TL;DR – This is the best camera if you’re a photographer and want something more “fun” than your full-time DSLRs and lenses (plural). The freedom you get from having something this small that almost-instantly focuses makes this one of the hidden gems of the photography world.

The X100T is fun. Even more fun than when I first got my D40. Even more fun than when I first started photoshopping random things I took on my phone back in 2008. It took me a long time to actually get to finishing and writing this review becuse I had to see if there were things I didn’t like about this camera.

In Real Life | Shooting | Macro | Video | Recommendations

What is it?

Other than being awesome, the X100T is a mirrorless fixed-lens camera, that just so happens to feel like a rangefinder, except lighter. It uses a 23mm f/2 aspherical lens matched to an APS-C sensor to give you 35mm in real life.

Shutter

It also has an electronic shutter and, a first for me, a leaf shutter as opposed to a more standard focal plane shutter. The electronic shutter is basically “the sensor’s awake anyway, read it”. The leaf shutter bit is important – because it uses an iris-like shutter on the lens itself, you’re maximum effective shutter speed changes depending on the aperture you’ve set:

1/1000 max from f/2 to f/3.5

1/2000 maximum at f/4 to f/8

1/4000 maximum at f/8 downwards

Technically, this means if you want to shoot something in sunlight at slightly higher shutter speeds to combat exposure, you have to sacrifice aperture, right? Nope. There’s a built in 3 stop ND filer that you can enable (and map to a button) so you can shoot in the light at that 1/1000th of a second at f/2 (or slower). Or you could use the electronic shutter which lets you shoot up to 1/32000th of a second. Just be weary that rolling shutter exists when you’re in this mode.

With the leaf shutter, you can also sync flash (external or internal) up to the maximum speed of the camera’s shutter. Once you’re below f/8, that means flash sync at 1/4000. The Canon 1DX II and Nikon D5 can do a maximum of 1/250. Basically, turn face detection on and you can let the flash do it’s thing whenever you want.

Viewfinder

Oh my, the X100T’s Optical viewfinder (OVF) is great! It’s basically like having a rangefinder, except that you have electronic information show above it. The hybrid OVF gives you the frame edge, and can be configured to let you know how much battery you have, space left for photos, exposure information, a second “close focus” indicator for the centre of the frame, everything! Because it sees up and to the left of the lens, the frame will move to the bottom right of the finder. It’s all good, the OVF shows you what it’s focused on, and moves the whole frame. Success!

The Electronic viewfinder (EVF) is great too, brightness seems good in most lighting conditions, and it doesn’t give me any noticeable lag compared to other’s I’ve used, and doubles up as a way for you to see playback of your photos in the finder as opposed to the LCD. The EVF also rotates the information at the bottom (shutter, aperture, exposure comp, etc.) when you rotate the camera for a portrait shot. Smart!

In Real Life

Battery

It uses a removable lithium-ion battery to power itself. The battery life is a concern at times, usually running out after a day or so of semi-solid shooting. It’s rated at 330 shots by Fuji. I can get more out of it, something like 450 or so.

This is less than most DSLRs, and you end up feeling how much less it is. There are times where I pick it up, and notice it has low battery after only a short while (being about 2 hours) of having it on. The habit of leaving it on between long points of no shots is something to battle, because it will use up battery metering while it’s in your hand doing nothing, or swaying from your shoulder. OVF power save will help with this because it doesn’t read the sensor until it’s focusing.

You can charge it using either the external battery charger or (in the way I prefer) through USB. They warn the camera takes longer to charge by USB, but I haven’t noticed it. An hour or so gives it enough to go for at least another 50 or so shots.

Remedying this is letting the X100T go to sleep while it’s on, but unlike a DSLR which is instantly ready to shoot when it wakes up from sleep, the X100T takes at least a second or so to wake the sensor up, and wake up the viewfinder too. I just turn the X00T off if I’m not using it.

