Fujifilm X-E5 - A Practical Review

So, this is the Fujifilm XC5, the upgrade to the XE4, and it's quite a significant upgrade. You've got the 40 megapixel sensor. You've got the X processor 5 with all of the auto autofocus features of this present generation, and you've got image stabilization, which makes it very similar in terms of specs to the X-T50. And you've got the film simulation dial as well. So, it's very similar to that camera. Now, I've been using this for about a couple of weeks in Mad and in the Azors. And in this review, I'm going to let you know what I think about it. So, the camera looks lovely. It is a really nice design. I really like the shape of it. I've always had a soft spot for these rangefinder cameras. And I really did like the design of the uh of the XC4. Like a lot of Fuji smaller cameras though, I do have a problem with with gripping it. It's not great to hold in the hand. You can see my my little finger kind of waggles around underneath. And the fact that it's so flat along the edge, there's no real hand grip here. That that's part of the design. You get this on the XPro. You get this on You had this on the previous iterations of this camera. It's just part of the rangefinder styling, but it doesn't really feel as good in the hand as something like the XS20 or the XT5. I do find that I really like the layout of the exposure dials. I use the XT5 a lot and everything is pretty much the same on that camera as on this camera. At the front, you've got a dial beneath your finger here. This is for the ISO because there's no ISO dial here, but you can just press it in and it will also change the aperture if you're using a lens that doesn't have an aperture ring. You've got the shutter dial on the top, which I have almost always set to T. And then the dial at the back here, which will control the shutter speed. So, that works really, really well. Then, of course, you've got the exposure compensation dial here, but as I almost always shoot in manual, I'm never really using that. So, I really do like the layout of all of the exposure controls. It works very, very well for me when I've been using this handheld and when I've been using it on the tripod. Now, this certainly feels a lot better to me than the XE4. I It's a while since I've used that camera, but if I remember, it was quite minimalist and I think some of the controls were a little bit buried, so it didn't feel as intuitive to change the different exposure parameters as this does. But this camera, yep, I really do like this a lot. However, some of the layout of the controls don't work as well for me. This is a a factor of the rangefinder cameras because you've got these buttons across the top here. You've got the drive button, you've got the play button. What I find is if I try to operate those with my other hand and I and I reach across, my hand is going to go across the sensor of the EVF and that's going to shut off the screen. So, if I want to press the drive button, if I want to press the play button, by doing it with my left hand, I'm shutting off the screen and the screen goes blank and I can't see it. You don't get that on the SLR style cameras like the XT5 or the X-T50 because the viewfinder and the sensor sit raised above and here in the middle. It's only on the rangefinder style cameras. So, it is part and parcel of this really nice rangefinder design. But, it is something that did get in my way and slow me down quite a few times when I was shooting with the camera, particularly when I had the camera on a tripod. So, there's no D-pad on the back, but you do have this joystick, which is used for navigating the menu, which is used for moving the autofocus points around the camera, and also for going up and down in the drive menu. Now, I I tend to use the drive menu a lot because I switch from single shot into bracketing mode. And this is also where you put the camera into video mode. Now, a lot of the cameras like the XS20 or even the XT5, the video mode is much easier to access. You'll have it on a dial outside of the camera. here. You have to dive into the drive menu to get to it. And I think that's because Fuji see this much more as a as a photography related camera, as a stills related camera that people will use video more as an aside, which is fair enough. I think the way that Fuji seem to see their camera line is that the XS20 is the line for people who use video and things like this. And the X-T50, while they're very capable video cameras, they're much more they're much more orientated around shooting photography stills. And then finally, you've got the dial for the film simulation, which is over here. Now, I shoot RAW all the time. So, the film simulation dial isn't really something that I use. I don't really use Fuji's film simulations, but I do think this camera, like the XT50, is much more marketed to those kind of people who do shoot a lot of JPEG and who do really like the film simulations. And they are excellent on a Fuji camera. There's a lot to choose from. And I do like the way this dial is integrated. If you don't care to use the film simulations, it's not going to get in your way. It's not annoying at all. It's quite subtle. It fits into the into the design. So, you just roll you just roll through to get the different film simulations. Now, there are so many of them now that they can't all fit on one dial. So, what Fuji have done is given you three custom settings