Fujifilm X-T10: A perfect combination of price, performance and joy

Introduction

The Fujifilm X-T10 comes slightly more than a year and half after the company’s flagship SLR-style X-T1 camera, and according to Fujifilm, incorporates a lot of the feedback the company had received from early users of the X-T1. It’s a mid-class camera that should draw plenty of attention from photographers of all ages because of its gorgeous retro styling.

Take one look at the Fujifilm X-T10 and you’ll hard pressed not think of it as a X-T1 junior of sorts. The X-T10’s classic SLR styling comes complete with twin control dials and a shutter button with a port for a screw-in cable release, much like what was used back in the day.

It’s slightly smaller and lighter, but inherits the 16-Megapixel X-Trans CMOS II sensor and EXR Processor II from the X-T1, and gains an AF system that was actually better than that in the X-T1, until a recent firmware update brought that up to par. It’s also not weather-sealed, which was a key selling point of the X-T1, but of course that only applies if the camera is paired with weather-sealed lenses anyway.

The X-T10 is also a lot more affordable than the X-T1 was at launch, so you could say that it is in a sense the 5D series (in Canon terms) or the D750 series (in Nikon terms) equivalent for Fujifilm– a slightly stripped down but still entirely capable prosumer camera that hits the sweet spot in terms of price versus quantity.

Would you take 85% of the function for just 65% of the cost (S$1299 vs S$1999, body only)? It's certainly an compelling proposition to say the least. 

Design and Handling

So what’s changed from the X-T1 to the X-T10? Well, at just 381g, the camera is slightly lighter compared to the 440g of its older sibling, and at 118 x 83 x 41mm it’s also slightly smaller (the X-T1 measures 129 x90 x 47mm).

While there still aren’t touch capabilities on the rear LCD, the X-T10’s LCD will tilt for those awkward angles (just like in the X-T1). However, its 3” screen comes with a lower resolution of “just” 920k dots. In fairness, that’s fairly sufficient for everyday use, but it’s a disappointing concession given the entry level Nikon D5500 has a 3.2” LCD that boasts 1,037k dots, and even the 3” LCD on the older Olympus OM-D E-M10 has about 1.04 million dots.

The viewfinder is also slightly smaller, being the same size as the one found on the X-E2, with 0.66x magnification versus 0.77x on the X-T1. This means you won’t be able use the dual image function from the X-T1, but the good news is that the X-T10’s Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) lag time is on par with the X-T1 at just 0.005 seconds, giving you one of the more responsive EVFs in the market.

We personally didn’t miss the larger display of the X-T1, because our larger concern was on the response time of the EVF. Colors are again fairly true to life, so we didn’t really miss not having an optical viewfinder. One of the advantages of having an EVF is that any exposure/white balance adjustments you dial into the camera will be reflected in the viewfinder, so it’s like shooting in live view mode with the advantage of holding the camera with a more stable posture; up to your face, as opposed to holding it arm’s length.

In terms of menu systems, there’s no change from the X-T1, which is a good thing. The lack of a touch screen is a bit of a disappointment as those are becoming more common, and do help a lot, but the Quick menu from the X-T1 is imported over to the X-T10, which means you can easily adjust most settings right from there. In fact, no less than 27 of the options can be assigned to the Quick menu, so this is one camera that you can certainly customize to be just the way you want it.

Moving on to the physical controls on the camera and you’ll notice the X-T10 is quite a bit more streamlined than its older brother. Gone is the separate dial for adjusting the drive modes; that’s now found on the mode dial. In moving to a smaller the body, the X-T10 also has had to lose the dial for adjusting ISO sensitivity, as well as the one for adjusting the metering modes. Those are important functions to have, but you can set those to spots in the aforementioned Quick menu, which is just as accessible in practice.

Under the mode dial you’ll find a small switch that raises the pop-up flash the X-T10 comes with. Personally, we welcome the inclusion of the pop-up flash, as that means one less accessory to remember and it leaves your hot shoe free for something like a remote trigger. The flash sync port in the front is also gone, so you’ll have to use a hotshoe-based solution to trigger external strobes (or use the onboard flash to trigger them via optical slave mode) if you’re doing off-camera flash work.

