Fujifilm X70 review: For $700, the photos don't get much better than the X70's

Are you a manual-focus-first street photographer who views the world in wide angle and doesn't care about a viewfinder? Then you'll love the Fujifilm X70. This enthusiast compact, which incorporates a large-for-its-class APS-C sensor, runs $700 (£550, AU$1,050) and delivers the best photo quality I've seen for the price.

8.0

Fujifilm X70

$957 at Amazon

The Good

Great photo quality for the money and a manual-friendly design are the Fujifilm X70's high points.

The Bad

It has slow autofocus and some annoying controls.

The Bottom Line

It's not for everyone. But if you're a manual-control freak who views the world at a wide angle and won't miss a viewfinder, the Fujifilm X70 is a great camera.

But it's not all lollipops and rainbows. Slow performance and some annoyingly designed controls may mar the shooting experience for some folks.

Image quality

The camera's native sensitivity range runs between ISO 200 and ISO 6400, with expanded to ISO 100 and ISO 51200; you can only shoot JPEG in the expanded ranges. JPEGs in the entire native range -- up through ISO 6400 -- look clean. While there are still a lot of reasons to shoot raw instead of JPEG, for the X70 cleaning up noise or improving on the noise-reduction in the JPEGs aren't two of them.

Fujifilm X70 full-resolution photo samples

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Its raw files generally don't have a ton of color noise, and even brightening up underexposed ISO 1600 shots by 3 stops yielded decent results. As with most cameras in this class, there's a reasonable amount of detail preserved in the shadows, but not much reclaimable in blown-out highlights or overexposed shots.

Colors in the default film simulation setting look bright and saturated but still render very neutral. In overexposed shots the sky pushes to a flat cyan, but reducing the exposure corrects it. I do think the setting crushes the shadows a little too much, at least for my taste.

The lens is sharp all the way through the aperture range, from f2.8 to f16, though with the softening around the edges that you typically get from wide-angle lens distortion. The X-Trans sensor, which doesn't use an antialiasing filter to blur fine edges, contributes to that sharpness. In fact, the photos are so sharp I only half-jokingly recommend that you avoid selfies, unless you have perfect skin.

However, the lack of an AA filter means there's a lot of moire and edge jitter on fine lines in the video, which can get quite distracting. Highlights tend to blow out as well with the defaults, so some experimentation with settings is necessary. Otherwise, it's typical HD video.

Analysis samples

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Performance

Despite the incorporation of the same autofocus system as the fast X-T1, the X70 has some of the slowest-performing focus I've encountered recently. In center-point focus it iterates back and forth, but in the slightly faster multipoint autofocus it uses a wider area that, like most multipoint systems, doesn't always choose to focus on what you want and the point selections change with every prefocus shutter half-press. In continuous AF, it forces a refocus even if the subject hasn't moved.

Time to power on and focus and shoot isn't bad; because the camera has a fixed focal-length lens, it doesn't have to extend the lens as part of the startup sequence. But 1.4 seconds still isn't great.

The camera has an optional High Performance mode which ostensibly boosts startup and focus speed at the expense of battery life. I didn't formally test with it on, but startup seemed a tiny bit faster and the lens seemed to drive a bit better, but still took a long time iterating back and forth for focus. It also has an eye-detection autofocus mode which lets you choose right eye or left eye priority. (It falls back to face detection if it can't find eyes, but I find the thought that it can find a face that has no eyes a bit scary).

Focusing and shooting in good light takes 0.7 second -- that's what it should be for bad light, at worst. Instead, in dim light it rises to 1.1 seconds. Two sequential shots for either JPEG or raw also runs 0.7 second, significantly slower than competitors, and slow enough that I tended to miss shots with moving subjects. And with flash enabled that rises to 2.2 seconds.

Shooting in a typical street-photography configuration -- f5.6 or smaller, fixed shutter speed and the lens set on manual focus for a fixed distance -- is much faster. So if that's your technique then you don't need to worry about the X70's performance. The small files don't require much processing, so there's little overhead there.

Fujifilm rates the continuous-shooting speed at 3 frames per second, but it tested out at 3.3fps for JPEGs when the shutter speed was above 1/500th second, for at least 30 frames. However, the camera does shrink the focus zone to the middle of the scene with continuous autofocus in burst mode. Raw burst is less impressive: it can only handle about 6 frames (albeit at 3.9fps) before slowing and stuttering considerably.

The battery life isn't bad, though, despite a low rating of about 330 shots. As long as you charge it at the end of the day it should last long enough for most users. I couldn't get the supplied charger to work with the battery, though, or a second charger and battery; thankfully, the camera also supports USB charging.

Design and features

With a few exceptions, I really like the camera's design. Though the grip is small, it's curved so your fingers have a place to rest, and in combination with the back thumb grip, is pretty easy to shoot with one hand.

There are dedicated dials for shutter speed and exposure compensation, as well as an aperture dial on the lens with two big grips on it; the lens is pretty flat, so the grips are necessary to easily turn it. As with most cameras of this design, you can switch into shutter- or aperture-priority modes by turning the aperture and shutter dials, respectively, to the auto position. For full automatic, there's a switch on top.

A focus mode switch on the front can be operated without looking, as long as you can remember which positions the manual, continuous and single are in.

In addition to the typical selection and layout of controls on the back, there's a jog dial above the thumb rest. You use it to scroll the options within a given parameter (such as changing ISO sensitivity speeds within the quick menu) and to select 1/3-stop shutter speeds (so, for instance, when the dial is set to 1/125 second, that's how you get to 1/80, 1/100, 1/160 and 1/200 second). The playback and delete buttons are on the top bezel of the LCD, which feels a bit odd but you get used to it.

The display has limited touch functionality, though it supports the essentials: touch focus, touch focus/shoot, and swiping gestures for navigating during playback.

You can customize the Quick menu and all the button assignments, too.

But then there's the stuff I don't like so much. The record button is really hard to feel and press, though the location is fine. The navigation buttons are flat and difficult to press. The tripod mount is too close to the battery and SD card hatch, which will be a problem if you're planning to shoot on a tripod or if you use a sling strap that attaches there (as I do).

It's also frequently hard to see the display in bright sunlight. That can be a big problem since its 28mm equivalent fixed focal length lens is so wide you need to check the edges of your frame a lot. Unless you *want* stray limbs and other objects poking in.

I prefer a narrower lens for street photography -- more like the 35mm model on Fujifilm's higher-end X series cameras -- that's personal taste, though. On the other hand, 28mm is a nice wide angle of view for selfies and groupies.

Fujifilm's wireless system is one of the nicer ones I've used. Though the connection process is typical, Fujifilm's app is full-featured and fast, both for remote shooting and file transfer.

The camera doesn't have much in the way of unique features. It uses Fujifilm's film simulations, which control color and tone curves, and the ability to save 7 sets of custom settings -- I think that's the most I've seen.

Conclusion

Despite it's quirks, the Fujifilm X70 definitely makes my short list for enthusiast compacts, and if photo quality is your top priority, then it's a top choice for less than $800.

Comparative specifications