which you can apply to the other film simulations that aren't already on the dial. I think it's a nice solution. As I say, it's not something that I use a lot, but it I think it is something that Fuji marketing heavily. People do like it and it does work. it is integrated very well into this camera. I also quite like how you've got the focus mode switch is again it's a physical switch. I don't have to dive into the menu to use this. So you've got the switch from manual to continuous to single focus here in a in a physical slide on the side of the camera. It's uh it doesn't really get a nudge as I worried that it would be easier to nudge at, but I think it it works quite well. You've also got this little dial here on the top of the camera which is very reminiscent of an old film camera. Now, what this does is it enables the digital zoom. Now, because you've got 40 megapixels on this camera, you can actually you can crop in using the digital zoom and still get a relatively high resolution image. I'm not quite sure what this gives you. I think it's about 26 megapixels. So, that effectively gives you two focal lengths from one prime lens, but you do lose the resolution. You're not going to get the full resolution of of the sensor. But I do think this is something that people use, particularly people who tend to shoot a lot with prime lenses if you're doing street photography or things like that. And when you switch to that, it kind of zooms in on the viewfinder and grays out the area that you're not using. And then you've got the screen, which is the same resolution as cameras like the XT5 and XT50, but I do quite like the integration of the screen. I like this on the X-T4 as well. So the screen does pop out. So it is articulating horizontally, doesn't articulate vertically. But what you can do is pop the screen over the top like that, which makes it really great if you want to use it for for doing selfies, if you want to use it for recording video, like I'm using the camera here. So, I do think this is a really nice solution that works very well with rangefinder cameras because they're flat along the top. And then the EVF, no real difference here between the XC4 or the XT5. It is a little bit small if you're use if you're used to using a camera like the XH2 or the XT5. does feel quite small, but again, it's something that you get used to. It's not really a dealbreaker, and you do expect it in these cameras, which are a step down from Fuji's higherend cameras. Now, in terms of the build quality, this does feel very well, very solidly made, and it feels like a bit of a step up from some of the cameras that Fuji have previously put out, things like the the XS20. It feels a bit of a step up from a camera from the XE4. It feels more sturdily made, a little bit more solid. There's a lot more. It feels very, very metal. The buttons and dials all feel bigger and easier to press. The screen is really nice, but with that comes additional weight and bulk. It's not quite as light as as the XC4, but personally, I don't mind that. I like the solidity of it. It's not classed really as weather sealed, but I've used this in quite a lot of bad weather in spray, in rain, and mist and stuff like that. It's never really been a problem. None of it's leaked or or affected the camera in any way, but I've been using Fuji cameras now for 10 years. I've used pretty much most of the of the cameras that they've put out in the XS line and the XC line and the X-T line. Uh some of them weather sealed, some not. And I've never really had any issue with weather sealing before. So, yes, when I was out shooting in seascapes with this, I didn't really have any worry or any concerns about using it. And it does feel it does feel really good. It's a really solid feeling camera. Now when it comes to autofocus, the kind of shooting that I was doing with this camera in Medela and India isn't the kind of shooting that's really going to challenge any autofocus. It was mostly on a tripod and I use manual focus a lot. But I have the autofocus system in this is exactly the same as in cameras like the XH2, XH2S as in the XT5. It's got that same Xrocessor 5. So you're getting the same autofocus performance as in those cameras. And I have used the XT5 a lot. I've really put the autofocus in that camera to the test. Shooting things like monkeys moving through trees, which is incredibly challenging for autofocus, wildlife in Africa, polar bears in Greenland. On on all those occasions, I was also shooting alongside other people who were using other brands like Sony, Canon, or Nikon. And I found the hit rate of the camera when it comes to stills to be very, very high. I was very satisfied with the shots that I got. I wasn't really missing many. with the autofocus was really capturing the subject, following the subject, tracking the subject very, very well. However, when it comes to video, to shooting video, I've often been a little bit disappointed with the autofocus in the XT5. It does tend to lose focus and drift a little bit while it hunts to try to find focus a little bit when I'm recording videos like this. I often have periods where the autofocus just drops out a little bit. Even recording static subjects like landscapes, occasionally I'll see the autofocus drifting a little bit, but this camera is really orientated around still photography and the autofocus for still photography with the XProcessor 5 I found to be