[Music] Foreign Hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today To give you my definitive video review Of the Fujifilm xh2 the Fujifilm xh2 is The camera that ticks more boxes for me Than any other Fuji camera combining High resolution fast Burst speeds deep Buffers great video specs and a camera Design that fits well in my hands it's Not a Flawless camera there are some of The typical Fuji quirks and some rolling Shutter issues that I'll point out in Just a moment but this is a high-end Jack of all trades type camera it Reminds me in a lot of ways that the Canon EOS R5 and that it's a camera that Does pretty much everything well from Both the high resolution into things but Then also it works quite well as a Device for capturing fast action and Also for capturing great video as well So there is a lot that is in this camera At a price point of about 2 000 bucks That's one area where it doesn't compare To the Canon EOS R5 so is this the Camera that you should consider if You're looking to get into the aps-c Space well find out after a word from Our sponsor today's episode is brought To you by Ridge the wallet redefined Give your aching rear a break and ditch That bulky old wallet full of stuff you Don't need and move to a Sleek new Ridge
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3.3 inches and it weighs in at 660 grams Or about a pound and a half and that Includes a memory card and also the Battery installed so it is a little bit Larger it's definitely going to be Comparable in size to a lot of say the Sony full-frame camera bodies but if You're looking for small and light and Compact obviously this is not not what You're coming to the xh2 for if you're Looking for a really high-end design Here this is a magnesium alloy body and It has 79 weather ceiling points that's About 40 percent higher than what we see On the XT Series so this is more of a Pro grade body and as such it's a little Bit larger for me that's a good thing Maybe not for you other things that are Notable about the xh series versus the XT series is the design of the controls One thing about the XT series is it has Really kind of a retro vibe to it a lot Of analog controls on it a lot of dials Some people will love that some people Not so much what we have here is a more Conventional design in that we have the Traditional control wheel at the front And at the back and down here there's Not a third wheel I wish there was Instead we have a d-pad here there's a Joystick and there's a lot of buttons That can be programmed to different Functions but a lot of the pro grade Design centers around a top mounted LCD
Screen something that I see in a lot of Professional models and for me it's Something of course that I'm familiar With and that I like again your mileage May vary on it another bit of debate Will come when it comes to the actual Nature of the LCD screen at the back Some people really prefer the tilting Design of Fuji others like the fully Articulating I'm in that category there I vastly prefer the fully articulated Screen though better still is Sony's new Design with the a7r Mark V that is both Tilting and articulating maybe ending The debate once and for all but this is Obviously a very useful design that I Think that a lot of people are going to Enjoy one thing that's definitely not up For debate as compared to the XT series Is that we've got better ports here on The left side of the camera that Includes a full-size HDMI rather than That dinky micro HDMI and there also is A headphone monitoring Jack on the xt5 You have to rely on a USBC dongle to Attach headphones here we actually have The port as we should right on it there Is the USBC port and I will note that Fuji kind of remains as one of the Better camera makers in just being able To charge from a lot of different Devices you don't even necessarily have To have the power delivery standard it's Just more flexible it seems to run off
More memory banks or power Banks and Things like that and so I really do Appreciate that touch in that some Cameras have gotten really really Finicky in that regard and so I Appreciate that it doesn't have it we Have a similar NP w235 battery pack that We see in the xt5 also the xt4 models Like that the rating is just a little Bit lower here with a more robust camera But still it rated at 680 shots per Charge and of course most of us find That in real life use we actually get Better than that obviously it's going to Depend on what you're doing but overall I think that the battery life is quite Strong here another area that Differentiates the xh2 from the xt5 is That we are set up here with the ports For attaching a battery grip and one is Available for this where it's not Available for the xt5 and that might be A deal breaker for you right there with The xt5 you can do that here and so that Is one area another area where I think That some people including myself would Prefer at least having that flexibility I don't often use a battery grip myself But I certainly like having the option If I wanted to go to it another thing That sets the xh series apart xh2o Particularly apart from the X 65 is it Rather than just having a UHS 2 SD slot But we also have a CF Express type B
