The bad: The camera offers some image-quality-related weaknesses, not the least of which is that to find the best photos you have to shoot in car at reduced resolutions.
The bottom line: There's a great deal to like about the Fujifilm FinePix X10 , but advanced shooters may be frustrated by the trade-offs for top photos, especially since it's more expensive than it's competitors.
Fujifilm FinePix X10 photo samples
There are two ways to check out the Fujifilm FinePix X10 . You can view it as a cynical make an effort to capitalize on the fanboy frenzy of the X100 with a camera that looks nearly the same as it, but that lacks everything that made it desirable towards the fans. Or you can look at it as Fujifilm's first serious entry to the enthusiast compact market, going up against stalwarts through Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic (and newcomers such as Olympus), with a design and specs that don't look too shabby for the reason that crowd. I'm taking the latter view. But despite a pleasant design, I think there are some practical and conceptual issues with the Fujifilm FinePix X10 that may turn off some photography enthusiasts.
For example, the camera is capable of producing some excellent photos, but it does its best low-light function in its special reduced-resolution, complete auto modes. In my experience, extra features on enthusiast cameras only matter once they add creative options--not when they're there to compensate for zero the hardware. And in the case of the actual Fujifilm FinePix X10 , they're all automatic, which defeats the purpose of a camera ostensibly for those who want to play with the settings. And Fujifilm claims the camera rises to ISO 12, 800--but that's in an automated, super-reduced resolution mode. The highest manual sensitivity is actually ISO 3200, just like the rest of it's class. The ability to change the shutter as well as aperture give me creative control; switching into EXR Higher ISO/Low Noise mode doesn't. Even if Fujifilm's EXR sensor were the best tech ever, it's simply too high maintenance.
Within its manual shooting modes, the Fujifilm FinePix X10 delivers combined results. At low ISO sensitivities Fujifilm doesn't overdo it using the luminance noise reduction for JPEGs, so you end up getting grainier photos than most, but without the concomitant lack of sharpness. However, it produces an odd aliasing-type artifact upon fine details, and midrange details like text in no way really cohere. But at high sensitivities this approach manages to preserve detail a little longer than luminance smoothing usually allows. As long as you do not have much detail in the photos, the JPEG high quality at ISO 1600 isn't bad. You can observe some yellow splotches that indicate poor blue-channel digesting, but it's relatively sharp.
With only a handful of exceptions, the Fujifilm FinePix X10 performs extremely well for it's class, tying with the XZ-1 for the guide. Even though you have to rotate the zoom lens ring to power on, it takes less time for you to power on and shoot than most--0. 9 2nd. It can usually focus and shoot very rapidly, 0. 3 second in good light and 0. 6 2nd in dim. I stress "usually" because I ran right into a few situations where it simply couldn't lock concentrate, for no apparent reason and no matter what I tried (till something worked). Two sequential shots runs regarding 1. 1 seconds, for either raw or JPEG, and I've no complaints about its speed during raw+JPEG capturing. Flash adds about 0. 4 second to that point. Its burst shooting sounds fast, but it's fairly limited: 7. 5fps for one second. Aside in the autofocus, the battery life is also a frustration.
I like the design overall, both aesthetically as well as for shooting. The body has a magnesium metal chassis and an aluminum front, and obviously takes after its more expensive sibling in the looks department--retro completely. But don't look for the X100's hybrid viewfinder; this can be a plain-old straight-through version like the one on the actual G12 and P7100. Surprisingly, I didn't use everything that much; in part because it's difficult to accurately frame scenes using these kinds of viewfinders with zoom lenses (you can't place in parallax framing lines), but mostly because I'd no problem viewing the LCD in bright sunshine.
While Canon and Olympus take the approach of utilizing a ring on the dial for adjusting settings, Fujifilm while using lens ring to power on and manually move. I like that there are focal-length indicators about the barrel, and the zoom has a good feel--not too tight and never too loose. The grip is small but in conjunction with the rubber thumb rest proves sufficient for single-handed capturing.
On the back you'll find the usual variety of buttons and dials, including a raw override switch. The navigation dial is a tad loose and it is associated buttons--macro, drive, flash and self-timer--feel a little bit too flat too use without deliberation. Because We review Fujifilm cameras so infrequently, I forget how the company labels the metering button AE rather compared to, oh, with a metering icon like the remaining world.
All the important shooting options are straight accessible via buttons, except perhaps ISO sensitivity, and you will program the Fn button for that. Which is actually good, because the menu system is straightforward, however fairly tedious: there are two top-level menus, but you need to scroll through multiple pages within their extremely granular submenus.
Fujifilm's "Pro" modes are in fact multishot modes. Pro Low-light combines 4 shots to enhance noise in low light and Pro focus combines as much as three shots to perform what other cameras phone background defocus. The third multishot mode, Motion Panorama 360 is some of those panorama modes where you pan the camera whilst holding down the shutter button, à la Sony's Attract Panorama. Fujifilm does let you save the individual images as well as the automatically combined one, which is a nice function. Like Panasonic, Fujifilm offers face recognition in addition to manage detection, and can save up to 8 encounters.
Conclusion
Though the novelty of the power-on diamond ring wears off pretty quickly, the Fujifilm FinePix X10 is quick and pretty enjoyable to shoot. But to get the best photo quality you need to shoot in the automatic modes, which runs counter to the thought of an enthusiast camera, and yet even in car it's too complicated to recommend to snapshooters that just want better photo quality. Plus, the photo quality and autofocus are too inconsistent for its relatively high price.