Ergonomics

The size of the X100T makes it perfect to fit into a bag, back pocket, jacket pocket, front pocket, or just swing by your side. Only issue is if you have long fingers or big hands. Here it is:

It’s small. Like, tiny. The dip at the front where your hand lives protrudes out for about the thickness or an SD card or so. I don’t have necessarily big hands, just longer “pianist” fingers. I still have some trouble grabbing on to this comfortably. I’m currently using the SpiderLight Hand Strap for mine so I don’t slip by accident. JB Camera Designs on Amazon also offer quite a few grips that’ll give you something you can hold on to.

Buttons aren’t a problem, and even with it’s (lack of) size, you can still do most things one handed on it. The dials are OK to use, the only time I think “I wish this happened” is with the Aperture and Exposure Compensation dials. It would be good to have a heavier relief on full stops of the Aperture ring (it clicks in 1/3 stops) and a dip when you get to 0 on Exposure Compensation.

Shooting

Shooting with this is a blast. Everything you regularly need is on a dial of some fashion that you can easily reach. Aperture is on a ring that clicks in third stops, much like the aperture settings on every DSLR around. Shutter speed is the large dial at the top, with the ability to spin the smaller dial on the back to get finer control in-between stops. Exposure compensation is the smaller dial on the right hand side of the camera. And you’ll memorise all of this while your eye is on the viewfinder after 10-20 minutes of using it.

Every shot I take with this is perfectly exposed. On the rare occasion it isn’t, I can either edit it in-camera or take the RAW files out into Lightroom and mess with them there. And yes, I have used in-camera RAW conversion and even shot in JPEG from it and very rarely had to touch them.

Film Simulation is enjoyable to use as well. You can RAW convert files into these film modes, or shoot straight from the camera into JPEGS that have these applied. Yet again, shots from this are good enough for you not to need to touch them as RAWs.

On long day trips, battery life becomes the issue of the day. My battery pack usually saves me at this point, but it means that I have to wait without shooting. The battery life is annoying; not because it runs out, but because it running out means you can’t enjoy using this until it’s charged enough to go again.

Other Functions

Macro

Surprisingly good is the way to describe it’s macro performance. Granted, it’s probably useless for anything that moves around, or anything that’s a bit squeamish; insect photographers want/need a proper telephoto macro lens on a DSLR. No hiding that. But with a resting moth, as long as you don’t make any sudden movements…

Autofocus & Manual Focus

Autofocus works perfectly. You can set it to an area that you choose, or the “multi” mode which tries to figure out where autofocus should be for you. I switch between the two modes in my quick menu, and have two buttons set to let me into choosing a focus point. In the Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) and LCD, you can also spin the scrollwheel on the back while choosing a focus point and make it bigger or smaller, depending on what you want to get.

Manual focus doesn’t work that well; the focus wheel is electronic rather than mechanical so it feels sluggish when you’re making adjustments as opposed to an instant change and feedback from the lens of a DSLR. If you want to use “Manual Focus” your better bet is to switch to manual focus, choose a focus point and tap the AE-L/AF-L button to get the camera to instantly autofocus onto that point. Focus won’t move until you move the focus ring again, so you can just grab it for fine adjustment. I’ve had to do this once, when I was in almost pitch-black and autofocus couldn’t see…while the AF illuminator was set to “off.” I haven’t done it since, and I haven’t wanted to.

Metering

Fuji call this “Photometry.” Basically, you have spot metering, average metering and multi metering. The multi option is basically matrix metering. Average just takes the exposure for each bit of the shot and tries to meter well for the mid-point of it, and spot metering….well, you know…meters based on a spot.

You’ll want to enable “INTERLOCK SPOT AE & FOCUS AREA” for spot metering, so that it works how you expect; pick a focus area, camera meters based on what you picked. Else, it meters from the center.

Turning face recognition on automatically switches this to a version of it’s metering that works well for people, as long as you’re in the EVF. It stays on in the Optical Viewfinder (OVF) The EVF goes one step further by drawing a frame around detected faces, overriding autofocus to cover the whole face rather than a small point.

