Fujifilm X-T30 review in progress

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Fujifilm X-T30 review in progress

14 Feb

Fujifilm’s new X-T30 brings much of the feature set of the high-end X-T3 at a more reasonable price. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the relationship between the X-T20 and X-T2 was the same.

With the X-T30 you receive the same 26MP sensor and processor as the X-T3, a more advanced AF system (which the X-T3 will soon gain via firmware update,) plenty of direct controls and a tilting touchscreen, all in a smaller body. The X-T30 also comes at a significantly lower price than the X-T3, with the body priced at $ 899, versus $ 1499 for the X-T3. We’ll discuss what features are cut in order to make the X-T30 the less expensive of the two options a bit later in this article.

Key specifications

26.1MP APS-C X-Trans BSI-CMOS 4 sensor
X-Processor 4
Hybrid AF system has 425 phase-detect points spread across the entire frame
Burst shooting at 30 fps with no blackout (but 1.25X) crop using electronic shutter; 20 fps without crop
2.36M-dot OLED viewfinder w/0.62x equiv. magnification and 100 fps refresh rate in boost mode
3″ tilting touchscreen display
Dedicated drive, shutter speed and exposure compensation dials
Joystick for AF point selection
Eterna Film Simulation mode
DCI and UHD 4K/30p capture using full width of sensor
4:2:0 8-bit internal recording or 4:2:2 10-bit HDMI output
USB-C socket with headphone support
Single SD card slot (UHS-I only)

That’s a lot of camera for under $ 900 body-only. If you’d like to add a lens, you can get the camera and the 15-45mm F3.5-5.6 OIS Power Zoom lens for $ 999, or with the excellent 18-55 F2.8-4 lens for $ 1299. The traditional black and silver models will be available in March, with the ‘charcoal silver’ model shown in this review coming in June.

What’s new and how it compares

The X-T30 borrows the sensor and processor from the more expensive X-T3, and that’s great news. It has a more advanced AF system (for now) and impressive video specs for its price range.

For a $ 900 camera, the X-T30 is surprisingly well-built. It has a tilting touchscreen LCD, nice EVF and direct controls that make it a pleasure to use.

In addition to four customizable buttons you can also ‘swipe’ the X-T30’s LCD in one of four directions to adjust settings. The camera offers two different customizable menus so you can set it up the way you’d like.

360Photography