Card slot here which allows me to use The faster media which opens up higher Bit rate and video some of the higher uh You know recording Dimensions but also As we're going to see in a moment it Vastly improves the buffer depth it's More than 10 times better than what we Found on the xt5 in fact buffer depth Here is one of the huge huge areas of Differentiating between these models Even with the full uncompressed raw the Largest file size we can still get 400 Uncompressed raw and if you switch to a Compressed or lossless compressed raw or Jpeg you can get over a thousand images In other words buffer depth is never Going to be an issue you're going to be Able to hold that shutter down for Pretty much as long as you want With the xd5 I found that I really Needed to time my burst rate or my burst Speeds and there were moments where I Missed shots because I either started a Little too soon or the action went a Little bit longer than what I Anticipated and thus I was left without The ability to get every shot that I Wanted Now one thing that is very similar to The xt5 is the overall performance of The shutter now the shutter itself is Rated for more actuations 500 000 in This case versus 300 000 but we have a Similar 50 up to 15 frames per second
And mechanical shutter and then if you Switch to an electronic shutter you can Get up to 20 frames per second though That does come with a mild about 1.21 Times crop factor what they call a Sports crop What I did notice however when do Shooting certain kinds of action with The electronic shutter is that this Camera does really suffer from Rolling Shutter I found when shooting basketball That I got some really obvious rolling Shutter Distortion when it came to Things like the ball near the edge of The frame or even heads on occasion and So if you're wanting to have a dedicated Sports model you probably won't want to Go with the xh2s because it gives you That stacked sensor that lower Resolution Point yes but it's a stack Sensor and it's going to eliminate those Rolling shutter issues however I did Find that I got much better results if I Just switched to the mechanical shutter And it largely eliminated that rolling Shutter so not a deal breaker obviously You're not going to get 20 frames per Second but frankly in many situations 15 Frames per second is going to be plenty What I did find however is that when it Came to tracking action that obviously Fuji is making a lot of progress here And so we now have a focus system that Still is kind of the base that we've
Seen for a few Generations as far as Having 425 selectable AF points kind of A hybrid of phase detect contrast you Know overlaid but now we have both new Algorithms but also there's faster Processing and then there is deep Learning Ai and that gives you Predictive tracking for things like Tracking animals and birds cars Motorcycles bicycles airplanes and Trains there's a lot of things that it Can recognize it can predict movement And it can track it and I found shooting Bird in Flight that once I acquired Focus it did really really well now I Will note that I still feel like some of The better models from Sony and Canon Pick up focus a little bit faster and Attracting situation for example birds In Flight that initial tracking even Though I was using the you know the High-end 200 millimeter F2 or that with A the 1.5 tele 1.4 times teleconverter On it I found that it was a little bit Slower to acquire Focus but once locked In it tracked the eye very well and it Delivered well-focused results so There's a lot of progress that has been Made on that front and I found that even When shooting with it kind of surprising To me I found when shooting with the Viltrox AF proaf 75 millimeter F 1.2 Which is an amazing lens there's been a Since I did my review of that lens there
Has been a firmware update and paired With the xh2 I was surprised at how well It tracked the action in my going back To my pickup basketball game it actually Did really really well with almost Perfectly focused results throughout now If you're using the mechanical shutter Your maximum shutter speed is going to Be 1 8 000 of a second one 250th for Your maximum uh sync speed like for Flash sync speed if you switch to the Electronic shutter you can go all the Way up to a pretty incredible one 180 000 of a second shutter speed not a lot Of applications for that but again nice To have it there as an option I noticed In general that I AF tracking has Improved a lot I still don't necessarily Love Fuji's system to where even if you Have basically the whole frame available For tracking there's still that green Box on there and focus still seems to Work best if you start by putting that Box on your subject and then you can Move around freely and it does track Okay but I certainly would prefer I like The Sony or Canon approach where you Know you can just trust the camera Basically most of the time predict what You want to be in focus and then you can Override that if it doesn't get it right For some reason but at the same time I Can recognize that there is vast Improvements to the overall quality of
