[Music] Foreign Hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here today To give you my definitive review of the New Fujifilm Xt5 aps-c camera and of course the Headline feature here is that it has Been upgraded in the the XT Series has Been upgraded in the xt5 to the new 40.2 Megapixel x-trans sensor that was first Seen in the xh2 and so this is a serious Powerhouse in terms of performance and a Whole lot of different areas that we Will explore as a part of today's review Part of that move to that sensor is Another welcome shift and that is from Moving from a sense base ISO sensitivity Of 160 down to 125 here and that has a Few really measurable payoffs that we're Going to see a little bit later on in Our image quality section along with That we have got improved video specs We've got improved in-body image Stabilization improved tracking and a More compact size so a lot of positives In the balance sheet and in today's Review we're going to take a deep dive Dive into the features into the Autofocus performance the sensor Performance all of those things and Hopefully come to a conclusion that will Help you make a buying decision first However a word from our sponsor Today's episode is brought to you by
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Areas where there is some intentional Separating between the XT series and Then the higher H or xh series and so I Think that they're working to create a Little bit more Market separation and so Part of that is a little bit of a Downsizing here of this particular model And so now we have a camera that is 130 Millimeters wide 91 millimeters tall and 64 millimeters deep and I noted that the Only expect that is the same as the xt4 Is the depth of that grip the one area Where I would say you certainly don't Want to cut it back any further and so If you're thinking more in Imperial that Is 5.1 inches by 3.6 inches by 2.5 in Depth it weighs in at 557 grams or 16.8 Ounces meaning that we've shaved off About 50 grams of weight from the xt4 Outside of that as noted the control Scheme is the exact same and so as Before we have three primary dials Across the top two of those dials are Two layer dials and so the one on the Far left is the dial that allows you to Control ISO but on the bottom half it Allows you to control your various Drive Settings and so choosing if you're going To do continuous high or low HDR things Like that on the on the other side of The viewfinder Port we have the shutter Speed control dial and on the bottom of That you can choose between a Stills and A movie setup and one thing that I will
Say that has become kind of the overall Trend in camera design but one that I Really like is that you can have a fully Individualized setup for both Stills and Video and so even assigning custom Buttons and things like that to Different functions for the two Different things so that's always a Welcome thing on that front the final Dial is the one that I consider to be Fairly indispensable and that is an Exposure compensation dial that is very Very useful in a lot of different Settings Outside of that control control scheme Comes around to a front and a back wheel That are clickable and so it gives you One more kind of custom button there's a Custom button a couple of or should say Two custom buttons on the front that can Be customized a different functionality You do have kind of a Fuji unique Feature in that you have a dial that Allows you to switch between manual Focus continuous autofocus or single Shot autofocus and then on the back the Control scheme is identical with the Same placement of buttons all of which Can be customized There are however two differences that I Do want to highlight between the xt5 and The xt4 they may not be positive Differences for many of you first of all We have on the xt4 we move towards the
Fully articulating screen that allows You to be able to you know view at more Angles even to front monitor the camera That continues to be the standard on the Xh2 but here we have reverted back to The tilting screen which can tilt on two Axises but to me is a much more Restrictive screen option than the fully Articulating though there is some Difference on that and some some of you Prefer the tilt screen and I recognize That one thing that all of us can agree On is that it is an improvement when it Comes to its resolution it is now up to 1.84 million dots and so a little bit More resolution on the monitor we always Like that the other kind of unique Difference here is that the xt4 and Bodies before that did offer a battery Grip like a vertical battery grip Integration the xt5 is designed to where It doesn't even have the contacts for a Battery grip none is offered and Probably none will be offered because of That and I think that that has to do With the fact that there just wasn't Enough sales for it and so we do have a Grip extender option for those of you That want a little bit more to grab but If you want a integrated battery grip Again you're going to have to go back to The xh2 which does offer that we do have The same battery pack as before the Npw235 now because of you know improved
