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  • Introduction

  • Design & Appearance

  • Tour

  • Ease of Use

  • Size & Handling

  • Auto Mode

  • Movie Mode

  • Playback Mode

  • Custom Image Presets

  • Drive/Burst Mode

  • Other Modes

  • Manual Controls

  • Focus

  • ISO

  • Aperture & Shutter Speed

  • White Balance

  • Exposure & Metering

  • Image Stabilization

  • Picture Quality & Size Options

  • Picture Effects

  • LCD & Viewfinder

  • Flash

  • Lens & Sensor

  • Jacks, Ports & Plugs

  • Battery

  • Memory

  • Other Hardware

  • Conclusion

  • Sample Photos

  • Specs

  • Introduction
  • Design & Appearance
  • Tour
  • Ease of Use
  • Size & Handling
  • Auto Mode
  • Movie Mode
  • Playback Mode
  • Custom Image Presets
  • Drive/Burst Mode
  • Other Modes
  • Manual Controls
  • Focus
  • ISO
  • Aperture & Shutter Speed
  • White Balance
  • Exposure & Metering
  • Image Stabilization
  • Picture Quality & Size Options
  • Picture Effects
  • LCD & Viewfinder
  • Flash
  • Lens & Sensor
  • Jacks, Ports & Plugs
  • Battery
  • Memory
  • Other Hardware
  • Conclusion
  • Sample Photos
  • Specs

Introduction

Fujifilm has had a heck of a year, releasing a handful of well-received superzooms (the HS20EXR and F550EXR/F600EXR) and a headline-grabbing prosumer compact, the X100. None of these have been perfect—actually, most of them have had serious flaws—but they've all earned a loyal following by doing things a little bit differently than any of the industry's heavy hitters.

They promised us more X-series cameras in the vein of the X100, and they delivered the X10, an advanced compact in the style and price range of enthusiast darlings like the Canon G12 and Nikon P7100. It's basically a pared-down version of the X100, with a smaller sensor and more conventional viewfinder. But at half the cost (and what Fujifilm promises to be a more reliable supply chain), it's poised to make a dent in the high-end point-and-shoot market, filling a gap for a charming, old-school, fixed-lens rangefinder-esque shooter that none of photography's big names have yet attempted to fill—if it lives up to its photographic potential, that is.

We had the chance to play around with the X10 for a few minutes at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York this week, so read on to see our first impressions.

Design & Appearance

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The Fujifilm X10 is a pared down version of the X100, one of the biggest buzz cameras of the past year. It's supposed to look like an old rangefinder-type film camera, with an angular construction and two-tone finish (if you count the faux-leather grip as one of the tones). It taps into the same retro-chic aesthetic that Leica and Olympus started bringing back to camera designs over the past few years with their respective M and PEN series. It's a bit bigger than cameras like the Olympus XZ-1 or Canon S100 and slightly smaller than the Canon G12.

Tour

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Ease of Use

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The X10 handles like an enthusiast camera, top to bottom, with a heap of external, direct-access controls spattered all over the body, a mostly effective optical viewfinder, and versatile shooting modes. From that perspective, it looks like it should be fun and effective out in the field (it was on the showroom floor at least). Some old-school rangefinder film shooters will love it for the same reasons. But it'll be too intimidating for photo novices, definitely not the kind of camera you'd buy on a whim at WalMart for your niece, regardless of the price.

It's tough for us to really judge how effective or efficient a menu system will be for somebody new to a camera, because we see so many of them all the time, and the systems are pretty consistent within manufacturer lines. That said, Fuji's menu system isn't as elegant as others. It's two-tiered—shooting and setup—but it isn't always clear which options fall into which category. That said, there are enough direct access controls, including an assignable function key, that most shooters should be able to stay out of the menu system most of the time anyway.

Size & Handling

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It's a solidly built camera, with a part magnesium-alloy, part aluminum chassis; hefty, but not cumbersome. The viewfinder and left-hand set of controls position it for classic two-handed operation, and it ships with a neck strap, so weight distribution should be pretty comfortable.

Auto Mode

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Auto modes are aplenty here, with a standard Auto mode; EXR Auto mode, which selects one of the alternative processing modes depending on the situation; and a large handful of dime-a-dozen scene modes, an identical or near-identical set to what we've seen on Fuji's recent higher-end compacts like the F600EXR.

