Fujifilm X-E2 Camera - Silver (16.MP, CMOS II Sensor)

Product Information

The positives far outweigh any issues I might have despite this particular issue receiving so much of my attention. Two small metal eyelets on either side of the body are used for connecting the supplied shoulder strap, which isn't quite as luxurious as the rest of the package. For those of you wanting to get into that kind of shooting, and you have a limited budget, pick one up, put a nice prime lens on the front, and get shooting.

In case you are wondering I have been photographing since I was 6, was a professional photographer for nearly 30 years, am still taking pictures and am now in my mid 70’s. I’ve sort of spread out my thoughts on image quality throughout this review, but a few things are worth mentioning. My Fuji x-e2 no longer displays the vertical light meter on the left side of the display or view finder. Finally there's an external flash hotshoe for suitable dedicated external units, and the handy built-in pop-up flash which has a guide number of 7 at ISO 200.If you use the center sensor in AF-S, the left side in AF-C and the upper right in Manual, each will still be there when you switch back.

I am not going to bore you with the advantages and disadvantages of electronic viewfinders – those have been talked about plenty of times. There's no RGB histogram, but the X-E2's fantastic highlight rendition means you don't need to watch for clipping individually in each channel as you do on other cameras. This last setting will only switch on the EVF when held up otherwise both screens are off but if you press the play you can review the last image without having to reset the camera to use the EVF for composing.

Fujinon's lenses are extraordinary, and they also have full focus and exposure and diaphragm automation, all lost if you waste time adapting LEICA lenses or others to the X-E2. X-E2 was the first digital camera with a split prism manual focus mode, which is the best digital simulation for an optical rangefinder focusing system out there.

There's not a lot to say about image quality other than it is superb, detailed, has excellent color and dynamic range through the entire ISO range in raw (200-6400). When I have less demanding situations or subjects and desire to take my time to make a photograph, I'll go with the Leica M.More than that, I actually used the exposure compensation dial, even though the camera itself encourages manual use featuring both aperture and shutter speed dials (the former on higher-end lenses). Each corner's color shift set can be set individually for use with lenses like the 12mm Voigtländer. Now after you've set up your X-E2 this way, you get to go out and shoot with it in fully manual mode. Another defect can be that when shutter is halfway down, the X-E2 won't swap between rear LCD and OLED finder as you move your eye. This is released via the Flash button on the rear of the camera, and its clever hinged design positions it above the lens and helps to reduce red-eye.

Real shooters shoot LEICAs because of their simplicity, small size and fantastic optics, and the X-E2 does all this even better. It now takes less than 2 full turns and a couple of seconds to jump from the closest focus distance to infinity, a big improvement on the X-E1. It springs up instantly when you press the Bolt button, and snaps back down when you press it back into the camera.Yes, there are plenty of plastic consumer Micro 4/3 cameras with LCD finders, but they are not professional grade. What I found perplexing and irritating, and what I still can’t figure out is why I’m so bad at using the otherwise very natural-feeling manual exposure mode with the X-E2. But from a pure capability standpoint as an imaging device to rely on in more demanding circumstances, I'd pick the X-E2. No, I didn’t measure that, but there was no need, it’s entirely fast enough to not let a capture worthy moment pass.