![\"\"](\"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/xf10_front.jpg\")
<\/a>Around the Camera<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The XF10 takes its main design cues from the X70 that preceded it, though I wouldn’t call the XF10 a direct successor to the X70, just a sort of little brother to it. The two cameras share the exact same width and height, the same 18.5mm f\/2.8 lens, and many similar features, but the XF10 manages to slim down the width by apparently shifting the sensor plane deeper into the camera and recessing the lens further into the body. Also, the XF10 lacks the X70’s tilting screen, which further slims the camera down, resulting in a body that is a few millimeters thinner than the X70. The XF10 easily slides into my front jeans pocket, though wearers of skinny jeans will not be able to make that work. However, it will fit in to most any jacket pocket with ease, and will work well for any small hip case meant for compact cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 is a very light camera, constructed with what feels to be a polycarbonate main body with metal top and bottom plates. It feels like a thin aluminum on the top and bottom. There is no flex anywhere in the camera body, and buttons are generally clicky and responsive. While the body looks and feels rather well assembled, my XF10 does have a slightly misaligned seam on the bottom of the camera that causes a bit of a rough edge when running your finger along the bottom left edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite its compact form factor, the XF10 has rather good ergonomics for a tiny camera. The front grip is small, but well-shaped to provide a nice place for your fingers to hold on to, and the shape and grip of the rear thumb rest is perfect, allowing for a very secure hold on the camera. It’s still fairly cramped when compared to a larger camera, but Fujifilm did a very nice job making a tiny camera feel comfortable to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 eschews the hotshoe featured on the X70, though given its intended use case, I don’t see it as a big loss. The rear screen is a 3″ fixed touch screen LCD with 1 million dot resolution. It’s fairly clear and was bright enough for me in the majority of shooting situations, though can be a little hard to see in direct sunlight. The touch operation works fairly well, though you still can’t navigate menus via touch. I especially missed this when using the Q menu. The one area where the screen lacks is in dynamic range, as highlights appear clipped earlier on the rear screen than they do in the file, and as such, I learned to rely on the histogram for my highlight exposure rather than the image preview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10’s lens extends slightly when powering the camera on, and you must steer clear of the lens when this operation occurs, or the camera will throw an error at you and make you turn the camera off and on. You won’t usually touch the lens, but given that the XF10 features a standard pinch lens cap, you have to train yourself to either remove the cap before turning the camera on, or to wait until the lens is fully extended. While I’d much prefer the lens to have a built-in protective cap that automatically retracts, such as those on the Sony RX100 series or the Ricoh GR series, in practice it wasn’t a major deal for me. Fuji nicely provides a cap with built-in tether that can be secured to the wrist strap, so the lens cap is never lost and always within reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of the wrist strap, Fujifilm has seen fit to include a rather lovely leather strap with the camera. I normally replace neck straps included with my mirrorless cameras with wrist straps, (generally leather ones from Gordy’s Camera Straps) but there’s no need to replace the one included with the XF10. It’s a thin, supple and very flexible leather strap (whether it’s real leather or not, I can’t be sure, but it feels great), with a faux suede lining that goes against your wrist. It is comfortable, secure, and flexible enough to fold up in very small belt bags with the camera. It’s a very nice touch that I frankly didn’t expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the overall aesthetic of the XF10 is similar to the X70, the controls of the two cameras are quite different. The X70 operated truly like a shrunken X100, with the standard Fuji aperture ring, shutter speed dial and dedicated Exposure compensation dial. The XF10 reverts to a simpler control layout, removing the aperture ring, installing a standard PASM dial in place of the shutter speed dial, and changing the dedicated EC dial to an unlabeled dial that changes function with the selected mode. The rear dial is also gone, but Fujifilm has added a front control dial around the shutter button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In aperture or shutter priority, the front dial controls the aperture or shutter speed, while the top rear dial controls exposure compensation. In manual mode, the front dial controls aperture with the rear taking control of shutter speed. There is a third dial-like control on the camera in the form of the multifunction control ring that surrounds the lens. This ring does not have detents, so spins freely. It smoothly operates, but in another slight hint of some cost savings, the ring brushes against something internally when spinning and creates a small friction noise occasionally when turning. You can set this ring to control a number of things, from the digital teleconverter, to ISO, to manual focus. I typically left it to do manual focus in my shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the top of the camera, in addition to the three dials discussed earlier, sits the power button as well as a single function button. This button is not positioned for one-handed use, and so is better served by assigning a function that is not commonly used on the fly. I set it to switch the camera into the snapshot focus mode, which I’ll get into when I discuss autofocus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear of the camera looks quite different from the X70. In place of the four-way switch, the XF10 gains a joystick control, that functions both as a means to easily move focus points, as well as taking over the navigation duties that the 4-way buttons were used for. This is the same joystick that is present in the X-T2, X-T3 and X-Pro 2, and moves focus points with