The final difference from the X-T1 is that there is now dedicated switch to put the camera in “Auto” mode (or Advanced SR Auto mode as Fujifilm calls it). Fujifilm explains this is for the times when you want to hand the camera to someone else to quickly take a photograph for you, yet want to be certain the photo will at least be properly exposed.

Shooting Experience

Simply put, taking pictures with the X-T10 is a joy. Paired with the XF 18-55mm kit lens, the camera feels to be just about the right size and weight to bring anywhere with you, and you get your fair share of admirers when you pull it out. Like the X-T1 before it, the X-T10 is responsive, and once you set up the Quick menu, you have all your most accessed functions on one screen, making it easy to change any settings on the camera.

Thanks to an improved autofocus system (which the X-T1 has since gained through a firmware update) which essentially gives you 49 focus points on a 7x7 grid across the entire frame in single focus point mode, and an even wider 77 areas on a 11x7 grid in Zone AF and Wide/Tracking AF modes, getting your focus on just the right spot is fairly easy, once you’ve experimented with it a little.

For example, when using the XF 60mm f/2.4 R Macro for certain close-ups we found that adjusting the size of the AF zone in Zone AF mode tended to work better when there wasn’t an AF point directly over our intended target. By taking the AF Zone down to its smallest – a 3x3 zone – and moving the grid over the specific spot, we found the camera would average the distances between everything in that zone, giving us our intended focal distance.

Focusing on the whole was fast and accurate, though we’d recommend the AF-C + Zone method if you want to do any sort of subject tracking, as that was what we had the most success with.

While the X-T10 will do a continuous burst speed of 8.0 frames per second just like the X-T1 before it, the buffer seems to be noticeably smaller, tapering off after about 8-9 shots (just about a second). This means you will have to be a little more precise when trigging the burst.

The in-built Wi-Fi capabilities mean that you can also use your smart device as a wireless trigger for the X-T10 via Fujifilm’s excellent camera remote app. As with the X-T1, this gives you full control over the camera; even down to Film simulation modes, and allows you to tap on your smart device’s screen to select the AF point via the “Touch AF” function.

One final thing that we would like to note is that the electronic shutter automatically disables the extended ISO capabilities of the X-T10. The camera has a native range of ISO of 200-6400 that extends up to ISO 51,200 and down to ISO 100.

You might think that these extended sensitivity settings would be perfect for the higher speeds the electronic shutter brings, but it appears you can only use one or the other. The electronic shutter only operates between ISO 200-6400, so those are some things to check for if you’re wondering why the options to shift to higher ISOs are suddenly blocked out.

Overall, taking photographs with the X-T10 is a very satisfying experience. Much like with the X-T1 before it. Images are vibrant with color, and the dynamic range in the captures is quite impressive to say the least. Just look at the image below for example.

The camera has exposed to maintain the highlights in the image, but with a little bit of post-processing, you can easily recover information in the shadow areas. (Click for the full resolution versions of each image)

The high ISO performance though is again very good, with images taken at ISO12,800 usable straight out of camera, and images at ISO 25,600 usable for prints after a bit of sharpening in post. Here's a 100% crop of our standard test scene, taken at ISO 12,800 (click for the full resolution image).

Sample Images

The sample photographs below were shot with the Fuji X-T10 camera with either the XF 18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS lens or the XF 60mm F2.4 R Macro lens. The photos have not been post-processed and are copyright to SPH Magazines. They are provided for your reference only and we ask that you do not reproduce them elsewhere. Click for the full-resolution images.

Conclusion

The Fujifilm X-T10 is a very capable camera at an affordable price point that should appeal to many photography enthusiasts. The pop-up flash is arguably more functional for everyday use, and the camera essentially has all of the main tools that made the X-T1 a great camera. We certainly wouldn’t discount professional photographers using it as a back-up camera given the quality of the images it provides, as the only real loss versus the X-T1 is the smaller buffer for continuous capture.

On a side note, we do wish Fujifilm would release a flash unit that’s competitive with the likes of Canon’s Speedlite 430EX III-RT and Nikon’s Speedlight SB-910. A powerful flash unit with good recycling times and TTL that works both mounted and off-camera would definitely make the X-series more appealing to working photographers, and this would be a big boost for the Fujifilm X-series.

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