The Fujifilm X30 Review: A Camera with High Appeal and Manual Controls Galore

One of the standout features of the Fujifilm X30 is its high appearance, which is evident from the moment you take it out of the box. The camera has a sleek and premium design that feels solid in your hands, with a combination of retro and modern elements that make it both stylish and functional. However, it's not just about looks; the X30 also boasts an impressive array of features that will appeal to photographers of all levels.

One of the most exciting aspects of the X30 is its manual controls. The camera has a focus dial on the front that allows for precise control over focus, and the control ring provides smooth and intuitive operation. This means that you can adjust settings like exposure compensation, ISO, and shutter speed with ease, giving you full access to all the features you need to capture your desired image. Additionally, the X30 has a feature called "Focus" mode, which allows you to set focus to manual with the dial on the front, providing a range of options including single, continuous, or manual modes.

In terms of picture quality, the Fujifilm X30 is very satisfactory. It can shoot raw and JPEG at the same time, just make sure you have a fast SD card for this dual format capture. The camera also boasts 12 frames burst in JPEG, which is impressive for a compact camera like the X30. Additionally, the dynamic range of the camera's sensor allows for excellent results, even in challenging lighting conditions. To demonstrate its capabilities, I took a side-by-side comparison of a JPEG and an edited raw image. The extreme contrast between light and dark areas shows that the X30 can capture impressive amounts of detail in both highlights and shadows.

The Fujifilm X30 also performs well in terms of ISO performance, although it's worth noting that this camera is not ideal for low-light photography. At high ISOs above 3200, you start to see smudgy pixels and a loss of detail. However, the default noise reduction setting can seriously clean up your images without introducing unwanted negative effects like softening shadows or spots. If you want more control over image processing, shooting raw will allow you to achieve even better results.

In addition to its impressive picture quality, the X30 also features Wi-Fi capabilities for remote shooting and transferring photos. This is a great feature that allows you to quickly share your favorite shots on social media or back them up on your phone. The camera can connect to both iOS and Android devices via the Fujifilm app, making it easy to transfer files between devices.

However, despite its many strengths, the Fujifilm X30 does have some drawbacks. One of the most noticeable issues is its slow autofocus, which can be particularly problematic when using zoom lenses or trying to track fast-moving subjects. Additionally, the camera's stereo microphones are decent for recording audio, but they're not ideal for capturing high-quality sound.

Another minor quibble is the design of the turning on mechanism and the location of the video record button. While these may seem like trivial issues, they can be frustrating for some users, particularly those with larger fingers or who prefer to use their camera frequently. However, it's worth noting that these features are remappable, so you can adjust them to suit your preferences.

The X30 also has a side mini-mic Jack and an odd micro-HDMI port for video output. The battery life is not extremely long, but the camera does come with a USB port for charging and transferring files.

