When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
Pretty though it is, the thing that really caught our eye about Fujifilm's recently announced X-E5 wasn't a design flourish or aesthetic detail, it was the fact that the company has been taking note of how its users are actually using their cameras.
The film recipe concept, using tweaked versions of the brand's film simulations to give bigger vibes and more expressive looks, is an entirely grassroots development. Up until now, users had had to use the cameras' custom settings banks to capture these recipes, but with the X-E5, there's a dedicated system specifically to do so.
And, intriguingly, Fujifilm has adopted the term 'recipe' directly from its community.
While there are some photographers who'd rather start with a completely blank canvas in a way that a LUT-based system allows, the option to riff on existing, attractive color modes, created by engineers with lots of built-up experience in the field, has its own appeal.
Now let's hope Fujifilm extends a similar capability to its other current cameras, with one of those firmware updates that inspired the appropriation of the term 'kaizen' in the first place.