ease. It can be pressed to quickly re-center the focus point if desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are the standard Menu\/OK and Disp\/Back buttons on the lower part of the rear, with two buttons on the thumb rest: Fuji’s Q menu button and another programmable function button. I set this button for ISO changing, which I could then select using either the joystick or the front dial. Two other buttons sit above the LCD screen for image playback and drive mode selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the physical buttons, Fuji has added a few other controls that can be accessed via the touch screen. On the right side of the touch screen sit soft buttons to toggle AF touch control, film simulation and AF mode. The latter is both convenient to access, and positioned in a way that I found myself occasionally changing focus modes with the heel of my hand when reaching for the playback button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also four programmable flick gestures that are activated on the touch screen by quickly swiping up, down, left, or right to activate one of four functions. These work well once you learn how to activate them, but it took a bit of practice to get the quick, short flick to work as I’d intended. It is nice to have added functionality, but I’d rather have the ability for a slide out soft button drawer, similar to what Panasonic does on their cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think Fujifilm did a pretty nice job with the controls of the XF10. I was able to set up the camera to allow for quick access to most of the controls that I wanted, but I do wish there was just one additional function button on the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The menu system is the same as the older X-T1 and X-T10 series cameras and is well laid out and organized well, though it lacks the useful ‘My Menu’ item featured on Fujifilm’s more recent cameras. Fuji’s Q menu, which allows for 15 settings to be quickly accessed is here as well, and is programmable, though some functions aren’t available to be placed in the Q menu. I’d like to have the digital teleconverter, which allows for framing with 35mm and 50mm equivalent fields of view, available in the Q menu, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, Fujifilm packed a lot of customizability and placed the controls quite well on the XF10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 sensor features 91 focus points, arrayed in a 13×7 grid, with the central 35 focus points having phase-detection AF capabilities. However, one of the weak points of the X70 was its rather slow autofocus performance, and unfortunately, nothing has changed with the XF10. The lens is the weak point here, as the phase-detect focus points and Fuji’s focus algorithms have been on point for quite some time. The XF10’s lens is just downright pokey. In good light, focus speeds are reasonably quick provided you aren’t changing focus position too much, but in dimmer light, focus is quite slow. In backlit situations, it’s downright awful, often failing to find focus at all if the AF assist light is off or the subject is too far away for it to be effective. If used for travel photography, which often doesn’t require quick focus, it’s not a major problem, but it is not going to be a camera you will use for action, or even for a lot of candid people shots where precise focus is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fujifilm seems to know this as well, but rather than redesign the lens motors, they’ve implemented a ‘snapshot’ mode, which has two settings, which utilize f\/5.6 or f\/8, and focus to the hyperfocal distance for each aperture. In this mode, the camera does not focus at all…it immediately locks focus at the hyperfocal distance and just allows for instant shutter response. This is a mode I think a lot of people will use for street photography, and it works well. Still, I’d rather have faster and surer autofocus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 is also not a performance camera, as it lacks the latest processors from Fujifilm, but it does a good enough job for its use case. The camera shoots at a reasonable 6 frames per second in burst mode, but the buffer is quite shallow at just 13 JPEGs, or only 5 RAW files before slowing down. It might be useful for capturing a quick burst occasionally, but I think most people are going to be using the camera in single shot mode most of the time. File writes happen at reasonable speed, but again, it’s not a speed demon here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Battery life on the XF10 is about average for a small camera, at around 300 shots CIPA rated. I purchased (and would recommend purchasing) an extra battery, but for casual shooting, the battery should last a typical day. I don’t imagine too many people will be putting thousands of frames a day through a camera like the XF10, but if you plan on that, I’d also plan on bringing lots of batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 uses a leaf shutter rather than a focal-plane shutter, which offers two nice advantages. First, the camera can flash sync at very high shutter speeds. Combined with Fuji’s very good fill-flash algorithms, the XF10’s built-in flash is great for adding a bit of pop to a subject when in shadow or when backlit during daylight. The shot above is one that shows the flash capabilities, but also was a shot that the AF failed on. The subject was completely in shadow, with very little light in front, but lots of light from the back. It took me around 30 seconds of fiddling before I was able to get the camera to focus properly. While there is some of that harsh direct flash look, Fujifilm’s flash algorithms did a great job with exposure here, balancing the natural light and flash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second thing that is useful about a leaf shutter is that it is extremely quiet. The XF10 has an electronic shutter, but unless you are shooting in complete silence, the leaf shutter is quiet enough that it can be used in most any situation without distraction. The electronic shutter does allow for shooting as fast as 1\/16,000s rather than the 1\/4000s of the leaf shutter, which comes in handy when shooting in bright light wide open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 comes with a rather full set of features that people have come to expect on Fujifilm cameras, including comprehensive connectivity