Fujifilm's latest entry in the X Series, the X-T5, brings with it some of the company's newest and most advanced features and capabilities in its most well-known design. Can it compete with the many powerful full frame options on the market? This excellent video review takes a look at the performance and image quality you will be able to expect from it.
Coming to you from Benj Haisch, this great video review takes a look at the new Fujifilm X-T5 mirrorless camera. The X-T series really popularized the X Series for Fujifilm, and now in its fifth generation, it offers a range of useful features:
- Back-illuminated 40.2-megapixel X-Trans CMOS 5 HR sensor
- High-resolution Pixel Shift Multi-Shot mode for 160-megapixel images
- X-Processor 5
- Minimum native ISO of 125
- Maximum electronic shutter speed of 1/180,000 sec
- 5-axis in-body image stabilization with as much as 7 stops of compensation
- 3.69-million-dot electronic viewfinder with 0.8x magnification
- Three-way tilting rear touchscreen
- Two card slots
- Subject detection autofocus with support for animals, birds, and other common subjects
- 19 film simulation modes
- 1.84-million-dot, three-way tilting rear LCD
- Weight: 1.23 lbs (557 g) (50 g lighter than X-T4)
- Weather-resistant design
- Optional MHG-XT5 hand grip
Check out the video above for Abbott's full thoughts on the X-T5.
After owning every Fujifilm X-T series camera, I can confidently say that the X-T5 is superior to every X-T camera before it in all areas except for one. Low light performance has definitely taken a major hit. While detail is retained, noise, hot pixels and less low light file flexibility is immediately noticeable. The increase in resolution is clearly noticeable when looking at fine details. Even on a pixel level, files are so much cleaner and more detailed. Video capabilities are also substantially better. Overall, the pro and cons should definitely be weighed before buying the X-T5. From a photography-only perspective, IMO the X-T3 and X-T5 are the best choices, followed very closely by the X-T2. Here's my first shot from the day I bought my X-T5. (Shot in RAW and edited in Photoshop, shrunken to fit post file size requirements)
I strongly disagree. The camera is substantially better, true. And there are a couple of negatives for sure - but iso performance definitely isn't one of them.
So the negatives:
- Bigger files means more data to process. And unlike the x-h2 this camera does have CF card capability, so the buffer is pretty poor at 19 frames for RAW. Shooting at 15FPS it's easy to see 1 second of shooting and it's full. You can double this by footing with the electronic shutter and a crop. But still poor compared to the x-h2 and even it's predecessors going back to the X-t1. This is something that doesn't just impact sport shooting. I hit the buffer every time I shoot macro, even using the electronic shutter.
- Another negative is that build quality. It's well built but clearly using Inferior materials. The top plate is, but doesn't feel anymore like, metal. Side doors feel like cheap plastic. Top dials and the clicking mechanism feels cheaper. Exposure compensation in particular feels like Lego.
- And finally it's very overpriced, especially in Europe. According to Fuji it's a midrange offering. The poorer performance, rehash of a 5 years old EVF, no battery grip possibility anymore, build quality, all support this. Yet Fuji wants flagship money for it. €2k is the price it should have been with all the performance and features of the x-h2. For the price difference, no 8k and absolute top end performance because of the body shape should have been enough to differentiate. Really, given the downgrade even over the x-t3 in some respects, this should be €1500, not €2k. I could get a discount already at €1800. I a accepted this, but it's still too much. Expect it to be around €1700-1800 within a year.
Onto the high noise performance. It's excellent up to iso6400; better than the x-t3. From there comparable. The reason is simple, the pixels are smaller, ergo the noise is smaller, so it is less obvious and presents more than ever like a fine film grain - soft and pleasing.
The mistake people do is to pixel Peep. If you compare images so the pixels are the same size, of course the x-t5 is noisier than the x-t3. But then the image is a lot bigger too. It is only fair to compare images that are the same size on screen/print. Then the x-t5 pixels are smaller and the image less noisy. As always the higher the iso, the less you should crop. You mentioned hot pixels with low light performance. Either you have hot pixels all the time or you don't. They don't just appear for low light images. Those tiny white dots you see when you zoom into an image taken at iso 12800 at 300%, that's noise on high resolution images not hot pixels. You get them on smaller resolution sensors too with long exposures. Just stop zooming in so much at high ISO.
Likewise the dynamic range is greatly improved. You can obtain an image from a practically white or practically white screen. Of course you take a noise hit when doing so, that's true of all cameras.
I agree the camera is the best featured x-t camera so far. It's not the best built, best value for money, or best performing, though. And if you don't pixel Peep (who actually views images at 300% anyway) then you will appreciate the best low light performance an x-t camera has yet been able to produce.
Firmware updates will no doubt make this camera even more compelling and I look forward to that. I would recommend buying only if you can negotiate a discount or wait until prices come down in the coming months.
I agree! The image viewing size is lost on those who've jumped onto the naysayer bandwagon without making the apples-to-apples comparison you mention. At the pixel level I also see a little more high ISO noise in the X-T5 than what's evident on my my X-T3, but when viewed at equivalent image size the difference is negligible and, as you noted, even preferable on the X-T5 as the noise "dots" are smaller relative to the image size. And they really do have a nice film grain-like quality -- and with all the other improvements, overall I couldn't be happier jumping up from the X-T3 to the X-T5.