Fujifilm X10 Hands-on Preview
Preview based on a production X10 with firmware 1.0
The revival of the enthusiast camera sector over the past few years has been a surprising but welcome development in the industry. The widespread acclaim for the Panasonic LX3 has encouraged other manufacturers to join or re-enter the fray with high-end offerings of their own, resulting in excellent, high-spec cameras such as the Samsung TL500, Olympus XZ-1 and Canon S95.
Now it's time for Fujifilm to play its hand, which it has done with its X10. Conceptually it borrows our favorite features from the two distinct sub-types that have emerged in this category - it takes the fast lens from cameras such as the TL500 and XZ-1 and combines it with the optical viewfinder and extensive controls of the Canon G12 and Nikon P7100. Just to finish things off, Fujifilm wraps the whole thing in magnesium alloy bodywork that evokes its big brother, the X100 and the 1960's rangefinders it borrowed its styling from.
The X10's innards are as progressive as its exterior is staid. It features a 12MP, '2/3" type' sensor, which means it's between 26% and 40% larger than the sensors used by its enthusiast compact peers and twice as large as those used in almost all regular compacts. It also uses the company's unique 'EXR' technology that makes it easy to combine pairs of pixels to produce 6MP images that have either been averaged to reduce noise or differently exposed so that more highlight information is captured. The underlying chip uses conventional CMOS arrangement, rather than the back-side illuminated type that can help improve light capture in small sensors.
Bright manual zoom lens
Despite the larger sensor, Fujifilm manages to find room for an image-stabilized, retracting 28-112mm equivalent F2.0-2.8 lens. The wide aperture, combined with large sensor means not only does the X10 offer more control over depth-of-field than any other camera in its class, it also allows for shallower depth of field than most DSLRs when used with their kit zooms, when each are set to their respective telephoto ends.
The lens is manually zoomed, more like those on interchangeable lens cameras and this movement is mechanically linked to an optical viewfinder, meaning you drive the viewfinder as you extend the lens. The mechanically-driven lens and viewfinder design has two key advantages. The first is that it gives a pleasantly direct feeling of control over the lens' behavior, allowing continuous (rather than stepped) zooming. Crucially it also means the camera isn't dependent on its battery for driving the lens and viewfinder. The X10's rather small battery is rated at 270 shots per charge - which would be considerably lower if it also had more motors to drive.
The fast readout from the CMOS sensor allows the camera to shoot at up to 7 frames-per-second at full resolution and 10fps at 6MP. It also enables 1080p30 movie shooting and the creation of panoramas in a single sweep of the camera.
As befits a camera in this class, the X10 can capture Raw images and, in an welcome addition, it can also re-process its own Raw files in-camera (the Olympus XZ-1 is the only other camera in this class we can think of that can do this). Combine this feature with the X10's film simulation modes and color-filtered mono modes and it can be really useful for getting the best of the photos after shooting.
Fujifilm X10 specification highlights
- 12MP EXR CMOS sensor
- 28-112mm F2.0-2.8 lens
- Optical viewfinder (85% coverage)
- 2.8", 460,000 dot LCD
- Extensive manual control
- Raw shooting and in-camera Raw conversion
- Continuous shooting up to 7fps at full resolution (10fps at 6MP)
Compared to the Olympus XZ-1
The Fujifilm X10 essentially brings together all the best features of its rivals - a very bright, reasonably lengthy zoom and a high quality glass viewfinder (they're usually plastic in compact cameras). Add to this its larger, EXR sensor and it's amazing the camera isn't much bigger than its peers. Understandably, it is rather more expensive (its launch price was 20% above that of the XZ-1).
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| The Olympus XZ-1 has the brightest zoom of any current compact camera, but the larger sensor (and hence longer focal lengths), mean the X10 offers fractionally more control over depth-of-field than the Olympus. Despite this, it's not a much larger camera. |
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| Its bright lens also means that the X10 can give more-blurred backgrounds than a DSLR or large-sensor mirrorless camera with a typical kit zoom (i.e. 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 or 14-42mm F3.5-5.6), which is useful for subject isolation when shooting portraits. |
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| The X10 is a touch larger than the PEN Mini but it also offers more in the way of direct control. It also contracts to a smaller size than the Mini, despite the Olympus retractable kit zoom and offers greater control over depth-of-field. |
If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital
Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help
you understand some of the terms used).
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Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (typically VGA) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C. |
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