In conclusion, the Fujifilm X30 is a high-quality compact camera that boasts impressive manual controls and excellent picture quality. While it's not ideal for low-light photography or capturing fast-moving subjects, its strengths in terms of image processing and audio recording make it an attractive option for photographers who value these features. With its customizable settings, Wi-Fi capabilities, and stylish design, the X30 is a camera that is sure to please even the most discerning photographers.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video is brought to you by nc.com great technology selection and service hello everyone this is demitry with herac conck and Welcome to our first ever camera review on the channel so give us a like if you want to see more camera reviews in the future but this is the Fed 2 this is a Soviet made SLR in the 1950s it still works it's my grandfather's and the reason why I mentioning this is because this type of retro design is now coming back in today's world with of course Optical mechanical and digital differences so on the review table today we have this this is the Fujifilm x30 keeping true to that form factor that beautiful aesthetical retro SL vintage design but is it trying to compensate for something with its pretty body well let's find out so the x30 runs for $600 and it's definitely a step up from your standard point and shoot and I feel the build quality all the manual controls and all the features are all worth the price and to quickly get the specs out of the way the sensor here is 2/3 of an inch xtron simos 2 it's slightly smaller than what is found on competing cameras it captures 12 megapixels JPEG and RAW 1080p movie recording at 60 frames optical zoom or 4X ISO range of up to 12,800 there's a 256 Zone metering for exposure control built-in image stabilization maximum shutter speed of/ 14,000 of a second there's full manual control for bracketing wide balance focus and even more an electronic viewfinder uh 3-in display at the back Wireless Communications and it survives for about 500 shots per charge coming back to the form the camera is gorgeous you can see the metal frame combined with this rubberized nit section brings an awesome sense for handling and this is no doubt will be one of the main selling points of the x30 even the top dials are made of metal like the exposure compensation on the right the mode dial right beside it and the shut button itself strongly resembles the release design on my own 60-year-old camera now let's talk about handling the camera is fairly compact not exactly pocket size as you can see the lens protrudes in there um but if you want to do some street photography you'll still be able to remain that low profile and low key of taking pictures and not really standing out the gigantic lens and a DSLR the large rubber dimple at the front helped to secure the grip plus a smaller one at the back for your thumb uh keeps the camera in place just in case you switch the camera on by turning the lens and if you're looking for that DSLR feel this is definitely in line with the manual zoom lenses and that seems to be the trend with the x30 offering all the manual controls for this uh sort of high-profile point and shoot camera although I would prefer a standard on button as the lens protrudes when you turn on the camera uh the landscap can be displaced easily and say you just want to view your pictures you have to sort of go through this cumbersome process the lens is at 28 to 112 mm on a fullframe equivalent focal length it provides a good range of Optics from wide enough angle to close enough Zoom which is in line to competing cameras like the Sony RX100 Mark II the zoom could be smoother toe that's really the only downside of being manual it hiccups on our sample at 35 and 50 mm almost like a hard stop but you avoid the common lag you get with automatic zoom lenses the aperture is not constant throughout the zoom you get f2.0 uh at the widest angle and f2.8 with a telephoto uh still letting plenty of light in for low light shooting the ring behind the lens is an awesome feature that can be programmed to change uh any of your exposure parameters uh can be used to pull Focus even cycle through different uh picture modes and profiles and the best part is how smooth and responsive it feels there's also another dial at the back for your thumb that's a little bit too light and almost always I nudge it without noticing and change my settings all of a sudden it's mainly used to adjust your f- stop and the shutter speed and using this discrete button at the front of the body that can be easily pressed with your middle finger you switch between these two parameters in manual mode the 3-in 920k dot display the back has some articulation but it is quite limited for only low and high angle shooting it's unfortunate you can't fully rotated it's not a touchcreen but the viewing angles are good and response time is fast it's bright enough how out side but there's also an excellent electronic viewfinder with 2.36 million dots and it's also all LED it's larged and detailed with 100% coverage meaning what you see through the viewfinder is what you'll get the sensor beside it can be modified to switch the display or evf only or turn off the display when you approach the evf which is that perfect hybrid the built-in popup flash is easily accessible for direct flash only you cannot angle it for bounce and it's automatically disabled when in silent or macro mode so keep that in mind the 12 megapixel 2/3 in camos 2 sensor is quite capable you can still achieve shallow at the field with a bit of zoom and awesome macro abilities with 1 cm minimum Focus distance with the lens at 28 mm the image stabilization works well for handheld macros all the pictures you see now are all shot with handheld and given the sort of large form practor it's not exactly compact fugifilm could could have outfitted this with a larger 1in sensor similar what is found on the Sony RX100 line but as you can see clearly funding was distributed somewhere else and that's your compromise the battery life is pretty decent you'll get a few days of shooting no problem and everything is recorded to an SD card video mode on the x30 is