THE EMPIRE
Hey Team, another camera to play with so lets dive in!
Out of the “box” (this was dropped off without any packaging or manuals, so a little research needed) This camera looks really cool. The style Fuji goes with, with their new cameras is very retro and whenever I’ve pulled one out to try, there are many complimentary questions.
Lets get into the stats.
Lens Mount FUJIFILM X mount
Image Sensor 23.5mm x 15.7mm (APS-C) X-Trans CMOS 5 HR with primary color filter
Number Of Effective Pixels 40.2 millions pixels
Sensor Cleaning System Ultra Sonic Vibration
Image Processing Engine X-Processor 5
Price $3,199.00 @ JB Hifi at time of review ( including supplied lens)
The first thing I noticed having a play with this, was the buttons and dials, its all manual baby! at your finger tips and in a very classic styling. This pulls on the heart strings of those of us that have been shooting since before Digital and actually needing to know what you’re doing. I’m as guilty as anyone for throwing it into manual and letting it figure it out for itself, but this little beast makes you get good, quick. I admire that they aren’t trying to throw big specs in the consumer grade cameras, this is a proper little classic camera that packs an impressive punch. The kit lens supplied wasn’t bad, its sharp but it does take a bit of forward thinking to get a great shot, but a camera like this with the attitudes of someone who is likely to buy this, isn’t looking for an easy point and shoot, they are likley semi pro or high end hobbist who is very interested in taking their time instead of spamming the shutter and seeing what you get once its in the software.
I think the big selling point of this is going to be the sensor, when you get the lens stuff right, that sensor can pick up a heck of a lot of detail, the RAW format of Fuji plays a little different to the Sony I’m used to but it played well with Lightroom that I use everyday. I did find that the images were hard to find in my gallery even tho I have a pretty robust filing system, I believe this was because I was lazy on the set up and the meta data sent it to a few years ago and that was my bad.
I imagine anyone keen on this camera is likely to want some more lenses, thankfully the X mount lens has got a wide range of long throw Telephoto lenses and close up buttery low F stop options as well, so as an all rounder there are certainly options. This camera is very compact, small even. Which to me being used to pro-grade gear which is big and bulky and heavy, gives a sense of density in the gear which gives a sense of value and quality. This being small and fairly lilght weight won’t give that sensation right away, but when you see what you can do with it, you’ll see where that money you spent has gone.
I was impressed with this image, The detail in the water droplets shows you where that 40 megapixels are being put to use and the subtle colour range in the oil slick on this old Harley Davidson leaving is well picked up in the colour range. These have been lightly retouched in light room.
I took this X-E5 to Bike church on a very gloomy and rainy morning, which is challenging conditions to say the least, this shot shooting out into the light was completely blown out and the amount of data on the raw file was able to be saved. This will save butts in editing when settings are a bit off, given this camera is so small it feels like the sort of thing you’d want to look at the screen for reference which I did a lot, but as I realized some of the shots were blowing out I had to take more care to look into the view finder and put a bit more thought and effort in. But its a nice safety to have that range to work with. I also like the accidental win of the smile in the mirror from Shayne.
It’s worth keeping in mind, for the sake of our website working well, these files are not full res, however you can tell the quality even when downgraded for web and or social, and when you get it right, it can be very impressive.
I did find the Auto focus to be a little slow for my liking, a few good shots missed especially when there are subjects at various depths of the field. I am used to a nice big focus ring which makes micro adjustments much easier and this feeling small like a point and shoot the feeling of being able to snap away isn’t quite what this is. Also at the price of over $3000 with a lens, this does put it in a weight class in which it can perform however it is a very popular end of the market in which it will be competing with the well known heavy hitters from Canon and Sony. But Camera brands are a lot like Motorcycle brands, in the sense of; People like what they like and its hard to convince them otherwise, Die hard fans will say this is the bee’s knees, detractors will always just be detractors. Personally I like to try all things tech because it gives me an oppertunity to get hands on and see what applications I can use for myself. I don’t think I’ll be investing in this one as I already have a digital camera of a higher spec, however the offering is attractive for someone whos a budding photograhper who likes their gear to be as beautiful as it is capable.
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