Fujifilm released its first sub-$1,000 camera in a year for a long time and rose again 11-year-old “M” brand With the $799 X-M5. At this price, it’s aimed primarily at photographers on a budget or vloggers looking to upgrade from a smartphone. Fujifilm film has cut a few features, such as the viewfinder (EVF), to reach this price point, but the company has the latest 26-megapixel X-Trans 4 CMOS sensor and decent video features.
For a camera without a viewfinder, the X-M5 should do pretty well. There are front and rear control buttons, along with a top adjustment button that includes a new “Vlog” mode. It also comes with the same film simulation dial found on the X-T50 to help social media users and creators create beautiful images out of the camera.
When in vlog mode, you get a full GUI interface on the touchscreen for easy access. This includes things like ‘portrait boost’, background focus and crop priority, as we’ve seen in Sony’s vlogging products.
For vloggers, it has a 3-inch, 1.04-million-dot full-expression rear display that’s hopefully bright enough to use in sunlight (since, again, there’s no EVF). For vloggers, there are both headphone and microphone ports, but they’re not located on the left as usual. Instead, Fujifilm placed the 3.5mm microphone input on the back (where the EVF would normally go) and the headphone port on the right. This is to prevent the screen from hitting the microphone or headphone cable when rotating, as can happen with other cameras.
You’d never mistake it for a sports camera, but the X-M5 can shoot 8fps bursts with the manual shutter or an excellent 20fps in electronic mode (both with continuous autofocus). It can shoot decent 82/60 compressed RAW frames in these modes before the buffer fills up, still very respectable for such a small camera.
Video is pretty strong too, with 6.2K aperture 3:2 capture, 4K 60p and Full HD up to 240fps (matches the X-T50. 4K 60p (1.18x) and 120fps (1.29 x) there is a bit of product for the former FHD, but otherwise everything is one-to-one.
Another thing missing is in-body stabilization, so the X-M5 is limited to either lens-provided or electronic stabilization. The latter mode has a minimal 1.32x crop for 4K 30fps video and a significant 1.44x crop when shooting 4K 60p. There are also overheating limitations when using LP (long play) recording in the small body, but these can be mitigated with a $200 fan harness.
Other features include three built-in microphones that allow for surround sound-like capture, a 9:16 short movie mode for TikTok creators, high-speed movie transfer, battery life of up to 440fps, and a single UHS-I card slot.
I couldn’t understand what Fujifilm was thinking when it released the X-T50 for $500 more than the X-T30 II. Now we know – here’s hoping budget buyers gravitate towards the X-M5 instead. It goes on pre-sale today for $799, and Fujifilm also introduced the 16-55mm f/2.8 lens (24-70mm full-frame equivalent) and the XF500mm f/5.6 super telephoto (750mm equivalent) for $1,199. 2999 dollars.
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