options, in-camera RAW conversion and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fujifilm cameras have had Wi-Fi connectivity in them since the X-E2, and the XF10 has Wi-Fi as well, but also adds Bluetooth to the mix, which expands the feature set and simplifies things somewhat, especially with regards to geotagging your images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF-10 has the same Wi-Fi features as other recent Fujifilm cameras, allowing for image transfer to mobile devices, remote control with a live feed from the camera transmitted to the connected device, geotagging and so on. The addition of Bluetooth makes geotagging notably simpler. After pairing the camera with a phone and launching the Fujifilm Remote app, the camera will automatically connect to the phone when powering on without any further interaction with your phone. As a result, the camera can obtain the local time directly from your phone (which is great when traveling to a different time zone), as well as request location data and keep that location current. When I travel, I often will pull the camera out, take a few shots, shut it off and put it away, and repeat. With bluetooth on, I never have to touch the phone after first launching the app, and I still maintain good geotagging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior to the advent of bluetooth in cameras, I never bothered with geotagging, as the process was too cumbersome to do in daily shooting. Bluetooth gets rid of that barrier and makes it fast and easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this feature is unchanged from all other Fuji-X Series cameras, I feel it\u2019s worth discussing again. Fuji has, in my opinion, the most straightforward and useful in-camera RAW conversion capabilities. This is especially useful when shooting RAW only and transferring images via Wi-Fi, as it allows you to do moderately nuanced conversion to a full-size JPEG, which you can then directly share with Wi-Fi. RAW conversion is the same as on other Fuji cameras, but there\u2019s no need to change what\u2019s already very well done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The in-camera RAW conversion function can be called up simply by pressing the Q button during image review. You are then presented with a multi-page list of parameters that can be adjusted. These allow you to change white balance, push or pull exposure, adjust highlight and shadow roll-off, change to any of the excellent built-in film simulations and more. Once you\u2019ve made your adjustments, you can preview the result and then save it if you like what you see, or continue adjustment if you so desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 reuses the sensor from the X-T100 and the lens from the X70, so both of these things are somewhat known quantities. I talked about the lens in my X70 review, but I have some new thoughts with its performance on the XF10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 18.5mm f\/2.8 lens used on the XF10 is exceptionally slim, and that can come with some compromises. However, for the most part, the lens is quite nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regards to image sharpness, the XF10 lens will vary somewhat depending on your subject. For many subjects, you will notice very sharp results across the frame, even into the corners. On flatter subjects, you’ll notice some softening of detail at the edges and corners of the frame, and that’s because the lens on the XF10 shows quite a bit of field curvature. When focused far away, the edges of the frame will be best focused at around 5-10 feet from the camera. Focusing at infinity with all distant detail will show softer edges when focused at the center, or a softer center with sharp edges when focused using the edges. However, for most natural compositions, there is some closer detail near the edges, especially indoors, and for these subjects, the field curvature actually helps improve the overall image quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I first tested the XF10, I was a bit disappointed with the degree of field curvature, but in actual use over the next week or two, I found that images were quite sharp most everywhere, and that a lot of subjects actually benefited from this quirk. It’s definitely something to be aware of when you’re shooting, but it’s not a major issue in my experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens can also focus quite close up, and sharpness in the center of the frame stays at a very high level, though the corners become rather terrible when shooting at very close focus distances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens begins sharp across most of the frame at f\/2.8, but the edges and corners are definitely softer here, even when accounting for field curvature. Stopping down to f\/5.6 or so brings the edge sharpness up considerably and yields very nice results across the image frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 18.5mm f\/2.8 lens on the XF10 isn’t going to blow away backgrounds unless focused very close up, but the bokeh produced by the camera is quite nice. Blur discs are relatively even and generally round, and there’s very little nervousness to the blur as well. In all, I found the rendering to be quite pleasing. There can be a touch of a bright ring outline on specular highlights, but it’s not overly distracting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lens on the XF10 produces images with good contrast straight from wide open. The color profile is perhaps a bit muted, but with Fuji’s excellent color science, good color results can easily be had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chromatic aberration is fairly well controlled, with a touch of lateral CA visible and easily corrected, and a touch of purple fringing can present in high contrast areas from time to time, but overall performance here is quite good for such a flat lens. Flare resistance is good, but not exceptional. There is a bit of pincushion distortion that can be seen in some shots with very straight lines, but is otherwise fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 has the same 24-megapixel sensor as the recent X-T100. It’s a sensor that is based on X-Trans III sensor used in the X-T2 and X-T20, but uses the more standard Bayer color filter array, rather than Fujifilm’s signature X-Trans array. The result is a sensor that has similar levels of detail, but without some of the foliage