The FujiFilm X100V Long Term Review | Worth The Hype?

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, a few items 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 is 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 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.