Movie Mode

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The X10 can shoot 1080p/30fps video, 720p/30fps, and a handful of lower-res and high-speed movie modes. Like movie modes on most Fujis, it feels like a bit of an add-on—a feature that's there because cameras are expected to have video, not because it's really meant to work as a standalone video camera. Clips can't be edited, and autofocus did not appear to work after it initially locks. (Optical zoom works because it's manually controlled with a twist-barrel.

Playback Mode

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Playback mode seemed pretty standard for a higher-end Fuji compact. There's a dedicated playback button on the left side of the rear panel. The AF and AE buttons beneath it control playback zoom. The selection wheel navigates through sets of photos. Basic in-camera edits like cropping and resizing are possible as well.

Custom Image Presets

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The mode dial accommodates two user-definable settings.

Drive/Burst Mode

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Fujifilm claims that the X10 can shoot a maximum of 7 full-resolution frames per second. Their HS and F series EXR point-and-shoots claim similar speeds, though we've found that their buffers fill up after 4 or 5 shots, limiting the burst mode's effectiveness. The maximum overall speed is 10fps, captured at half-resolution or lower.

The self-timer function has 2 second and 10 second options.

Other Modes

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PASM modes are available, as other some other fun extras like 360 motion panorama.

Manual Controls

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If there's one thing the X10 certainly has, it's tons of control. Its body is covered in dials, knobs, and direct access buttons. Even the zoom is controlled manually. The top panel has dials for mode selection and EV compensation, as well as an assignable function button. On the rear, there's a column of controls to the left of the LCD, including a playback key and hot-keys for AE, AF, and white balance menus. To the right of the screen, there are jog and selection dials, an AF/AE lock, and a RAW toggle. A focus mode selector sits up front, tucked next to the lens barrel, which acts as the zoom mechanism and the power switch—the only power switch in fact. (Fuji thinks this setup allows quicker pocket-to-picture times than the now-standard power-on-top design…we'll see.)

Focus

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The X10 supports autofocus (area, multi area, and tracking) and manual focus. As it is on just about any point-and-shoot, manual focus is there mostly just to look legit on the spec sheet and on the focus-mode selector. The selection dial only very slowly cycles through the focal range. Autofocus is much quicker, however. That said, the X100 was plagued by autofocus problems (documented in our hands-on review and many others), so hopefully Fuji has addressed whatever caused the problem (or just left that out all together).

ISO

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The native ISO range spans from 100 to 3200, and extends to 6400 and 12800 at lower resolutions, like some of the Fuji's other recent EXR-based cameras. There's no dedicated ISO access button, but most users will probably assign that function to the wild-card key.

Aperture & Shutter Speed

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The maximum aperture is a bright f/2.0 at the wide angle and a very respectable f/2.8 at the telephoto end—about equal to what competitors like the Canon G12 or Nikon P7100 offer. It's obviously modeled after the Fujinon f/2.0, 23mm equivalent prime lens on the X100, which is undoubtedly one of that camera's best features, so it was a no-brainer for Fuij to port that feature to other X-series cameras.

In conjunction with the oversized sensor, the wide-open lens should produce a shallow depth-of-field effect under the right conditions. Low-light performance should be solid as well.

In auto mode, shutter speeds range from 1/4 to a speedy 1/4000 of a second, and in manual modes the minimum speed slows to 30 seconds.

White Balance

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There's a direct-access key for white balance in the left-hand button column. Most of the preset options are pretty standard, including an auto mode, Shade, Incandescent Light, and three fluorescent settings. Custom white balance is available, as is a color temperature selection.

Exposure & Metering

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Multi-pattern, center-weighted, and spot metering are all available. EV compensation runs in steps of 1/3 from -2 to +2 EV (controlled with a dedicated dial).

Image Stabilization

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The X10 is equipped with lens-shift image stabilization.

Picture Quality & Size Options

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Four aspect ratios are supported: 4:3, 16:9, 3:2, and 1:1, each at three different resolutions. It can also capture sweep panoramas from 120 to 360 degrees in scope.

Picture Effects

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There are no effects, though Fuji included their film simulation color modes, which mimic the tones of some of their classic film lines.

LCD & Viewfinder

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Like the X100, the X10 sports a 2.8-inch, 460,000-pixel LCD. Neither spec is anything special for a $599 camera, and it looked average in person as well, but the sweet viewfinder makes it easy to forgive.

