or 10-bit F‑Log to an exter­nal recorder—options suit­able for fur­ther col­or grad­ing. The USB‑C port can be used for head­phones via an adapter. So, in gen­er­al, this is a good option for video shoot­ing. At the same time, the cam­era does not have a built-in sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem.

This advanced and super portable cam­era is a good option for trav­el­ers and blog­gers.

Fujifilm X‑T30 I and II

In 2020, the X‑T30 received the Prod­uct Design Award from the iF DESIGN AWARD. Pho­to: ifdesign.com

Pros:

• great qual­i­ty pho­tos and 4K video;
• high-speed shoot­ing 20 fps with AF;
• sup­port for advanced video options.

Minus­es:

• 4K video record­ing time lim­its;
• con­tro­ver­sial loca­tion of some con­trols;
• same prob­lem with face aut­o­fo­cus as X‑E4.

The Fuji­film X‑T30 (and the updat­ed X‑T30 II) is per­haps one of the most ver­sa­tile Fuji­film cam­eras, which can be safe­ly advised to both a novice and a more expe­ri­enced user. The dif­fer­ence between the first and sec­ond gen­er­a­tion is small: the X‑T30 II received a dis­play with a res­o­lu­tion of 1.68 mil­lion dots (against 1.04 mil­lion in the old ver­sion) and addi­tion­al RAM, thanks to which the cam­era “thinks” faster – at the lev­el of the top X‑T4 .

The X‑T30 takes cool JPEGs straight out of cam­era and RAW footage with good dynam­ic range. It shoots 4K at 30p with­out crop, but the first ver­sion of the cam­era is lim­it­ed to 10 min­utes (so as not to over­heat), and the sec­ond can shoot until it over­heats for about half an hour.

Of the non-obvi­ous dis­ad­van­tages is the incon­ve­nient loca­tion of the Q quick menu but­ton, which you con­stant­ly acci­den­tal­ly press. There was even a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that Fuji­film delib­er­ate­ly placed this but­ton so awk­ward­ly in order to bet­ter sep­a­rate the X‑T30 from the sim­i­lar but more expen­sive X‑T3: if you don’t want to pay more, suf­fer!

Fujifilm X‑S10

Pros:

• built-in sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem;
• rotary screen;
• com­fort­able grip.

Minus­es:

• viewfind­er is small
• aver­age bat­tery.

Fuji­film X‑S10 is prac­ti­cal­ly the same X‑T30 II, but per­formed in a dif­fer­ent style and with a cou­ple of nice bonus­es.

If the X‑T30 II is a clas­sic retro-style Fuji­film cam­era with lots of con­trol levers, then the X‑S10 is more like a com­pact DSLR with a large grip and min­i­mal­is­tic con­trol dials.

In terms of pho­to and video capa­bil­i­ties, they are the same, but the X‑S10 has an impor­tant advan­tage — a built-in sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem. This is a use­ful fea­ture if you’re shoot­ing video (so you can shoot hand­held video with Fuji­film’s cool but unsta­bi­lized primes), and you get some bonus­es when shoot­ing hand­held in low light. It also has a swiv­el screen, which is more suit­able for video com­pared to the X‑T30 II’s tilt­ing screen, which is more suit­able for street pho­tog­ra­phy.

The dif­fer­ence of 10 thou­sand rubles is ful­ly jus­ti­fied by the pres­ence of a built-in stub, but many (includ­ing the author of this arti­cle) sim­ply can­not refuse such an attrac­tive retro design of the X‑T30. But if you choose with your mind over your heart, the X‑S10 is Fuji­film’s best mid-bud­get cam­era.

Best Fujifilm Cameras

Fujifilm X‑T3

Pros:

• cool qual­i­ty RAW and JPEG;
• con­ve­nient con­trols and cus­tomiza­tion;
• high-qual­i­ty 10-bit 4K video.

Minus­es:

• lack of AF-track­ing of the object in the video;
• lack of sta­bi­liza­tion.

The Fuji­film X‑T3 is an almost leg­endary cam­era. Here you have a cool pho­to, and a cool video (4K at 60p), and con­ve­nient con­trols with the abil­i­ty to cus­tomize, and a cool viewfind­er with a high res­o­lu­tion of 3.69 mil­lion dots.

The X‑T3 received an advanced aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem, but it’s been more than three years since the cam­era was released, so at the moment it still falls short of the top sys­tems in full-frame mir­ror­less cam­eras from Sony and Canon. The lack of object track­ing in the video is also not a plus for the device.

In gen­er­al, the main prob­lem of the X‑T3 is, per­haps, the exis­tence of the X‑T4, which, although not its direct suc­ces­sor, still looks like a more inter­est­ing choice at the moment.

Fujifilm X‑T4

Pros:

• built-in sta­bi­liza­tion;
• cool 4K video;
• con­ve­nient cus­tomiz­able con­trols.

Minus­es:

• head­phones only through the adapter.

Yes, com­par­ing the X‑T3 and Fuji­film X‑T4 direct­ly will be a lit­tle incor­rect (although we have already done this), after all, the dif­fer­ence in cost today is almost 50 thou­sand rubles (although at the start of sales the dif­fer­ence was small­er).

In terms of image qual­i­ty, the cam­eras are not much dif­fer­ent, but the X‑T4 has received a lot of small but very use­ful changes that con­cern main­ly video shoot­ing. The X‑T4 has built-in sta­bi­liza­tion, the advan­tages of which we have already dis­cussed above. Also, track­ing aut­o­fo­cus has become more tena­cious.

