The FujiFilm X100V Long Term Review | Worth The Hype?

⚠️ WHOA, NELLY! ALERT!

This camera is extremely popular. So much so that they're heavily back-ordered with no estimate of when they may be fully back in stock. Might we suggest reading about the Fujifilm XT5, the more dynamic X-S20, or our entire roundup of the best Fujifilm cameras?

The Specifics of the X100V

Even after thousands of shots around the globe, this camera still feels as robust as the day it was delivered. The but­tons and di­als maintain that pre­mi­um re­sis­tance you'd ex­pect from a product of this valor. Kitting this camera with the adapter ring and a 49mm filter, like the Cinebloom 10%, will give this cam­era the abil­i­ty to op­er­ate in tur­bu­lent weath­er con­di­tions. The new tilt­ing LCD con­tin­ues to be a wel­come ad­di­tion that makes cap­tur­ing low an­gle shots near­ly ef­fort­less. Further, the ef­fi­cien­cies built into the guts of the body al­low you to capture more images on a single charge than its pre­de­ces­sor. The move to FujiFilm's fourth gen­er­a­tion sen­sor has dramatically improved the op­tics to match the sharp­ness and re­solv­ing pow­er of the XF 23mm F2.0. You capture rich­er im­ages with better clarity that can be paired with unique film sim­u­la­tions, like Eter­na and Clas­sic Neg­a­tive, to bring more character in the image. Additionally, the abil­i­ty to fo­cus faster in dark­er en­vi­ron­ments with phase-de­tect aut­o­fo­cus is comparable to even some of the most elite camera bodies available. In turn, the use of an ND filter and leaf shut­ter al­low you to broaden the aper­ture in brighter en­vi­ron­ments and snap pic­tures in near si­lence.

The en­gi­neers at Fu­ji­Film have out­fit­ted this cam­era with some killer video fea­tures. Be­ing able to cap­ture stel­lar 4K footage cov­er­age shots in F-Log, or the afore­men­tioned Eter­na, allow me to get even more out of this camera. The video is some­thing I rely on, but giv­en the form-fac­tor, it of­ten finds its way to every pro­duc­tion I attend. You can record quality slo-mo footage at odd an­gles that of­ten feel more free-flow­ing than a two-hand­ed cam­era rig. To my surprise, FujiFilm has also added the abil­i­ty to use the built-in neu­tral den­si­ty fil­ter dur­ing video record­ing, something you wouldn't expect but are delighted to have. This means that you have a ro­bust video cap­ture tool that can give you 4-stops of light re­duc­tion in a flick of the switch when needed. While the video pales in com­par­i­son to pho­tog­raphy, the suite of filmmaking fea­tures adds no­table dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion be­tween this cam­era and its com­peti­tors.

With all that said, af­ter some se­ri­ous mileage on this camera, there were a few items that left me wanting more.

The Im­prove­ments

While I didn't ex­pect to use the X100V as a pri­ma­ry video so­lu­tion, the current reality of Covid in­vit­ed this op­por­tu­ni­ty of flexibility. How­ever, it proved to be chal­leng­ing in mul­ti­ple ways. Due to the tighter body, it was diffi­cult to use a mi­cro HMDI and USB-C ca­bles at the same time; there wasn't enough space be­tween the ports. After I even­tu­al­ly found a pairing that worked, I would get tem­per­a­ture warn­ings and oc­ca­sion­al shut­downs dur­ing ex­tended us. Did this leave me a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed? Sure, I would've loved to get more benefit out of the camera, but by no means was this some­thing I had an­tic­i­pat­ed to accomplish upon purchase. Through some settings and creative cable management, this is a camera you *can* use as a webcam but probably not something you would.

The biggest gripe I have with the camera doesn't have anything to do with the camera at all. The FujiFilm app needs a se­ri­ous up­grade and perhaps a re-write. Even with an iOS de­vice, this app is quite picky and tem­pera­men­tal. The prom­ise of firmware up­dates on-the-fly and wire­less op­er­a­tion are al­most nev­er de­liv­ered, and some­thing as sim­ple as trans­fer­ring im­ages has now turned into a game of roulette. While I am aware that I own over five dif­fer­ent FujiFilm bodies, my ex­pec­ta­tions may be delivering a more significant load than the av­er­age user — that shouldn't matter. It should just *work*. The beau­ty of great de­sign is that the user doesn't have to think about the abstract ac­tions; they nav­i­gate through them with a sense of ease.

This magical piece of equipment sets itself as one of the best mirrorless cameras from FujiFilm.

The Mar­ket

Even with the myr­i­ad of is­sues using the Fu­ji­Film Re­mote app, the X100V is widely loved be­cause of how well it de­liv­ers on the pri­ma­ry func­tions. For bet­ter or for worse, it's a cam­era that will con­tin­ue to get com­pared to of­fer­ings from the Le­ica Q & M se­ries. How­ev­er friv­olous that whole con­ver­sa­tion may ac­tu­al­ly be, the truth is for many peo­ple, this camera is the bet­ter op­tion. Sure, this is not a *real* rangefind­er, and the sen­sor is no­tice­ably small­er, but the ex­pe­ri­ence doc­u­ment­ing your sur­round­ings, you could ar­gue, is large­ly prefer­en­tial.

This cam­era is of­ten more for­giv­ing, no­tice­ably small­er in form-fac­tor, of­fers bet­ter end-user sup­port, and all at a frac­tion of the cost. While there's a clear and notice­able gap in the image qual­i­ty to some­thing like the Le­ica M10-R or Q2, that gap is quick­ly mit­i­gat­ed by one's own technique and cre­ativ­i­ty. For Fu­ji­film to be con­tin­u­al­ly com­pared to their Ger­man coun­ter­part is a state­ment in it­self. This isn't some lack­lus­tre Pep­si chal­lenge where one brand is des­per­ate­ly try­ing to ride the coat­tails of an­oth­er. This is user feed­back through stunning visuals and real-world adventures. The prod­uct speaks for it­self.

The Con­clu­sion

Over the last year, the Fu­ji­film X100V has large­ly im­part­ed one strong emo­tion: mod­ern, in­dus­tri­al en­gi­neer­ing tru­ly ex­ceed­ing expec­ta­tions. At no point did I ever feel like this cam­era un­der­de­liv­ered. While there are clear and no­tice­able im­prove­ments that can be made to the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence, no is­sue made me think that this was worth less than the ask­ing price.

From the ef­fort­less de­signto the tac­tile but­tons, the FujiFilm X100V is a cam­era you love to take every­where and, as a re­sult, cap­ture more. It's a spe­cial cam­era you want to have slung over your shoul­der or strapped to your hand. The tech­ni­cal achieve­ments along with the won­der­ful bal­ance make for a sol­id partner in the field that em­bold­ens you with a sense of photographic con­fi­dence. While that ex­pe­ri­ence can be repli­cat­ed on many oth­er cam­eras on the mar­ket, how the X100V does it is just —magic. And for that reason, I still believe, regardless of what you may be capturing an image on right now, the Fujifilm X100V is still the best companion camera on the market.