Efficiencies you can get up to 740 Max Shots in eco mode and so a little bit More in terms of that actually I found Battery life to be really really good in My test at this this point and so I Think that Fuji's doing a great job on That front also improved is the in-body Image stabilization which was new on the Xt4 and improved here from a rated 6.5 Stops to a rated 7 stops and so I did Find that the it worked very well either For providing good stability for Handheld video work which is always very Welcome and then of course a lot of Stability for or for still shots as well Though I will note that there is a Practical limitation you know they say Up to seven stops with the 35 millimeter F 1.4 well if you if you do the math That should allow you to hand hold shots Near the almost to the four second range I am very skeptical that anybody is Going to pull that off and so I think That there is a practical limit for some Of these ratings they're more useful I Think not in these those extreme Scenarios but more in just providing Quality stabilization for any lens that You put in front of the camera in a wide Variety of situations and I think that Fuji is doing a great job with its Stability I think that that's something That they've done quite well um all Along whether it started with lens
Stabilization and then moving on to In-camera stabilization we also have the Same port set up as before which means That you know the primary thing that is Our primary things I should say that are Missing is a dedicated headphone jack You would have to use a USB C dongle to Allow for that and then the other thing That is missing is a full-size HDMI port For those of you that you know really Prefer that for video output And I will note that once again the xh2 Has both of those features this is a Thoroughly weather sealed body it has 56 Different seal points these Fuji bodies Are really really nicely made there's Kind of a retro vibe to them that you Know either some people will love all of The analog type controls on here other People will would prefer things just be Done through the menu and I think that Again Fuji has created some of that Market separation and that some other Models have a simplified control scheme That you can choose in this case it's The Retro Vibe retro look and either you Love it or you hate it but it certainly Is something that is distinct too here And I'm more on the the end of of loving It I like having the physical controls Though I will say I don't find that the Actual control dial for shutter speed to Be all that useful it just allows you Full stops it's just to me it's just not
The most logical way of of approaching That but of course again your mileage May vary at that point unfortunately Another thing that is retained here even Though we have moved to a much higher a Resolution point is that we are still Limited to two uhs2 rated SD slots and So that means that there is a bandwidth Bottleneck when it comes to the memory Storage and we're going to see that that Shows up negatively when it comes to the Buffer depth because we've got larger File sizes we've still got the limiting Principle of the SD cards and as a Byproduct of that we are having some Severe limitations when it comes to the Buffer depth in fact the buffer depth is As low as only 19 uncompressed raw files And so obviously there's going to be Some variants whether you're you're Choosing uncompressed raw or lossless Compressed or compressed or jpeg or heif All different file formats that are Available here and so you're you're you Know buffer depth is going to depend Upon the file size that you are sending Through the pipeline but if you're Wanting uncompressed raws your limit is 19 and your maximum is 119 when it comes To jpeg so even if you're shooting like Lossless pressed raw which is kind of my Preferred file format on cameras like This you're talking about 22 frames Before the buffer starts to fill and the
Camera slows down so that's obviously Going to be a limiting factor here and Again if you compare to the X H2 which Now offers CF Express type B it can get Up to 400 of those uncompressed raws Compared to the 19 here that's a pretty Huge difference if you're looking to do Action type photography now other things Are really positive when it comes to the Autofocus and the tracking capabilities The shutter rate you can do up to 15 Frames per second with the mechanical Shutter and up to 20 though Interestingly not 30 here with the Electronic shutter but that does come in That Sports crop mode which is an Additional 1.29 times crop factor and so It's a little bit smaller a file and Thus you know makes the file size Smaller which allows them to you know Push that through a little bit more with A mechanical shutter you can get up to 1 8 000 of a second but with the Electronic shutter you can now get up to A ridiculous one 100 180 000 of a second Shutter speed though you have to have Pretty ideal conditions to get up to a Shutter speed that fast so very good Chance it's probably not going to be a Real world Factor too many times for you At that point the focus system is for The most part similar though with a few Extra bells and whistles it is still Kind of the basic hybrid a focus system
