Just a bit of fun? You can now scrutinize the Fujifilm's X half images more than makes sense
Don't let the similarities fool you: there is essentially no overlap between what the X100 and X half cameras offer.
Photo: Richard Butler
The Fujifilm X half isn't a camera where absolute image quality is fundamental to its appeal. And if that idea seems anathema to you - 'a camera? where image quality isn't neccessarily paramount?' - I'd suggest you don't read any further.
To some extent, it doesn't really make sense to subject the X half to our standard testing: it's like analyzing the nutritional value figures of cotton candy / candyfloss / fairy floss.
However, given the X half uses a sensor that's many times larger than those used in the likes of the Yashica Y35 – and other cameras designed for fun, as much as photographic competency – we thought it was worth seeing how it performs. Especially as it also costs a fair bit more than most other 'fun' cameras on the market.
It's like analyzing the nutritional value figures of candyflossAlso, given its stylistic similarities with the larger, much more serious X100 cameras, we wanted to be able to make clear just how big the difference is.
So, despite being aware of the foolishness of the task, we committed outselves to trying to align and shoot a camera whose small, low-res screen and lack of custom white balance setting meant it was likely to be something of a handful. And whose images come out the wrong way 'round.
In practice we were pleasantly surprised: quickly discovering a Kelvin white balance setting that gave a near-perfectly neutral result, and finding its contrast-detection AF gave very consistent results, shot-to-shot. A quick look at the EXIF data allowed us to over-write the orientation metadata tag and present the images in the landscape format without having to re-save or re-encode the image and risk changing the image quality.
Studio test scene Image ComparisonThis widget is not optimized for RSS feed readers. Click here to open it in a new browser window / tab.At the center of the chart, the X half's images look broadly comparable to those of the RX100 series, with its similarly sized sensor and pixel count (the X half uses a 4:3 crop from a 3:2 sensor), appreciably behind the much larger X100VI sensor but ahead of a traditional Type 1/2.3 compact.
The performance drops away as you get further from the center of the image, with the Fujifilm not showing the level of fine detail that the RX100 does.
The difference becomes less pronounced as the light levels fall and ISO has to rise, and the gap between the Type 1 sensor Fujifilm and Sony and the small sensor compact grows.
The X half's sensor is around 4x larger than the one in the Panasonic FZ80 (and around 6x the size of the Type 1/3 sensors in the likes of the Yashica FX-D 100, Kodak C10 and Minolta MND 23), and consequently it gives a result around two stops better than the smaller sensor camera (and in the region of two stops behind the X100VI).
SummaryThe results are broadly what we'd expect, in terms of noise and image quality. Despite the use of a prime lens, the X half isn't pulling out nearly as much detail from its captures as the RX100 is. But it's fair to say that pixel-peeping with a camera like the X half isn't a rational way to spend one's time. After all, it's a camera that doesn't even pretend to take itself seriously (we almost wonder whether its lack of Raw recording it to avoid giving off mixed messages about its intent, rather than anything so prosaic as a lack of processing power).
A more pertinent line of enquiry might be how the X half's images look, compared to an RX100's, once resized and recompressed for the social media platforms they're designed to be shared through. Because if you're planning on printing its images on anything other than Instax (or, at most, a 6 x 4), then you're making even stranger choices with your life than we are.