artifacts that can be caused by the X-Trans color filter array. However, it can show some moire in the right circumstances and has a different noise profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve used Fujifilm’s third generation processors, either in the X-T100, or even their X-Trans siblings in the X-T2 or X-T20, you’ve got a good idea of the dynamic range available from the XF10 sensor. The XF10 does a very nice job maintaining detail and the shadows while providing good highlight control as well. While the range displayed on the rear LCD is somewhat limited, when bringing RAW files into play, there is about a stop and a half of highlight recovery available and a lot of detail that can be pushed out of the shadows, though at the expense of noise. While it won’t match a modern full-frame body for dynamic range, it is right in line with other APS-C cameras in use today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shot below shows some of the excellent dynamic range of the XF10 sensor. While overcast conditions typically do not pose too much of a problem for any modern camera, this framing utilized an arched hallway as a window to the main scene, which was unlit and rather dark. I pushed the shadows here around two stops, while pulling back the brightest highlights in the clouds to the left of the volcano in the distance. The file handled these adjustments with ease, bringing plenty of detail in to the white arches, and all the cloud detail in the clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bayer filter array on the XF10 sensor has an effect on both the detail levels and the perceived noise when compared to its X-Trans brethren. The detail of the sensor in most situations is effectively identical to what is available on something like the X-T2. However, the XF10’s Bayer array doesn’t suffer from the false detail ‘watercolor effect’ that can sometimes occur on Fuji’s X-Trans sensors when shooting foliage or grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noise levels are fairly good and are in line with most APS-C sensors from 2018. However, it does show more noise overall than the X-Trans sensors of the same technology, especially color noise. Images are quite clean at lower ISOs, though even at ISO 200, there can be some very light luminance noise when adding contrast to an image. Noise remains well in control through ISO 1600, and ISO 3200 is very usable. ISO 6400 can be used with proper noise reduction, even for print, but ISO 12,800 gets to be a bit much for anything other than web use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall image quality of the XF10 is on a high level, though with the caveats that I’ve discussed above. It’s not a perfect lens, and the sensor, while good, doesn’t break any new ground either. However, when you have this level of image quality in a super tiny camera, it makes for a great option for travel, and I was very pleased with the images I was able to get out of the XF10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The XF10 is an interesting little camera. It’s very compact, at a bit larger than a deck of cards, and can fit easily into a jacket pocket or even many pants pockets. It also packs the image quality of a good APS-C sensor and a good lens. The controls are well laid out and include two top control dials and a focus selection joystick. The rear screen is touch sensitive and looks generally good, though appears to clip highlights earlier than the actual images do. For quality imaging when you want to travel extremely light, it definitely fits the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the down side, the autofocus is really the biggest issue with the camera. It’s only moderate in speed in good light and is quite slow in dim light. It can also struggle to find accurate focus in dim light or on backlit subjects. The snapshot feature helps for street shooting, but it won’t be a camera for quick-moving subjects. The price of $499 helps to forgive some of the issues with the camera, as the overall package makes for a solid travel camera that is capable of excellent image quality. It’s a less expensive camera than most of its competition such as the Sony RX100 series, and I think it will be a great choice if you like the focal length and can deal with the slow AF performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fujifilm’s X Series has become a fairly nice success for the company, with the interchangeable lens camera system continuing to grow and improve. However, Fujifilm’s digital renaissance really began with the X100, a relatively compact prime-lens compact with an APS-C sensor. That camera’s legacy lives on with the X100F, but Fujifilm continues to experiment with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[319,220,225,257,8,390],"class_list":["post-7757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-aps-c","tag-compact","tag-fuji","tag-fujifilm","tag-review","tag-xf10"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/xf10_strap.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-217","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7757"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12666,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions\/12666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>Operation and Controls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>Continue: Autofocus, Performance and Key Features<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Autofocus and Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Key Features<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wi-Fi \/ Bluetooth<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>In-Camera RAW Conversion<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Lens Quality<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Sharpness<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Bokeh<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Color, Contrast and Aberrations<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Sensor Quality<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Dynamic Range<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Detail and Noise<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Cons<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Image Samples<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>If you enjoyed this review, check out my other reviews in the Review Index.<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"