That is a combination of phase detect Overlaid over supporting contrast AF we Have 425 selectable AF points that cover You know most of the height of the Sensor not quite all of the width of the Sensor as you can see here but what we Do have is the newest Focus algorithms We have faster processing and we also Now have deep learning AI for predictive Tracking and and so that's going to help In a lot of tracking scenarios and There's also a bigger diversity of what Can be tracked through the learning Ai And so it's not just human eyes now but It is animals Birds cars motorcycles Bicycles airplanes and trains so there's A good chance that whatever ever action Subject you want to track the camera is Going to be capable of doing that now Unfortunately for this particular review I not only reviewed in the dead of Winter but also in a series of winter Storms and so my tracking opportunities Have been more limited in this Particular review I did shoot some Basketball in the gym though I was using The 100 to 400 millimeter lens which is Not a fast lens in terms of aperture by The way this new 150 600 millimeter it's An awesome lens in many ways but once Again in terms of the aperture it's not Particularly fast it's a slow lens and So that's not an ideal scenario for Lenses like that in a you know not
Particularly well-lit indoor gym setting But I was able to freeze action just Fine though it means boosting the iso to Get the shutter speed necessary for that But what I I could see just in kind of General use was the fact that there is a Definite Improvement to iaf detection There's you know more confident focus in General there's more confident video Performance which includes smoother Focus pools and I tested that using this New 30 millimeter F 2.8 macro it does Have a linear motor and so um I I saw Basically as good as what I've ever seen On Fuji I used to see a lot of visible Stepping and video Focus pulls Particularly with lenses without the Linear Motors and so it is just it's Good to see Fuji continuing to improve In that point I saw a better ief Stickiness and better overall accuracy Results though I would still say that I Slightly favor Canon and Sony in that Regard the tech just seems to be just a Little bit more refined in that point One thing I will say about the focus System is I still don't necessarily love The whole whole frame tracking scenario In terms of the visibility there even if You select the whole frame you're still Left with that green box you kind of Need to start getting that on your Subject which almost feels like a focus And recompose type scenario though while
You're on the subject it'll start to Move around and track with the subject I Just uh I I don't love that and unless You know the system has an eye to grab It's going going to you know require you To do a little bit of kind of manually Moving that around and I do prefer both Canon and Sony's ability to just kind of Intuitively grab the most logical Focus Subject and then you can overwrite if Necessary and and so um in this case It's kind of the reverse and again uh if You if you once you get accustomed to it It works just fine but it's just not my Preferred process overall however Some Solid moves forward when it comes to the Overall autofocus performance and I Definitely saw that when it came to Video as well now on the video front we Can now record up to 6.2 k at 30 frames Per second again the xh2 can record up To 8K but here we're capped out at 6.2 K 30 frames per second in 4k you can do up To 60 frames per second in full HD you Can get as fast as 240 frames per second A lot of different bit rates are Available and so there's a lot of Flexibility built into the system also Important you now have access to F log 2 As a profile not just F log but F log 2 Which increases the Headroom of the Dynamic range over 13 stops of dynamic Range available for editing and f-log 2. Also you can now output prores and
Blackmagic raw video over HDMI which you Know all of those are going to be you Know more upscale video features that Are going to be welcome and I will also Note that the improved in body image Stabilization means that it's easier Than ever to get run and Gun video Performance and and footage just looks Generally great good color science very Good detailed all of those things that I Think are important So let's talk about this new sensor this Is the headline obviously and in in my Opinion it is a great move by Fuji They've developed a great sensor here That adds a lot of the flexibility of Improved resolution but without a whole Lot of liabilities attached to it and so Let's dive into a deep dive of that and Just see what they've accomplished here So first of all we have a new base ISO Here for this 40 megapixel sensor so Rather than 160 being the base eye so we Now can go as low as 125 in the native Range now that does give us a bit of Advantage because it does expand the Native ISO range now if we compare Um you know ISO 125 with ISO 160 you Know there's not really necessarily any Difference to see here other than the Fact that it does give us a little more Shutter flexibility and also it's going To allow in certain you know lighting Conditions just a little bit more
