Fujifilm X70: my ‘new’ toy

A few weeks ago, I succumbed to temptation and bought a secondhand Fujifilm X70 as an everyday carry camera. It was released in 2016 but went out of production relatively quickly because of a shortage of the sensor it used. Today, the nearest equivalent is the Fujifilm X100T and successors. But why this camera in particular?

• Portability. The most obvious feature of the X70 is that it is small, very small. It measures just 11.25 × 6.44 × 4.44 cm and weighs only 340 grams (including battery and memory card). In fact, it will fit in most jacket pockets (as long as the filter adapter and lens hood are not attached). Nevertheless, it is very solidly built (mostly of metal, the way cameras used to be made).
• Controls. Despite its small size, the X70 has a comprehensive set of manual controls – just like the ‘retro’ dial system found on larger Fujifilm cameras. So, it has very satisfying physical dials for shutter speed, exposure compensation, aperture, and focus, which means that I can make quick adjustments without rummaging around in the menus beloved of point and shoot cameras.
• Touchscreen. Instead of a viewfinder, the X70 has a tilting touchscreen. I wasn’t sure about this at first (my experience of touchscreens on smartphones and my Nikon DSLR has not been great). However, I quickly got used to it. Now, I find it easier to compose photographs on the X70’s touchscreen. And it is very easy to set the focus point using the screen.
• Autofocus. It uses the same hybrid autofocus system as the Fujifilm X-T1, i.e. up to 77 focus points, with the central 9 points offering phase detection. So the autofocus is fairly fast (though not as fast as more modern systems) and accurate. In addition, I have found that you can use the autofocus when the camera is set to manual focus and then use focus peaking and the focus dial to get things really sharp.
• Image quality. The X70’s image quality is really good thanks to its 16.3-megapixel X-Trans CMOS II sensor (again, like the X-T1) and its excellent 18.5mm f/2.8 Fujinon lens (equivalent to a full-frame focal length of 28mm ). The lens is very sharp and, even at maximum aperture, displays minimal distortion and little chromatic aberration. Yes, it’s a fairly wide angle fixed lens. That just means that I have to get closer to subjects than I would with the zooms I use on my DSLR. But it can focus down to about 10cm, so it possible to ger really close!
• Other features. Other nice features include the fact that the shutter is almost silent and in electronic mode can get down to 1/32,000s. Since I shoot in RAW, I don’t make much use of Fujifilm’s film simulation modes except that I have set up the touchscreen to show me the world in contrasty black & white (very handy when I am doing a mainly black & white shoot).

It is a lovely little beast. I haven’t so much fun with a camera since the days when I was the happy owner of a Rollei 35S. The only problem is that I am now being tempted to upgrade my Nikon DSLR system to a Fujifilm mirrorless one (either the XT3 or the XT5).