I’ve been out of the camera game for a long time – a decade at least. The advantages of using a smartphone far outweigh the disadvantages that I solely relied on phones for photos and videos related to my work since 2018 at least. When I bought an iPhone 13 back in 2022, I thought this was it. I’ll just do the upgrade every so often and won’t have to bother with a real camera for the rest of my life.
It started good, until it wasn’t. My freelance life isn’t a stable one and so the upgrade I thought I could do didn’t materialize. Add to that the price bump of iPhones every generation or two.
When thinking about going back to a real camera, I had weird requirements. First, it had to be as easy as a smartphone. Second was I should have attainable lens choices for both native and third-party options. Last, was color science – it should be as accurate as Canon’s. It was my personal standard as a longtime Canon user before.
This Fujifilm X-M5 made its way to me through fate. A guitarist friend was selling it, while I am selling a guitar to buy a camera. I spent one week researching the X-M5 before I decided to tempt my friend with my guitar. Luckily, he gave in.
I was amazed at how small and light the camera was when I got it. The downside to that is it almost has no grip for my hand. Good thing that Small Rig already has an L-plate and hotshoe thumb grip for this model that allowed me to carry it confidently with one hand.
The X-M5 is only the second camera in Fuji’s lineup to have the Film Simulation Dial on top. It allows you to quickly use one of its film presets for your image. This is a very nice option for casual users and newbies since Fujifilm’s presets are far better than any smartphone or third-party app. This is accompanied by the Mode Dial and two more dials that you can set the function in the menu.
Fujifilm’s system and its fantastic users also made Film Recipes very popular. In fact, when I first searched for this camera, I was immediately flooded by videos talking about the Film Recipes possible with many Fuji cameras. Some people said that the Film Simulation Dial should’ve been a Film Recipe Dial instead, since it would be more used. Luckily, I found a trick for that.
You can save your Film Recipes into any of the 4 Custom Profiles (C1, C2, C3, C4). The way you can access them is rotating the Film Simulation Dial to C, for Custom. Then you can access any of your Custom Profiles by turning the right Mode Dial into C1, C2, etc. I initially had 2 recipes for neutral images, then 1 for bright pictures, and another for low light images.
I was having fun but I have to admit, this way isn’t for the fast paced. The quirk of this setup is the camera doesn’t remember your exposure settings when it shuts down. Once you turn it back on, your exposure settings (including white balance) are reset to that when you saved your Film Recipe in the Custom Profile. It would take a few seconds before you can get off and running again. This is the same if you switch to another recipe, you’re greeted by the exposure settings upon saving and when you realize the previous recipe was better and make the rotation on the dial, you’ll have to adjust again. It got old really fast and so I stopped using film recipes all together. The upside to that is, it shined upon Fujifilm’s greatest feat.
I mainly shoot cars and in my line of work, color is complicated. A car’s color can change depending on the light – sunlight, artificial light, or ambient lights. Sometimes even a person’s skin tone will change due to the same lighting factors. I initially tried shooting RAW + JPG just in case I have to adjust anything while trying out the X-M5’s Film Presets. Later on, I realized the Standard was the best.
It received my smile of approval when the Hyundai Kona was launched back in June. It has a technically frustrating color called Neoteric Yellow. It looks like a shade of light green apple, but according to color science, it’s a shade of yellow. Back in 2018 during the Kona’s previous iteration, I had to go through Photoshop for all its exterior photos as the sensors (both DSLR and smartphone) found it tricky. Sometimes it’s yellowish, sometimes it’s desaturated – you really have to make an effort to bring out the color that you saw in person.
Now, my JPGs were as brilliant as what I saw in the metal. I didn’t have to adjust anything at post. I’ve noticed before that the X-M5 was producing accurate colors but to showcase the Kona’s complicated shade easily made it earn my trust. After that, I was exclusively shooting JPGs only in Standard profile. Indoors, outdoors, cloudy, sunny, spotlights, cars, people, dogs – the X-M5 has not failed me on color reproduction.
I also love the grain of Fujifilm images. The noise in higher ISOs also looks like good film grain that I can get usable images even at ISO 4000. Things get better when shooting in Black and White as the grain really becomes tasteful.
It also won’t back down in terms of speed. It allowed me to shoot some high-speed photos thanks to its maximum mechanical speed of 8 fps for JPG. If the situation allows you to shoot with the electronic shutter, you can even go up to 20 fps.
For video, it would be better to check out the reviews on YouTube as I haven’t tested it extensively. All I know is in standard h264 MOV, it still gives me accurate color reproduction.
The X-M5 is as good as it gets for a beginner or someone like me who’s coming back to a real camera. It has a few tricks, but they don’t overshadow the basics as the core of exposure – shutter speed, aperture, and ISO – are all accessible with a turn or press of a dial.
Best of all, the X-M5 is future-proof if you take care of it. You might upgrade later on and the X-M5 will be a solid second or backup camera. If you can’t upgrade, you can build a great lens lineup around it. Either way, the X-M5 will never be a paperweight.