excellent. Now, the battery in this is the smaller battery that you get in cameras like the XS20 and the X-T50, not the larger battery that you get in cameras like the XT5, XH2, and GFX, which is a disappointing. It does have an effect on the amount on the on the length of time that you can use this for. It is rated for about 310 still images and 45 minutes of uh shooting 4K video which is pretty much the same as the X-T50. Now the XE4 didn't have image stabilization. This does. Fuji rate this as seven stops of image stabilization the same as the XT50 and XS20. So that is quite a significant upgrade over the XE4. Now, seven stops of image stabilization. I find image stabilization, it's very hard to measure. It really does depend on the focal length. If you're shooting very long at at 200 mm, then image stabilization is less effective than if you're shooting wide and also depending on things like shutter speed, things like that. Um, again, I've not really been able to put it to the test on this particular camera, but I have used it a lot on other cameras like the XS20, like the X-T5, which have the same image stabilization model basically. And for the and for a camera like this, which is designed for handheld shooting, image stabilization does work really well, and it is a big upgrade over the XC4. Now, when it comes to the kind of images that you're going to get from this, it's the same 40 megapixel sensor of the X-T50, of the XT5, of the XH2. So, you will get exactly the same image quality that you get in those cameras. It is a big jump in resolution from the XC4, from the 26 megapixel sensor that you got in that camera. you're not going to see a similar jump in terms of dynamic range and or or low light performance, but you will get more resolution, which means you can print the images bigger. So, analyzing the image quality of a camera or sensor like this is always a little bit challenging for a couple of reasons. The first is that a lot of this is dependent on which lens that I'm going to be using. And secondly, you're going to be seeing a video that I've that's been compressed down to 4K and then rendered and then compressed for internet upload. It's very hard to get an accurate idea of what the sensor is capable. But anyway, here we go. This is an image shot with the 16 to 50, which is the new kit lens that Fuji provide with quite a few cameras and is marked as being capable of resolving all 40 megapixels that you get in the sensor. So, you can zoom in here and have a look at the kind of detail that you get because really that's what you're looking at with the sensors. How much detail is it going to resolve? I think if we just go over here, you can see that it's 7,700 pixels along the longest edge. That really means you've got a native print size of about 70 75 cm along the longest edge at 100 pixels per centimeter. So, you can get really good size prints out of this and you can really, you know, if you really want to uh to dive in deep, you can you can punch in quite deep into the image. This is a 200 uh 200%. You can see that the image does start to break down a little bit here, but that's really what you're looking at when you want a larger sensor. I think it's also worthwhile looking at one of the older lenses in the Fuji lineup that's not that Fuji don't class as being capable of resolving all of the resolution on the 40 megapixel sensor. Now, this doesn't mean it doesn't work. It doesn't mean that you can't use it. What Fuji mean by that is that you're not going to get it's not going to render every single one of the pixels. So, you're not going to get as good an image with with that lens as you would with one of the lenses that is kind of marked as being capable of shooting with the with the 40 megapixels. So, this is with the 55200, which I've been using for 10 years now. It's a lens that I love. Um, you can see that it is there is a little bit of softness in the trees here, but it's really not bad. So, if you're going to be using it, I think particularly if you look around this building here, there's quite a quite a good bit of detail there. This isn't one of Fuji's expensive lenses. It's not one of the red band lenses. Um, so it's never going to be perfect, but it is very capable. Here's here's another image shot with it. And this again is at 100%. And you can see it is quite capable of producing quite a lot of detail. So, if you if you're thinking of getting this camera, if you're thinking of upgrading from something like the XC4 or one of the cameras with a 26 megapixel sensors and worried what it's going to perform, how it's going to perform, I've been using this 14 megapixel sensor on the XT5 and on this camera, and I don't mind which lens that I use. I don't think that it's it's something that you really need to worry about too much. You can see the detail down here on this fence post is absolutely fine. Now, one of the things about high resolution sensors is because the pixel density is so much higher, you can lose a little bit at higher ISOs. So, I want to have a look at some higher ISO images that I took that I've taken with this sensor. Now, I didn't really have an opportunity in the ASOS to shoot high ISO images. This is with the XT5, which has the exact same sensor. You'll see the same result. It's just to give you an idea of the level of noise that you'll get. So this is at ISO 2000 and you can see shooting the aurora in the night sky. There's