Flexibility when it comes to that base ISO performance but as I kind of pan Around and have looked at this it's not Like can really tell a difference Between the two now as we start to move Up the iso range I am going to skip over A few stops in between in that we I find That these days anything ISO 800 and Below you really don't see any Difference and so I'll start here at ISO 16 or 1600 I should say and frankly you Know as I have come to expect from Modern cameras there really isn't much Of anything to see even at ISO 1600 you Can see that there is the very faintest Beginnings of a little bit of pattern Noise but the blacks are still very Inky You can see that our contrast is largely The same performance is very very Similar and in terms of our color Swatches they all look basically Identical now at ISO 3200 is really Where I feel like I start to see just a The beginnings of the kind of image Quality degradation that's going to come As you continue to climb up the iso Range and so that takes the form here in That you can just see there's a little Bit more pattern noise along this area Where whereas at the base ISO this is All really really clean you can also see That the black here it is not quite as Inky black so you are starting to lose Some dynamic range by this point there's
A little bit of pattern noise inside There on the uh the mirror inside the SLR and if we look up in this area you Can see that just kind of this black Area isn't quite as smooth some visible Noise there and there's a little bit of Pattern noise over the color swatches And the colors aren't quite as intense Still however looking at the image Globally ISO 3200 looks really really Clean so let's compare it as we continue To climb up starting at ISO 6400 you can See that kind of the things the patterns That we saw beginning at ISO 3200 are Carried a step further at 6400 there's Definitely some more visible noise if we Go down into this area on the table we Can just see that the noise pattern is Rougher and we can see that the black of The kind of the completely dark area is Not quite as Inky black as 6400 as it Was at 3200 this pattern is repeated Over here on this side and also I would Say that because of the rising noise Level and less dynamic range colors are A little bit less intense still however I would say for many settings a usable Image at 6400. if we compare that same 3200 to 12 800 though we see that things Are starting to change more dramatically Here noise pattern is much rougher and Then we can also see here we have got Just kind of those indiscriminately Brightly lit pixels that start to really
Raise the black levels and make them not Nearly as Inky you can see it in here Where the pattern noise is much rougher And if we look up in this area here we Can see in the color swatches that um You know there's there's much more you Know pattern noise also the colors Aren't as intense what I am not Necessarily seeing is a banding of color Or a shift color shift towards uh Something discolored so overall I would Say color Fidelity is pretty decent it's Just that color levels aren't as Saturated due to the rising noise now 12 800 is the end of the Native ISO range However there are two expanded settings At 25 600 and ISO 52 000 and uh and or 52 200 and we can see here that as we go Into that expanded range basically all The symptoms we saw at the you know peak Of the Native performance are just Exaggerated at twenty five thousand six Hundred image quality definitely Starting to really fall apart and that's Even worse if we move on up to 51 200 Which I would consider unusable um just The you know you've lost your your Contrast basically all together there's A very very slight magenta shift here But that's not really the problem Biggest problem is that the noise now is Is quite visible even at a global level Contrast levels aren't nearly as good Whereas at 12 800 I wouldn't consider it