Focus here and whether I was shooting Animal subjects whether I was shooting Human subjects in a variety of Conditions I got really well focused Results and a confidence when it came to The tracking another area where this Camera has really moved ahead for Fuji Is when it comes to video recording Fuji Bodies have been quite good for video For a while but some serious Improvements here obviously starting With that Focus system but then of Course because we have the ability to Write to faster media a body that cools Well is we now can record up to 8K at 30 Frames per second there's a 6.2 K option And then at 4K you can do 60 frames per Second and at full HD for you know Serious slow motion you can shoot all The way up to 240 frames per second And so what that means is you have a Really full Suite of options a lot of Different bit rates you have the ability To shoot with f log 2 at this point and So that gives you over 13 stops of Dynamic range in the footage for editing Uh also you can output prores or Blackmagic raw via HDMI and of course With a much nicer HDMI connection Port There At the same time you also can get Another accessory that if you have the The LCD flipped out like this you can Actually mount a cooling fan there on
The back it's a separate accessory but It helps to ensure that you can record For really really long periods of time At high bit rates without worrying about Any overheating though I don't think That there's a lot of practical Limitations for those of us that don't Do really really serious video recording So I have noticed I haven't noticed any Kind of overheating issues at all though You might have noticed as looking around Me here today it's not exactly hot here At the moment As per usual the footage looks really Good it's nicely detailed and of course Fuji has good color science a lot of Different options for you know getting a Look that you want in your footage and Of course the ability to shoot an f-log And then degrade things further Another headline upgrade here is when it Comes to the overall sensor we've moved From that 26 megapixel resolution Point All the way up to a 40.2 megapixel Sensor here which is shared with the xt5 Of course but it is the highest Resolution point that I've ever seen for An aps-c camera And I'm impressed at the way that They've accomplished that as they have Allowed us to have that improved Resolution point but at relatively Little costs when it comes to additional Noise and other issues along the way
We're going to dive in and take a look At the overall image quality here and a Little bit of a sensor breakdown So first of all let's take a look at Resolution what I've got here on the Left side is the original shot shot with The xh2 and on the right side I've Cropped it into roughly the dimensions Of the 26 megapixel sensor so you can See how deeply you can crop into this Image while still retaining the original Resolution that you would have with the 26 megapixel sensor and of course you Know while the detail is not going to Change at a one-to-one level like this You can see that for a close you know Close up shot You can really increase that Magnification while still having a lot Of detail there the same is true of this Landscape shot and while it doesn't look Quite as dramatic because we're further Away you can see the original shot here At the 40.2 megapixels and then cropped Into 26 megapixels and it is a Significantly tighter crop while still Retaining lots of information and so Obviously that's going to be useful in Many situations You could also you know obviously crop In deeper so again here's an original Image here on the left I've cropped in To show off the nice detail on this Bud Coming here and this is a tighter crop
It's a little less than you know 4 000 Pixels on the long end but still lots of Resolution you need for printing or Sharing and so to me having that high Resolution if it doesn't come at an Extreme cost is always going to be Useful and at a pixel level I find that The resolution is useful I just there's Lots of detail this is from the 33 Millimeter F 1.4 it's not the sharpest Lens on Fuji but you can see here that It's produced beautiful sharpness and Contrast lots of detail and so you know Obviously the color science that so many People are a fan of there's a lot of Great things going on with the overall Resolution and the color science of this Sensor now typically the trade-off of High resolution is increased noise and That's for a couple of reasons obviously There's more pixels that are packed on To the sensor itself and so you're you Know you're not getting larger pixels You're just getting more of them but Also the fact that you can you know go To a higher magnification level at a One-to-one pixel level just makes the Noise more obvious So here is our base ISO and now that you Know extensitivity is down to 125 rather Than 160 which is a huge step in the Right direction so I just wanted to pan Around and give you a little bit of a Look at what our base ISO exposure
Should look like so if we compare 125 Base ISO with 1600 let's take a look at How things are holding up here so we can See that there is no apparent uh you Know color banding or you know blotches Of color if we look down into this area Here there is just the faintest amount Of noise there you can see the shadow Information still looks dark good Contrast that's still there and if we Take a quick look at our colors our Colors still look good we just have a Little bit of pattern noise that is There just kind of a fine noise that Comes as a byproduct of raising that ISO So relatively little damage if we move On to 3200 now on the right side and we Zoom into a pixel level we find that Again color consistency still looks good There's a little bit more visible noise There on the mirror inside there Likewise over here you can just see that That noise pattern has gotten a little Bit rougher I can also see that it isn't A perfectly even black here and so there Is some unevenness in the pixels uh here In the shadow area if we move from 3200 On the left to 6400 on the right we can See that that pattern continues and so Now our shadows are not as dark as even What they were and so that means we've Got a little bit less contrast we can See looking down here that the noise Pattern is obviously starting to get
