Driven by Retro
Large sensors and wide-aperture lenses seem to be the norms now, with the customer becoming more and more aware of the technicalities of photography. Competition is rife in this segment, which is very good from a customer’s point of view since it will bring down the prices and provide more choices. Fujifilm has always tried to be innovative, and the scene is no different here too. The Company is firmly focussed on bringing back to life, old classics in the digital era. The new compact X20 too, is styled in the retro.
Design and Build Quality
The X20 is built like a tank. It has a sturdy metal exterior, which provides
a secure feel. It is crafted like old rangefinder cameras and hence carry a retrospective value. The top panel has an exposure compensation dial and a standard accessory shoe in addition to the mode dial and shutter release button featuring a cable release thread. The lens has a single protruding barrel. The LCD is fixed and the tripod receptacle is metal. The camera is powered on by rotating the lens barrel.
Key Features
The 12.0-megapixel Fujifilm X20 uses a 2/3-inch Type (8.80 x 6.60mm) X-Trans CMOS II sensor with primary colour filter. For comparison, this is approximately half the size of a four thirds sensor and approximately double that of the 1/2.3-inch sensor that is used in most compact cameras. The camera features a Fujinon 28112mm equivalent f/2.0 – 2.8 lens featuring Optical Image Stabilisation. The lens is constructed with 11 elements in 9 groups including 3 aspherical glass molded elements. Apertures range from f/2.0 to 11 at the wide-angle end and f/2.8 to 11 at the telephoto end. In Normal mode, the lens focusses from approximately 50cm to infinity at the wide-angle end and
from 80cm to infinity at the telephoto end. In Macro mode, it focusses from approximately 210cm to 3.0m at the wide-angle end and from 50cm to 3.0m at te telephoto end, while in Super Macro mode, it can focus as close as 1cm. Focus modes include Single, Continuous, and Manual, and AF frame can be selected from Multi, Area, and Tracking. The camera uses TTL 256-zone metering method and the metering modes available are Multi, Spot, and Average. Sensitivity ranges from ISO 100 to 12,800. Shutter speed ranges from 30 to 1/4000 sec. Exposure can be compensated up to +/-2EV in 1/3-EV steps. Auto exposure bracketing provides options of 1/3EV, 2/3EV, and 1EV. Still images are recorded at a maximum dimension of 4000 x 3000 pixels. in JPEG or RAW ( RAF) format with an option to capture RAW and JPEG simultaneously. Movies are recorded in MOV format at the best quality of 1920 x 1080 pixels at 60 frames per second. The X20’s shooting modes include Auto, Advanced SR Auto, Programmed AE ( P), Aperture Priority AE (A), Shutter Priority AE (S), Manual, Custom, Movie, Scene Priority, and Advanced. Scene Priority provides settings for Portrait, Portrait Enhancer, Landscape, Sport, Night, Night ( Tripod), Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Party, Flower, Text, and Underwater. White Balance options are Auto, Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light ( Daylight), Fluorescent light ( Warm White), Fluorescent light (Cool White), Incandescent light, Underwater, Custom, and Colour temperature selection. The built-in Super Intelligent flash can be set for Red-eye Removal, Auto, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Slow Sync, Red-eye Reduction Auto, Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, and Red-eye Reduction & Slow Sync. The camera features a standard accessory shoe with TTL contacts. The X20 features Face Detection and can shoot continuously up to 12 frames per sec for a maximum of 11 frames in a burst. Self-timer can be set to trigger the camera with a 10 or 2 sec delay. The Fujifilm X20 uses a 2.8-inch, approximately 460,000-dot TFT colour LCD. The camera uses an SD/SDHC/ SDXC memory card for storage. The device is powered by an NP-50 Li-ion battery (included). The camera has dimensions of 117.0 x 69.6 x 56.8mm ( W xH xD).
Ergonomics
The Fujifilm X20 has a textured synthetic leather ( leatherette) grip, which provides a secure feel. The optical viewfinder is a pleasure to use, but do note that it suffers from parallax since this is not a through-the-lens system. The viewfinder uses a hybrid system, which displays the image details on the screen itself. The menu is easy to navigate and the controls are easily accessible. The images appeared crisp on the LCD.
Performance
Going by the excellent features of the camera, the X20 should be a good performer. Autofocus was fast, but it had slight difficulty to latch on to subjects with low contrast and under low light. Images were sharp out- of- the- box. Slight barrel distortion was observed till about 50mm equivalent. Images in LCD and viewfinder were displayed properly without any defect. Darkening of corners was very well controlled. But we were surprised to note that the corners were brighter than the centre, which does not happen naturally. We are not sure whether this is a processing defect. Flare was observed with slight purple fringing. The camera seemed to overexpose at wide apertures and underexpose at narrow apertures even though the lighting was within the camera’s metering range. On the White Balance front, the X20 performed well under daylight with both Auto and pre-set White balance modes. But all other light sources, including diffused daylight under Shade, produced discernible cast. Although these could be easily removed during post-processing, there are cameras that get this right out- of-the-box. Native image size is 10 x 13.33 inches at 300 ppi. At 25 percent screen size, images were noise-free up to ISO 800. ISO 3200 and above is best avoided even at this size. At 50 percent screen size, images were free of noise up to ISO 200. ISO 400 showed slight noise, but is usable. Observed at 100 percent, the images were noisy throughout the ISO range.
Value for Money
The Fujifilm X20 retails at an MRP of Rs.39,999. This price would have been justified had the camera performed as expected.