Necessarily usable at a pixel level but At a global level yeah it's still quite Usable 6400 easily usable and ISO 3200 You can use it without too much of a Penalty so in our next series we'll Start to look at dynamic range and we'll Start with Shadow recovery so this is Going to be our base exposure here and On the right you can see it is now Underexposed by one stop and so what We'll show is the under exposure and Then the recovery and how cleanly it's Happening so obviously with just this One stop of underexposure kind of Recovering all of that is effortless Everything looks very very clean and as You start to pull back those Shadows You're able to do it without any kind of Apparent noise it all looks really Really clean two stops recovery you can See the underexposure is more pronounced But you can also see that just adding Those two stops of exposure back in post You're able to do that without any kind Of issue dynamic range looks good detail Looks good we're not really introducing Any kind of visible noise here Everything is nice and clean at three Stops the story Remains the Same we're Able to recover the colors without issue We're able to to recover the information That had been crushed and lost before Now we're to the place where the pattern Of the checkerboard is almost completely
Lost we're able to recover that with Only the tiniest bit of additional noise As a part of the recovery now at four Stops of under exposure you can see that A lot of information here on the left Has been lost and so if we take a look For example at the grip on the SLR you Can see it's recovered nicely I don't See any color shift there and down here There's just a little tiny bit of noise But we're recovering information that Was completely crushed and lost and Recovering it quite cleanly and even if We look up here on the divider portion Which was again almost completely Crushed we can see that that information Has been recovered cleanly I don't see Any kind of banding and no discoloration A very nice performance so even if we Push that to five stops recovery I don't Think that the recovery is as far as the Colors here is quite as smooth there's a Little bit of discoloration and more Visible noise that is there but in General you're getting most of that Information back and here in the battery Grip and inside the SLR there's just a Slight bit of discoloration and a little Bit more visible noise but by and large It is recovered quite nicely so a good Strong performance there for shadow Recovery now typically cameras don't do As well with highlight recovery and so We'll test to see how the xt5 does on
That so first of all at one stop of Overexposure and again we're drawing That exposure back on the right side we Can see that you know kind of the blown Out areas on the timer face it's very Consistently recovered no issues there Uh you know kind of blown out areas on The camera face recovered nicely and Then in our color swatches already you Know some of these colors have started To be lost kind of the peaches there but We can see that they've been pulled back And recovered just fine with the Highlight recovery now at two stops of Recovery we can see a lot of information Was blown out and so as far as the timer Face goes no problems there doing a good Job there I would say just a tiny bit of Texture information has been lost on the Honeywell pin tax area and we can also See looking up here we have lost for the Most part some of that peach color but By and large the other colors that were Starting to disappear have been pulled Back pretty nicely there on the right Side and here on the far left as well so Still a fairly decent performance at two Stops now at three stops of overexposure You can see that even at a global level There's some information that has been Lost here and so we can see that on the Timer face it's not an even coloration Looking here on the SLR we can see that You know there's a lot of information
Texture information that has been lost And not recovered and we can also see For example here that you know only the The frame is left some of this color has Been lost and is not fully recovered and And so we can see that things are Starting to fall apart there at three Stops of overexposure and at four stops Of overexposure you can basically forget About it I mean what has been lost here It just is not going to be recovered in Any kind of natural way at all that Being said Fuji does have a couple of Tricks up its sleeve the first of those Is if you move up to ISO uh 250 you have The ability to go into Dr 200 and so Basically what as you can see here we Have had the ability to now pull the Highlights from a One-Stop lower and so Basically while this is a three-stop Overexposure here the highlights are Basically the like a two-stop Overexposure and so as a byproduct as we Saw before you're able to recover that Information quite well and so it gives You a little bit more Headroom there Likewise if you move up to ISO 500 as we Have here you're getting even more of That Headroom and so now again Three-stop exposure butt or overexposure But because the highlights are now Sampled from the base ISO that's Actually two stops more and so now we See something that is as clean is