Fujifilm is making a habit of cool viewfinder designs in the X series. The X10 has a zooming optical viewfinder, which works sort of like a standalone lens. The image in the finder parallels the camera's actual field of view, zooming in or out as the focal length changes.

That's expected in DSLRs and any camera with an electronic viewfinder, but the X10 is one of just a few digital compacts we've seen with that feature (the Canon G12 being one of the others). It's brighter than a DSLR's viewfinder, which can get murky bouncing off the mirror, and has a real OVF feel and response that EVFs can't match.

The X10 does not use the same "hybrid" viewfinder technology as the X100 (optical view, electronic overlay), but it's still a unique, thoughtful design.

It covers about 85% of the sensor's field of view, and has a diopter adjustment dial next to the eyepiece.

Flash

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The flash pops up from the top-left side of the chassis. Fujifilm claims that it's effective up to 7 meters, which would be impressive for such a small unit, though it was impossible for us to verify on the showroom floor. It feels solidly built and is well anchored to the body, unlike a number of the hinged pop-up flashes we've seen recently in some lower-end mirrorless cameras.

Lens & Sensor

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Another centerpiece of the design, the X10 rolls with a nice, bright lens. It's an all-glass, f/2.0-2.8, 28-112mm (4x zoom) equivalent, Fujinon piece with 11 elements in 9 groups. The zoom mechanism is a manual, twist-barrel design, basically an extension of the on-off switch.

The X10 is built around a 12-megapixel, 2/3" EXR CMOS sensor, considerably larger than typical 1/2.3" point-and-shoot sensors, somewhat larger (about 10% or less) than the sensors in advanced compacts like the Canon S100 or Olympus XZ-1, but much smaller than the DLSR-sized APS-C sensor used in the X100.

The EXR pixel array and processing system has been proven at least somewhat effective in some of Fuji's point-and-shoots, including the F600EXR travel zoom model. We won't go too in-depth here, but it can improve image clarity and dynamic range in some situations.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

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Micro-USB and mini-HDMI ports sit behind a plastic door on the side of the X10, a common combo these days.

Battery

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A Fujifilm NP-50 rechargeable lithium-ion battery will ship with the X10. This is the same battery used in many of their point-and-shoots, including the most recent F-series travel zooms. If you're a Fuji nut, you probably won't have to buy a spare battery.

Memory

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Like just about every other camera out there, the X10 captures to SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards.

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Other Hardware

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The X10 is equipped with a standard hot-shoe accessory port, useful for adding a more powerful flash or any number of accessories.

Fujifilm will also make available a metal lens hood with a 52mm accessory ring.

Conclusion

What we saw of the X10 at PhotoPlus was very encouraging. We were told that our demo model was a pre-production version, but we have a tough time believing that what we saw will be much different from what consumers will get when it debuts in in early November (two weeks from the time of writing).

The X10 already feels like a more mature product than the X100, which has been available since late spring 2011. The X10 runs on basically the same interface as Fujifilm's high-end superzooms, like the F600EXR, which we reviewed immediately before shipping out to PPE. That's fine—it gets the job done, and the X10 also has heaps of external controls so that most users can usually avoid the menu system anyhow. We couldn't test performance or image quality, so we'll have to wait and see whether it sidesteps the follies that hindered the X100 (inconsistent autofocus, mainly).

Like most of Fujifilm's cameras, the X10 is aimed squarely at an enthusiast audience. Will it sell a ton of units? Probably not. As fun as it might be for dedicated photographers to play with, this is not a mass-market camera, nor is it meant to be. Yes, novice photographers can pick it up, set it to auto, and start taking pictures. But that's not the type of user this is meant for. This is for photo-fiends, and it fills a niche in the market that none of the major players have really tried to occupy. We're quite eager to see how its image quality compares with other high-end compacts, but our first impression was a positive one.

Sample Photos

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Specs

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Meet the tester

Liam F McCabe

Liam F McCabe

Managing Editor, News & Features

@liamfmccabe

Liam manages features and news coverage for Reviewed.com. Formerly the editor of the DigitalAdvisor network, he's covered cameras, TVs, personal electronics, and (recently) appliances. He's a native Bostonian and has played in metal bands you've never heard of.

See all of Liam F McCabe's reviews

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