Customisation

What’s my personal favourite bit about the X100T? Next to the dials, it’s that almost every button can be programmed to quick settings and features. I’ve changed my Wi-Fi button into the ND filter button. The button that was for Macro (down d-pad) is now the button for choosing the focus point. Right d-pad (I don’t remember what it was) is now for changing flash settings.

You also have a “Quick Menu” (using the Q button) that lets you access more options like ISO sensitivity, turning face recognition on and off, and most of the other settings that exist in the menus. Finally, a way not to have to dig through menus. I prefer this to a “Custom Menu” that lives alongside all of the other stuff I want to get away from.

Video

Remember at the start that I had to work on finding something I didn’t like about the camera? Well, Video is it. This is a great camera for photography – Film Simulation is great, it’s size it’s great, everything being on a dial is pretty much awesome. Video recording isn’t.

It does have a stereo microphone, and from some sample footage it’s semi-good at recording audio. Most dictaphones or portable audio recorders will do better. And that’s at around 1/6th of the price. Get your smartphone or point and shoot out and you have a winner.

Colour rendition with video just doesn’t look as good as the X100T can with photo – it almost looks oversaturated and contrasty. Sure, you could look to colour grade that out, but then you get to the issue of video quality. Moire, pixel artefacts and an overall “darker than expected” look all contribute to this being a bad camera for video. Plus side? When you’re recording video, you have the EVF and LCD to use, so you can see flicker from fluorescent lights before even hitting record and make adjustments on it beforehand. That’s a plus side. My D610 does that with Live View on the LCD, and if I have the choice between a better video camera or seeing what I’m recording through the EVF, I’ll take the former.

Video doesn’t work unless you’ve set it to a function button. If “record” doesn’t have a function button, you can’t record video on it. All of this is based off of how it performs at 1080p with 60fps. I haven’t had a reason to try it out on anything else.

It’s not abhorrent in recording video, it’s just that it’s definitely not it’s strong point…or it’s main point…and size is it’s side point. Basically, if I’m literally holding it and don’t have my phone with me, I’d use this for video.

Recomendations

Photographer? Get one. You won’t regret it. The only question you should really ask is “Black or Silver?” Sure, it won’t do full time event photography and isn’t a full powerhouse like the DSLRs we use, but it’s the most enjoyable thing to take out with you. And because it’s basically a 35mm lens on legs, you can take it out with you.

And, when you take it with you, everything is instant. Adjustment of the aperture, shutter speed, and even exposure compensation is instant with dials. Autofocus locks instantly and is almost always spot-on. Pressing the shutter button doesn’t give you a wait, it just does it straight away. Not having to switch lenses and wait for it to figure out what to focus on before shooting makes it great for quick candid photography on the streets, skin tones are perfect for portraits of friends and family (and maybe clients), and RAW support means you can tweak colour rendition to do whatever you want.

If you do a lot of video work as well as photography, or if photography is the secondary thing you’re thinking of for a new camera, don’t get the X100T. The video aspect doesn’t seem like it was focused on a whole lot. Sure, 1080p at 60fps is good, but most smartphones can do that, and 4K. And most smartphones don’t have the issues with colour rendition, moire and the like that this camera does. However, if you’re a videographer and want a camera just to do your photography, and you already have a great video setup that you’re not replacing with something that does both, see the first two paragraphs of this section.

A bit more casual? This can still be fun, even leaving it in the programmed auto mode. It might take a bit of getting used to for some of the other functions, but you’ll still be able to get some great shots from this.

The fixed focal length is something you should consider, however. If you’re the sort of person that always wants to zoom in while taking photos on your smartphone, this isn’t for you. Fixed-lens means one field of view, and if you want something that gets a bit more up close without you having to go and get close, a more standard point-and-shoot is better. And most probably costs less.