Rougher there's a little bit more noise Inside here on the mirror here on the Right side but again not really any kind Of apparent color banding maybe just the Slightest bit of blotching there but Overall it looks still relatively clean We look up here on the colors swatches You know there's no kind of checkerboard Pattern or anything like that happening Yet so holding up reasonably well now if We go from 6400 up to 12 800 which is The end of the Native or natural range We can see that the same pattern has Continued now you can see on the right Side that there's a lot more what I Would call Hot pixels to where again We're moving away from good contrast Good Shadow information because there's Just a lot of leave unevenly illuminated Pixels that are there and so just moving In the kind of the wrong direction but Let's just go back there for a moment What you also aren't seeing is a lot of Like color blotching and if we step back And look at the image as a whole our Overall color consistency still looks Pretty good and I do think there's just A little bit of a kind of a color blotch That is there just a little bit of green Patterning and obviously the noise Pattern in here has gotten much rougher Down here getting rougher still but the Biggest thing is that we're starting to Lose contrast at the same time as we're
Going to see there still are plenty of Situations where you can use that high ISO level now from 12 800 you would move Into the expanded range which is usually Dangerous territory and so at twenty Five thousand six hundred I would say That our noise is getting really quite Rough And so there's only going to be a Very few situations where you know that Is going to be useful at the same time We haven't seen a big color shift and if We move on to 51 200 we can mostly see That our contrast is pretty much gone From the image but again no major color Shift but obviously the actual noise is Very apparent even on a pixel level or Excuse me on a global level and at a Pixel level things are just really Really rough and you can just see some Unevenness there not only in the actual Little pixels but you can also see some Color blotches and things in the shadow Information that have come up I would Avoid this obviously but I think 12 800 Can be used in some situations Here's a few real world images so this Is ISO 3200 at ISO 3200 yes there is Some you know a little bit of noise here But I would say in this kind of real World setting that is a perfectly usable Image that I wouldn't hesitate to use Basically for any kind of application This is ISO 6400 and so here if we go Into a pixel level particularly if we
Look at the Shadows Shadows are a little Bit rough we've lost some of that deep Contrast but at the same time I wouldn't Hesitate to take this image better to Get this image than to not take it at All and then at 12 800 I can see even at A global level obviously in what should Be an evenly exposed area there's Definitely some noise there however in This case it kind of looks like film Grain and if I look in at the image Itself there's usable detail colors are Fine again with the right kind of image I wouldn't hesitate to use this So now let's take a look at dynamic Range and so we're going to start by Repeatedly under exposing the image by One two three four and then five stops And seeing how it recovers so here is One stop of under exposure you can see No problem to bring that back and if I Just pop in for a moment there's no Issue with shadows noise nothing that Has popped up here now two stops of Under exposure we can see that Everything is still recovering nice and Clean no big additional noise that has Come in here now at three stops of under Exposure obviously the Shadows are Getting really crushed but we can see For example that if we look at this Strap here that it recovers just fine And if we look down here into this Shadow information that it is recovering
Fine and again not a lot of additional Noise that is coming back no problem There so at four stops obviously the Original image is basically Unrecognizable but we can see that Things are continuing to cover well I'm Not seeing any kind of color blotching Or issues there and overall there's Still just a minimal amount of noise That has been added now five stops of Underexposure is obviously starting to Push things a little bit we can see that There is a little bit of a color banding Here that is showing up and if we look Up in here there's just a little bit of Extra noise that is showing up in some Of these color block are these color Swatches down here there's a little bit Of noise but really that isn't too bad Of a overall Shadow recovery for such an Extreme five stops of underexposure now If we go the opposite direction and we Start to overexpose things here's where Most modern cameras have a greater Vulnerability you start to lose color Information there starts to be hot spots Textures are lost so here one stop of Overexposure you can see even at that Already we're starting to get a little Inconsistency in terms of the color that Is there um and some of the texture Information being lost but we can see That with bringing it back in post that The dynamic range is saving that image
