Fujifilm has released five generations of X-Trans sensors, and the conventional wisdom says newer is better. Jason Row challenges that assumption head-on, having personally owned cameras with every X-Trans generation from the original through X-Trans 5.
Coming to you from Rowtography, this hands-on video walks through raw files from five different Fujifilm cameras, one from each X-Trans generation, processed side by side in DXO PhotoLab 9. One reason Row uses PhotoLab instead of Lightroom is worth knowing upfront: Lightroom still produces the so-called "worm" artifacts in Fujifilm raw files. You can partially work around it with Lightroom's Enhanced Details feature, but there's no batch processing option, which makes it impractical for any real volume of work. DXO handles Fujifilm files cleanly without those artifacts. The cameras covered span from the Fujifilm X-Pro1 with its 16 MP X-Trans 1 sensor, through the X100S, X-T2, X-T4, and finally the X-H2 with its 40 MP X-Trans 5.
Row's conclusion lands squarely on X-Trans 3, the 24 MP sensor in the X-T2, as the peak of Fujifilm's sensor development. The earlier sensors, particularly X-Trans 1 and 2, hold up remarkably well for their age, producing images with a subtle, filmic quality that Row finds genuinely appealing even today. By X-Trans 4 in the X-T4, he starts noticing what he describes as a more clinical, digital sharpness that feels less organic. The files are technically capable, pulling back heavily blown highlights in high-contrast scenes, but something in the rendering feels like a step away from what made those earlier sensors distinctive. Row is direct about it: he feels the X-Trans 3 had a look that later sensors didn't replicate.
The X-Trans 5 is where Row's opinion gets sharp. At 40 MP, he found the files introduced noise at relatively low ISOs and that the pixel density made editing difficult without banding appearing. That sensor dissatisfaction, combined with a shutter button failure on his X-H2, pushed him away from Fujifilm entirely toward Sony. He's since returned to Fujifilm not for the latest hardware but specifically for an X-T3 and an X-S10, both X-Trans 4 bodies, and more recently picked up a secondhand Fujifilm X-S10 with a Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2. The comparison itself is informal and entirely subjective by Row's own admission, but that's actually what makes it useful. These are real-world edits on real files, not lab charts, and the differences he points to in color rendering and tonal subtlety are the kinds of things that matter when you're actually printing or displaying images. Check out the video above for the full side-by-side editing walkthrough and Row's complete breakdown of all five generations.
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