A step back com­pared to the X‑T3 was the dis­ap­pear­ance of a sep­a­rate head­phone jack, which are now con­nect­ed via an adapter to the USB‑C port.

The rest of the Fuji­film X‑T4 is very cool and with­out a twinge of con­science can be called the best APS‑C mir­ror­less cam­era on the mar­ket.

Fujifilm “special” cameras

Fujifilm X‑Pro3

If not for the dig­i­tal matrix, the cam­era would eas­i­ly have gone behind the device from the six­ties. Pho­to: ephotozine.com

Pros:

• con­ve­nient hybrid viewfind­er;
• styl­ish case with tita­ni­um inserts;
• great pho­to and video qual­i­ty.

Minus­es:

• when work­ing through the opti­cal viewfind­er, face recog­ni­tion does not work.

By “spe­cial” cam­eras, we mean mod­els with a unique fea­ture that dis­tin­guish­es them not only from the Fuji mod­el range, but among all cam­eras in gen­er­al.

In the case of the Fuji­film X‑Pro3, this is a hybrid viewfind­er that can work both opti­cal­ly and elec­tron­i­cal­ly. All design and con­trols are inspired by old rangefind­er cam­eras, so this is a mod­el for even more rad­i­cal retro style fans than the X‑T30.

Oth­er­wise, this is a great cam­era with an advanced 26-megapix­el sen­sor and detailed 4K video at 30p.

Fujifilm X100V

Pros:

• per­fect com­bi­na­tion of sen­sor and lens;
• good video record­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics;
• high-qual­i­ty case with pro­tec­tion against bad weath­er.

Minus­es:

• no zoom;
• no sta­bi­liza­tion.

Anoth­er “spe­cial” Fuji cam­era. The fea­ture of this mod­el is a fixed 35mm prime lens with a max­i­mum aper­ture of f/2. Yes, this is not a zoom, but a fixed focal length lens, and it can­not be removed. If you don’t like to walk, per­haps this cam­era may upset you. But if you are a fan of primes (and their cool optics), then this mod­el has some­thing to show you: Fuji­film has sharp­ened the matrix and lens as much as pos­si­ble, so that they give out just an amaz­ing pic­ture.

At the same time, the cam­era can not only take a pho­to, but also very cheer­ful­ly shoots in 4K, head­phone jacks and a micro­phone are on board.

But the whole design has a seri­ous pit­fall — the lack of sta­bi­liza­tion both in the car­cass and in the lens. This makes it dif­fi­cult to shoot hand­held in low light and can result in shaky video. Oth­er­wise, the Fuji­film X100V is a real mas­ter­piece for all con­nois­seurs of high-qual­i­ty pic­tures.

medium format

Fujifilm GFX 100S

It’s nice when a 100-megapix­el mon­ster fits so eas­i­ly in your hands. Pho­to: amateurphotographer.co.uk

Pros:

• 102 megapix­el pho­tos;
• built-in sta­bi­liza­tion;
• com­pact for its size;
• great video.

Minus­es:

• not the best aut­o­fo­cus;
• not very long last­ing bat­tery.

Medi­um for­mat cam­eras (their matrix is ​​larg­er than that of full-frame mod­els — crop fac­tor of 0.79x) are still quite an exot­ic thing, but Fuji­film is con­fi­dent­ly devel­op­ing the for­mat: last year two medi­um for­mat mod­els were released at once.

If you want bet­ter pic­ture qual­i­ty and more detail than full-frame cam­eras, then the Fuji­film GFX 100S is prob­a­bly the best option on the mar­ket. The GFX 100S takes 102-megapix­el pho­tos while weigh­ing just 900 grams, which is very light for a medi­um for­mat cam­era. For such bonus­es, you have to pay not only with mon­ey (the price from the fac­to­ry is $ 6,000), but also with slow aut­o­fo­cus, as well as not too good viewfind­er res­o­lu­tion.

At the same time, despite the large matrix, which is not very suit­able for video shoot­ing, the cam­era copes with this task quite well, deliv­er­ing very high-qual­i­ty 4K at 30p.

Fujifilm GFX 50S II

Pros:

• super detailed pho­tos;
• built-in sta­bi­liza­tion;
• The cheap­est medi­um for­mat cam­era on the mar­ket.

Minus­es:

• slow aut­o­fo­cus;
• video only in Full HD (no 4K).

Fuji­film’s junior medi­um for­mat cam­era, although it received a low­er res­o­lu­tion matrix (51 megapix­els), still boasts one of the most detailed pic­tures on the mar­ket, as well as very effec­tive built-in sta­bi­liza­tion, which helps to get the most out of the huge sen­sor.

At the same time, the GFX 50S II remains the most inex­pen­sive medi­um for­mat cam­era ($ 3999) and, like the old­er mod­el, remains quite com­pact (900 grams).

As in the case of the 100S, aut­o­fo­cus here clear­ly los­es to full-frame mod­els from com­peti­tors, and video capa­bil­i­ties are lim­it­ed to Full HD shoot­ing.

But for pho­tog­ra­phers who want huge for­mat and max­i­mum detail, the GFX 50S II gives you every­thing you need at a price that is very rea­son­able for this class of cam­era.