present there's a dedicated record button uh beside the shutter release this is a terrible spot that's sort of blocked by the exposure comp tile but good thing that you can remap the movie mode to any button on the back and there was the first thing I did the camera records at 1080p at 60 frames a second so you can do some slow-mo effects pretty cool uh internal processing isn't terrible plus uh it has a fairly High bit rate my only points of critique here would be the incredibly inaccurate and slow autofocus especially if you're doing any types of zooms it has very difficult time catching the uh subject in Focus the stereo microphones pick up reference audio just fine but there's a side mini mic Jack unfortunately that's not 3 and2 mm uh but there's also an odd micro HDMI for video output don't know why that's there and there's also a micro USB for charging the battery and transferring things from the camera if you are feeling artistic you can set Focus to manual with the dial on the front and your options are single continuous or manual and this way you can actually achieve some interesting video format and the smoothness of the control ring really benefits manual focus Focus so the x30 for pictures I find satisfactory it can shoot raw and jpeg at the same time just make sure you have a fast SD card for this dual format capture the x30 can do 12 frames burst in JPEG and I found outof Focus reliable and very impressed with the dynamic range that you can f- tuned from 100 to 400% in the settings and that gives the extra detail in highlights here's a side by-side jpeg versus edited raw and this extreme to dark to light picture shows that even the jpeg while still blowing out the highlights shows an impressive amount of dynamic range ISO performance is okay up to 3200 but this is not a low light shooter anything above 3200 and you get smudgy pixels lots of detail but I do have to praise them for noise reduction the default setting can seriously clean up your images without super negative After Effects uh it does leave your shadows and all those spots a little bit soft but if you really want to touch up your images just shoot raw the x30 has Wi-Fi capabilities for remote shooting and transferring photos and I love that I can connect my phone to uh the camera either iOS or Android and transfer the photos to Instagram and maybe back up a few my favorite captures of the day you do have to go through this process every time so enable the Wi-Fi uh and connect to the camera through the Fujifilm app uh but it's still faster in my opinion for sharing than having to offload the SD card and from my time with the camera you really get a sense of handling something like this a combination of retro and modern with the x30 really the best camera feature all the manual adjustments if you want to have full accessible control of everything that's there on the body and you can remap things you can adjust of what the Rings do and that's really good to see the electronic viewfinder is awesome fast focus for pictures and even Wi-Fi link is great uh 1080p video capture at 60 frames a second is all right uh and really amazing macro results round this up for an all-inclusive package plus don't forget raw capture pictures come out really sharp with great lighting but you come IND door and the conversation changes as the smaller sensor has difficulty with retaining detail and high ISO performance is just not passable I really wish that the dedicated exposure compensation dial at the top was uh something else because the only time I'm actually used the exposure compensation was when I was outside I didn't want to blow out thegu set it to negative 1 and went on my way but that's easily done in a software regardless and if this was a customizable dial you can put it maybe to ISO or shutter speed then you'll actually come to use it more often I also not a big fan of the turning on mechanism especially because if you want to just view your pictures you have to take off the entire cap and it's a little bit cumbersome process plus the video record button beside it is in a very difficult spot to access if you have bigger fingers luckily that's remappable so the bottom line the x30 you know it's high in appearance it's high in features uh the best feature is all the manual controls that are right there but the main compromise is its sensor size so if you can you know face the imitations if you can work around the sensor size and it's uh a high poor ISO performance a poor low light then you might actually love the x30 so guys thank you so much for watching this concludes our Fujifilm x30 review let us know how we did on our first ever camera review here at ronx don't forget to like if you found this review helpful uh don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and we'll see you in the next onethis video is brought to you by nc.com great technology selection and service hello everyone this is demitry with herac conck and Welcome to our first ever camera review on the channel so give us a like if you want to see more camera reviews in the future but this is the Fed 2 this is a Soviet made SLR in the 1950s it still works it's my grandfather's and the reason why I mentioning this is because this type of retro design is now coming back in today's world with of course Optical mechanical and digital differences so on the review table today we have this this is the Fujifilm x30 keeping true to that form factor that beautiful aesthetical retro SL vintage design but is it trying to compensate for something with its pretty body well let's find out so the x30 runs for $600 and it's definitely a step up from your standard point and shoot and I feel the build quality all the manual controls and all the features are all worth the price and to quickly get the specs out of the way the sensor here is 2/3 of an inch xtron simos 2 it's slightly smaller than what is found on competing cameras it captures 12 megapixels JPEG and RAW 1080p movie recording at 60 frames optical zoom or 4X ISO range of up to 12,800 there's a 256 Zone metering for exposure control built-in image stabilization maximum shutter speed of/ 14,000 of a second there's full manual control for bracketing wide balance focus and even