Summer is here and also I’m stoked to have landed a camera that’s lightweight enough to not feel like i am carrying a medicine ball, but with a top enough spec to shoot quality stills and video on my outdoor adventures. In current years, I’ve developed into an iPhone snapper junkie, and so I wanted a meatier camera that had been nevertheless simple and easy intuitive to use. Apart from supposed simplicity of use, a very good retro look and features like Wi-Fi and advanced color reproduction, it’s the rotating LCD monitor and selfie mode that have got me excited – no more of those awful selfie sticks! There are three finish options available for the Fujifilm X-A2 – the other two are white and brown, but I’ve opted for the classic black faux fabric, which reminds me for the old Canon Canonet 28 my mum used to just take embarrassing pics of my brothers and I on when we had been nippers.
The textured faux leather contrasts rather nicely with the sleek silver human anatomy, lens and controls, and I also feel fancy walking around holding it… However it’s not so posh-looking that I’m prime bait for a mugging. Within the box is the camera human anatomy, a lens (XC 16-50mm), a lens bonnet, a Li-on battery, a charger and a PDF manual on disk (this may additionally be viewed on Fujifilm’s site). There’s also a strap, which is quite fiddly to install but pretty secure once threaded in place. There’s no bag supplied, therefore I’ll certainly need to hunt one down soon because the camera accumulates dust easily and we can imagine it’ll scratch without much persuasion.
With the lens attached, the camera is nevertheless relatively lightweight (around 350g) but noticeably heavier and larger than a standard compact camera. There’s a built-in, handbook pop-up flash, with a quick action that’s borderline violent. Fujifilm calls this Super Intelligent Flash, due to its ability to automatically calculate the correct quantity of flash needed for the things I’m shooting. Appears impressive, and I’m keen to use it out in some low-light situations. If I want more light, next door to the integral flash is a hot shoe for adding my own TTL flash. It’s described as a ‘camera you will grow into’, and my initial start-up associated with the X-A2 reveals a labyrinth of menus, plus setting and mode options, so I need a look at those soon. That said, I was quickly underway papping my cat in Portrait mode – my Facebook feed is now saturated in soft-focus kitty pics. My task for now is to delve further into the preset modes to see what’s what.
Fujifilm X-A2 Specifications
Sensor: 16.5 million pixels, 23.6×15.6mm aPS-C CmOS
Lens Mount: FujiFilm X
LCD Display: Tilting, 3.0-inch, 920k-dot
ISO Range: 200 to 25600
Battery Life for Still Images: approx 410 frames