And we're able to regain it also our Colors they're deepening back up again No issues there at one stop now at two Stops and then recovered we can see up Here in the color swatches that some of This these colors that were lost they Are being regained and of course over on The right side with the darker colors we Can see that their saturation levels are Improving meanwhile here on the timer Face we can see that it is recovered Fairly well I would say that I'm not Sure that the texture is completely Consistent there on the front of the SLR Here we can see that we've got back the Lost texture information and so overall I would say a pretty successful recovery At two stops now if we compare the Three-stop overexposure we can see that We're no longer fully recovering Everything some of our color swatches Either the colors being lost or the Saturation levels being lost here in the Timer face you can see that we've Basically lost outside of the little Shadowed area we've kind of lost the Proper color there and if we move over To the surface of the SLR some of the Textures here and here have now been Lost and at four stops you can just Forget about it I mean everything is Lost irretrievable that is not a usable End result however Fuji does have a Couple of Tricks here if we raise the
Iso to 250 IT unlocks a menu option Called dr-200 if you select and what Happens there is that it takes the Shadow information from the current Setting but then it takes the Highlight Information from the base ISO which Means that there's more information that Is encoded there so here for example I Could do a two-stop recovery just Perfectly all the information regained Back and moving on I can even do a Successful three-stop recovery here Because I've got more information Available to me and so as a byproduct Here I've got the information there on The timer face that we were lost before This texture information is back color Swatch information is there and if I Move up to 500 or higher it opens up Another option called dr400 to where in This case it would take again Shadow Information from the current ISO but in This case it would take the base ISO Which is two stops of additional Information so that means now this is a Three-stop recovery and you can see that It is looking really really nice and Clean all that information is there Color swatches and I can even move up to The equivalent of a four stop of Highlight recovery here and basically it Looks like the three-stop recovery from Before and that I'm not really losing Any information I'm gaining back you can
See this is just completely blown out But it's still a usable image so I would Certainly recommend engaging this if you Want to have just that extra bit of Dynamic range case in point for a real World shot in conclusion we have got This which is using the dr200 setting And so what you can see is that I've got All the information that I would want in The shadows but I've also been able to Save all the Highlight information and So I can basically now process this to Taste and so I can either Crush some of Those Shadows a bit more or I can allow This guy to overexpose or to bring it Back kind of at my whim and so it just Gives you more options in Post-processing overall however we have Got a really strong sensor one of the Best aps-c sensors that I've seen so in Conclusion while there are things about Some of the competitors that I do still Prefer overall I would say I still Prefer the tracking action of a camera Like the Canon EOS R7 it has less issues With rolling shutter you can get up to a Whopping 40 frames per second in the Burst rate though I will note that this Tops it definitely when it comes to the Overall buffer depth But the Canon's biggest problem is that There are so few lenses in an aps-c Amount native aps-c and mount Ford at This point whereas with Fuji you have a
Really big lens catalog and one that's Being added to now much more Aggressively since they have opened up The protocol to third-party developers And we have seen lots of new lenses in The last year or so from uh from Sigma From Tamron viltrox has already Mentioned samyang and others and as a Byproduct of that it makes the Fuji System much more attractive more lenses To choose from at more price points and So right now when it comes to the aps-c Approach I really feel like Fuji is Pretty close to the top of the game There there's things that I really like About Sony as well but Sony hasn't Really given us an updated camera body In years at this point and frankly the Best model they have out right now the A6600 it's starting to feel predated by Comparison to these newer competitors so I think that if you've got two thousand Dollars burning in your pocket and You're looking for a a high and I would Say pro-grade aps-c body I don't know That there's any better right now than The Fujifilm xh2 it certainly is my Favorite Fuji camera personally that I've ever tested I'm Dustin Abbott now If you look in the description down Below you can find linkage to my full Text review also to the image gallery There are buying links there along with Links to follow myself or Craig on
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