Basically like the one stop of Overexposure when it comes to the Highlights and as a byproduct of that Everything is just you know Perfectly Natural we've even got that peach color That we saw was lost at two stops of Overexposure typically and so I with Fuji cameras I almost always utilize This if I'm in a setting where I'm Getting higher Um I you know needing to shoot at Slightly higher isos anyway because it Gives you that advantage of just having More dynamic range and a single shot now Also extremely useful obviously is the Added resolution here and so if we zoom Into a pixel level on this we can see That there is some deep cropping Capabilities available at this 40 plus Megapixels of resolution and so can you Imagine you know for again looking at This for macro type work that you know How much additional you know cropping And kind of thus zooming capability is Available in that because of the Resolution likewise here in this Portrait shot this is at F 1.2 and it's From my bill 75 millimeter F 1.2 review And so here I was very easily able to Take it into this crop that I really Really liked with tons of resolution for Printing left and even if I crop right In tight to show off how well focused it Was you can see that even on my 4k
Monitor that I'm sampling right now There's enough resolution that this Isn't falling apart here and so Obviously that deep cropping capability Is going to be extremely useful likewise Here if we take a look at this landscape Type shot the ability to deeply crop Into images like this is going to be Really really useful so let's say for Example I take this crop right here well There's still a lot of resolution enough For printing here at this point but what We can see also is that I'm able to Really really alter from the original How much information is on display there And you know I could even crop over on This side to kind of get a sense of the Draw into the distance and again I've Got a beautiful end result here simply Because there is a lot lot of extra Flexibility there for the cropping That's obviously going to be useful for A lot of things up to including pooling Distant Wildlife closer and having that Ability to crop in and still have usable Resolution so in conclusion this is a Camera that has a great sensor and Obviously it has a fairly mature feature Set at this point through the years of Evolution five generations now in the XT Series and I think that it shows in the Overall polish of the camera you know It's it's not to say that it's a home Run in the sense of when I look across
The market ergonomically I still prefer The Canon R7 and its overall tracking Capabilities but it has the you know the Canon RF has almost no aps-c lenses and So as a system it's not nearly as Desirable as what Fuji has to offer at This point I still prefer the overall Autofocus performance of Sony bodies but At this stage their bodies are outdated And are in desperate need of an update So I think the Fuji in many ways has the Best all-round aps-c ecosystem system That is I think tremendously helped by The fact that they have opened it up to Third-party development and in 2022 we Have seen a lot of new lenses that are Coming have been previously released on Other systems that are now coming over To uh Fuji you know lenses from Tamron And from Sigma from samyang um the build Trucks 75 millimeter F 1.2 a fantastic Lens that I just recently reviewed on This camera uh you know and so I think That that helps to make the whole system More attractive and it removes one of The built-in advantages that say Sony Had previously and certainly gives Fuji An advantage over a further advantage Over canon in their recent delving into Uh you know mirrorless aps-c with the RF Mount and so there is a lot of good Things going on the Fuji xt5 has a great Retro Vibe and if you like you know Manual controls it's got a great
Assortment of that I think as you've Probably noticed in my references Throughout this review the greatest Competition may come from Fuji itself in The form of the xh2 which which costs About three hundred dollars more but it Has more upscale video features it has Much deeper buffers as the fully Articulating LCD screen that was lost Off the xt5 and so in many ways I think That if you are looking to do either Sports you should consider the xh2 and If you're serious about video you Probably also should consider the xh2 For a variety of reasons and so uh you Know for about 300 more that's not a Huge difference when you're talking About the difference between Seventeen Hundred and two thousand dollars I think That it should give at least some Photographers a you know a serious pause Considering what is going to work best For their purposes at the end of the day However the xt5 is a very solid camera And an improvement upon the xt4 in a Number of ways most notably in that Incredible new sensor which offers the Current highest resolution that I think You can find on the aps-c format I'm Dustin Abbott if you look in the Description down below you can find Linkage there to my full text review Also to my image gallery there are Buying links there and beyond that link
You should follow myself or Craig on Social media to become a patron or to Support this channel by purchasing Channel merchandise and of course as Always please like And subscribe thanks For watching have a great day and let The light in [Music] Foreign