noise there, but it is not bad at all. And when we look at the areas with detail, it's absolutely fine. The pebbles on the beach there, the figure standing at ISO 2,000, I think it's perfectly usable. Going up to 3,200 for an asteroid shot in Namibia. Again, the details in the lit area, like this tree, we we were light painting on the tree, are absolutely great. I think in the stars you can see there is noise coming between the stars but it is it is still very very acceptable. But when we start to go down here into the deep shadows then you start to see that the the detail and the resolution does break up around the grass. Then if we go to uh 4,000, this is about as high as I ever tend to go as a landscape shooter with um with ISO. You can see that it is starting to get softer. It's losing some of the detail. Again, I think I think this is perfectly usable. I would use this shot. It would need a little bit of work cleaning up, a little bit of sharpening. You can see in the sky there is still some noise, but yeah, the softness is starting to show in the fine detail here. And then when we go down into the shadows, areas like this grass are are a little bit soft and not being particularly well resolved. Now, when it comes to video, despite not really being orientated towards that, as I said, I do believe that Fuji see this more as a still photography camera, it is still a very capable video camera and has pretty much the same specs in that regard as both the X-T50 and the XS20. So, you've got all of the film simulations to shoot in if you like to get it straight out of camera, but you've also got FLOG recording. You can record up to 6.2K 2K at 30 frames pers, 4K at 60 frames pers, and full HD up to 240 frames pers. Now, I do really like the video output that you get from the camera. I use it a lot for shooting B-roll. Having the image stabilization makes it very usable handheld. So, yeah, it's not really a video camera in the same way that something like the XH2S is, but for most people's uses, it is a really, really capable camera. So, I've really enjoyed using this camera a lot. I used it a lot on my trip and do really really like it. It is a big improvement over the XC4. You've got significant upgrades on things like the resolution, on things like the autofocus, the image stabilization. There are it is heavier. It's a heavier camera to use. You do lose some of that minimalist styling, but I do find that it is a more comfortable camera to hold, although it's not as comfortable as something like the XS20 or the XT5. And it does feel like a much more sturdy and betterm made camera. It feels closer in terms of build quality to the higherend cameras like the XT5, but it is also significantly more expensive than the XC4. And I think this is also noticeable with the XT50 as well. There's a kind of big creep going up in terms of the price points that these cameras were at when they used to be sub $1,000 or €1,000. A big part of that is down to the increased costs of the larger sensor. In Europe, this is priced very similarly to the XT50, which is fair enough. I think that they match a lot of their specifications and and performance are very very similar. It's just really the styling that's different. But in the US, this is much closer in price to something like the XT5, which make it a little bit harder to kind of to to to recommend. The XT5 has got a lot of pro features like the bigger bigger battery. You've got the dual card slots. You've got higher resolution and bigger EVF, better build quality, weather sealing, things like that. Bigger buttons. It's easier in the hand. So, to choose this over something like the XT5 in the US, you'd have to really like the Rangefighter styling and not want to wait for the XPro 4, XPro 5, if that ever is going to appear. But taken on its own merits, this is an excellent camera and one that I really like a lot. I usually like to have two cameras. So, I'll have something like an XT5 and then I have a secondary backup camera, which at the moment is the XS20, which I'm recording this video on. But, I think that this may actually replace it. I like using this a lot more. I do like having the the same sensor in both cameras. I like having the same kind of dials and controls in both cameras. So, I think this works really nicely side by side with a with an XT5. It's very small, so it it works well as a backup camera, but it's also a lot of fun to use and gives you something different. I think the different feel uh gives given me something different from the XT5 and I have enjoyed using this a lot. So, um that's pretty much it for this video. I hope it's been useful. If you've got any questions about the camera, please drop them down below and I will get back to you. And if you've enjoyed the video, uh please give a like and subscribe because it really does help support the channel. And if you like my photography and you'd like to join me on a trip like this to Mada or Azour, all my workshops for 2026 are now open. Some of the 2027 workshops are open and we will be opening more. We're going to some amazing places like Utah, Namibia, Nepal. We've got trips coming up to Botswana, to Japan. You can find all the information on all my workshops on my web page. So, please check that out and get back to me if you've got any questions. And as ever, thanks so much for watching and good luck with all your photography. I'll see you in the next video. Take care.