Fuji X-M5 first impressions

The day is finally here and the X-M5 has officially been released. Many photographers/videographers had been testing this camera in its beta version, under strict NDA, and now they were finally able to release their initial reviews. Most of them haven’t really had the time to do precise testing as the camera is bound to be released in mid-November, with the first version of firmware.

I have watched most of them and here are my thoughts:

General

We already knew that it was small and very light, the build quality seems to be mainly plastic, doesn’t feel premium, but also not a cheap toy. The fully articulating led screen is only 1.04 million dots, which could be an issue while shooting outside on a sunny day.

The front command dial is clickable and customizable; you can choose between aperture, exposure compensation, ISO, and film simulations for each still mode (P, S, A, M). This is a nice feature although the addition of the film simulations option is completely redundant.

The micro HDMI, USB-c and the headphone connectors are all on the right side of the device, which is great for self-recording, as the cables don’t get in the way of the LCD screen, not so great for had held recording as it prevents you from gripping the camera in the classical manner.

The position of the microphone connector is a novelty for the X-series of cameras, on the upper back side above the LCD screen. Attaching an external microphone will be less obstructive although the rubber cap can be a little in the way.

You can also just use the 3 build in microphones, which don’t sound that bad and offer you the possibility of choosing between 4 audio modes: surround, front priority, back priority, or front & back priority (for interviews). In the menu you can also choose to turn on one of the 3 noise reduction settings; wind filter (no need for a dead cat), low cut filter and the new steady state noise reduction which is useful for disabling noises that have a fixed frequency (air condition, wind).

The card slot is tucked next to the battery on the bottom of the camera. Being so small, the ¼ inch screw is right next to the battery door. If you use a tripod plate, you will have to unscrew it to take out the battery or memory card.

It uses the NP-W126S Li-ion battery, which takes up a large portion of the camera and only UHS-1 memory cards, which is a strange choice from Fuji, as it limits the overall performance of the camera.

Software improvements

The vlogging menu has had an extensive makeover, compared to the X-S20, with many new features added, such as Portrait enhancer (soft skin mode with 3 degrees), self-timer, and the new 9:16 short movie mode. This new mode allows you to shoot 9:16 vertical video in 1080p without having to turn your camera. It’s a nice addition for vloggers who want a quick way of making shorts and quickly posting them on social media. You can still opt for the classical way if you want a higher resolution (full specs here).

Long play modes are available both for 4k and 1080p recording, increasing the time before the camera overheats, at the cost of a crop; 1.18x for 4k and 1.29x for HD. This can be particularly useful when recording outside in the summer or in generally hot areas.

Two new bitrates of 8 and 25 MBPS have been added to all movie modes (except high speed recording which is at 200 MBPS), which is useful for exporting “lighter” videos. The 8 MBPS videos do seem a bit too grainy and low quality, but at 25 MBPS it works fine.

As the X-M5 has a limited amount of customizable buttons, they added 4 customizable touch screen options, triggered by swiping up/down/left/right on the touch screen (touch screen function must be toggled ON). This is a welcome addition and provides more versatility on how you can use and personalize the camera.

The two big ones: Autofocus and stabilization

From all the videos that I saw, the auto focus preformed not so great, there were familiar signs of hunting and autofocus struggling to latch on, like we have seen with the X-H2s. Most reviewers didn’t really spend much time on the autofocus, many of them completely avoided it. Those who did talk about it didn’t have anything particularly bad to say about it, for them it worked fine – nobody was expecting it to be on Sony level. Most of them did mentioned that they will do more in-depth tests when they get their hands on the production 1.00 version of the camera.

Regarding the stabilization (in video, no stabilization for stills), vlogging videos without the digital stabilization on were unusable. The paired with the lens OIS of the kit lens, the results weren’t much better.  DIS + OIS was OK, but at the cost of a 1.32x crop at 4k/FHD (in 6.2K DIS is unavailable) and using higher shutter speeds. DIS + OIS + boost mode had an even higher crop, but the stability did improve.

The crops while using DIS will limit the choice of appropriate lenses, even more if filming in 4k 60p (additional crop bringing it to 1.44x) when using this camera for hand held on the go vlogging. You could use a tripod/robust selfie stick to get more distance from the camera, but that would be uncomfortable to hold for longer periods of time.

If using the camera for static shots, this is not an issue, so this camera might be more suited for a more static type of vlogging and not walking vlogs.

X-M5 available in mid-November

All in all, there weren’t any major surprises, we pretty much knew what the specs were. It didn’t performed badly, but these were pre-production models with the beta firmware so for a full verdict we will have to wait until the camera is released in mid-November.

Until then below are the videos that I found provided the most relevant information: