Fujifilm X10 review

The 1080p videos were clean and sharp, and displayed remarkably little noise in low light. There appears to be no anti-aliasing filter applied, though, so details looked pixelated, especially on diagonal lines. The stereo soundtrack was crisp and clear, and the autofocus motor didn’t impact on it too heavily. However, there were rhythmic bursts of electrical interference on the soundtrack. Switching from a Panasonic UHS-1 to a Sandisk Extreme III SDHC card solved the problem.

Our image quality tests gave much less cause for concern. The lens performed exceptionally well, with impeccably sharp details and no hint of chromatic aberrations right into the corners of frames. Automatic exposures were expertly judged, and when help was needed, the exposure compensation dial made adjustments easy.

Focus is extremely sharp into the corners of frames – click to enlarge

Photos taken in bright light at ISO 100 were smooth, sharp and natural-looking, in a way that we normally only see from CSCs and SLRs. We achieved similar results indoors by using a flashgun and bouncing light off the ceiling. It performed exceptionally well indoors using ambient light too, narrowly surpassing the Canon S100 to produce the lowest noise we’ve ever seen from a sensor of this size. Meanwhile, the wide-aperture lens, at f/2 for wide angle and f/2.8 at the telephoto end, gives a 1 2/3-stop advantage over CSCs’ kit lenses, so it’s not unreasonable to compare CSCs’ output at ISO 6400 with the X10 at ISO 2000. On that basis, it surpassed most CSCs for noise, with only the Sony NEX range for company. CSC users can swap their kit zoom lenses for wide-aperture primes, but that pushes up their prices and in most cases you lose the optical stabilisation. It’s swings and roundabouts, then, but the bottom line is that, if £400 is your budget, the X10 is up there with the very best CSCs for image quality.

Noise is nicely controlled at ISO 1600, letting a little grain through but maintaining plenty of detail – click to enlarge

Noise was even lower when the camera is switched to 6-megapixel output, and the innovative pixel array of the EXR sensor makes this much more effective than lowering the resolution on other cameras. There’s also a 6-megapixel mode that expands the dynamic range, rescuing clipped highlights without the usual compromises in noise levels. We’ve long been fans of Fujifilm’s EXR sensors, and the technology is working as well as ever here. There are various reports online of odd disc-shaped blobs around clipped highlights on the X10, but we had to work hard to reveal this problem in our tests. In normal use it was never an issue.

Some CSCs offer the best of both worlds, with superb hands-on controls, interchangeable lenses and SLR-level image quality, but the Panasonic GX1 is the most affordable example and it costs £700. Compared to CSCs at around £400 – the Sony NEX-C3, Nikon J1, Panasonic GF3 and Olympus E-PM1 – the X10 is in the same league for image quality and performance, and beats them all for ergonomics and manual control. The only areas where it can’t compete is for video capture and its inability to swap lenses. Then again, having a single lens that’s both wide-aperture and has a zoom function is something no CSC lens can match.

It was a bold move to launch a fixed-lens, small-sensor camera that’s as bulky and expensive as many CSCs, but Fujifilm has pulled it off with aplomb.