Fujifilm X-T10 review

Pretty as a picture

Take the design. Like the X-T1, the X-T10 is small, beautifully crafted and stylishly retro in a way that’ll make you nostalgic for the days when you could buy a house for less than the price of a car.

Unlike the X-T1 it’s not weatherproof and the body is mostly plastic with magnesium top- and bottom-plates. But against that, it’s noticeably smaller than its big brother and weighs 60g less. It shapes up well against most rival compact system cameras too, being roughly the same size as the Olympus OMD E-M10 II and Sony A6000.

Looks-wise, it’s a cracker. It retains the X-T1’s stylishly retro visage and wears its many manual controls proudly on the top-plate. This is a camera you’ll be itching to pick up and dying to show off. It feels great in the hand too, with its grip and thumb rest nicely placed and all of the controls within easy reach.

Round the back there’s a 3in flippable rear LCD screen with plenty of pixels, plus an electronic viewfinder that’s similarly well specced: it’s an OLED with 2.36 million dots. The LCD is pretty much identical to the one on the X-T1 but the EVF suffers a bit in comparison, with only a 0.62x magnification to the X-T1’s 0.77x. Still, it’s better than nothing and indeed better than many rivals, serving up rich colours and keeping up with movement without too much smearing.

Battery life is passable. You’re never going to get DSLR-bothering stamina from a compact system camera, so I’d suggest buying a second battery as soon as possible. Fuji reckons you get 350 shots per charge, and that sounds about right here. Note that the X-T10, like the X-T1, has a tendency to drop very quickly from one-bar-remaining to sorry-suckers-I’m-outta-here status.

Under control

Fujifilm’s X Series cameras have long been praised for their handling, with aperture controlled via a ring on the lens (in most cases) and dedicated dials for shutter speed and exposure compensation. They’re the kind of cameras you operate via feel rather than having to constantly take your eyes away from the viewfinder to look at a screen.