more an electronic viewfinder uh 3-in display at the back Wireless Communications and it survives for about 500 shots per charge coming back to the form the camera is gorgeous you can see the metal frame combined with this rubberized nit section brings an awesome sense for handling and this is no doubt will be one of the main selling points of the x30 even the top dials are made of metal like the exposure compensation on the right the mode dial right beside it and the shut button itself strongly resembles the release design on my own 60-year-old camera now let's talk about handling the camera is fairly compact not exactly pocket size as you can see the lens protrudes in there um but if you want to do some street photography you'll still be able to remain that low profile and low key of taking pictures and not really standing out the gigantic lens and a DSLR the large rubber dimple at the front helped to secure the grip plus a smaller one at the back for your thumb uh keeps the camera in place just in case you switch the camera on by turning the lens and if you're looking for that DSLR feel this is definitely in line with the manual zoom lenses and that seems to be the trend with the x30 offering all the manual controls for this uh sort of high-profile point and shoot camera although I would prefer a standard on button as the lens protrudes when you turn on the camera uh the landscap can be displaced easily and say you just want to view your pictures you have to sort of go through this cumbersome process the lens is at 28 to 112 mm on a fullframe equivalent focal length it provides a good range of Optics from wide enough angle to close enough Zoom which is in line to competing cameras like the Sony RX100 Mark II the zoom could be smoother toe that's really the only downside of being manual it hiccups on our sample at 35 and 50 mm almost like a hard stop but you avoid the common lag you get with automatic zoom lenses the aperture is not constant throughout the zoom you get f2.0 uh at the widest angle and f2.8 with a telephoto uh still letting plenty of light in for low light shooting the ring behind the lens is an awesome feature that can be programmed to change uh any of your exposure parameters uh can be used to pull Focus even cycle through different uh picture modes and profiles and the best part is how smooth and responsive it feels there's also another dial at the back for your thumb that's a little bit too light and almost always I nudge it without noticing and change my settings all of a sudden it's mainly used to adjust your f- stop and the shutter speed and using this discrete button at the front of the body that can be easily pressed with your middle finger you switch between these two parameters in manual mode the 3-in 920k dot display the back has some articulation but it is quite limited for only low and high angle shooting it's unfortunate you can't fully rotated it's not a touchcreen but the viewing angles are good and response time is fast it's bright enough how out side but there's also an excellent electronic viewfinder with 2.36 million dots and it's also all LED it's larged and detailed with 100% coverage meaning what you see through the viewfinder is what you'll get the sensor beside it can be modified to switch the display or evf only or turn off the display when you approach the evf which is that perfect hybrid the built-in popup flash is easily accessible for direct flash only you cannot angle it for bounce and it's automatically disabled when in silent or macro mode so keep that in mind the 12 megapixel 2/3 in camos 2 sensor is quite capable you can still achieve shallow at the field with a bit of zoom and awesome macro abilities with 1 cm minimum Focus distance with the lens at 28 mm the image stabilization works well for handheld macros all the pictures you see now are all shot with handheld and given the sort of large form practor it's not exactly compact fugifilm could could have outfitted this with a larger 1in sensor similar what is found on the Sony RX100 line but as you can see clearly funding was distributed somewhere else and that's your compromise the battery life is pretty decent you'll get a few days of shooting no problem and everything is recorded to an SD card video mode on the x30 is present there's a dedicated record button uh beside the shutter release this is a terrible spot that's sort of blocked by the exposure comp tile but good thing that you can remap the movie mode to any button on the back and there was the first thing I did the camera records at 1080p at 60 frames a second so you can do some slow-mo effects pretty cool uh internal processing isn't terrible plus uh it has a fairly High bit rate my only points of critique here would be the incredibly inaccurate and slow autofocus especially if you're doing any types of zooms it has very difficult time catching the uh subject in Focus the stereo microphones pick up reference audio just fine but there's a side mini mic Jack unfortunately that's not 3 and2 mm uh but there's also an odd micro HDMI for video output don't know why that's there and there's also a micro USB for charging the battery and transferring things from the camera if you are feeling artistic you can set Focus to manual with the dial on the front and your options are single continuous or manual and this way you can actually achieve some interesting video format and the smoothness of the control ring really benefits manual focus Focus so the x30 for pictures I find satisfactory it can shoot raw and jpeg at the same time just make sure you have a fast SD card for this dual format capture the x30 can do 12 frames burst in JPEG and I found outof Focus reliable and very impressed with the dynamic range that you can f- tuned from 100 to 400% in the settings and that gives the extra detail in highlights here's a side by-side jpeg versus edited raw and this extreme to dark to light picture shows that even the jpeg while still blowing out the highlights shows an impressive amount of dynamic range ISO performance is okay up to 3200 but this is not a low light shooter anything above 3200 and you get smudgy pixels lots of detail but I do have to praise them for noise reduction the default setting can seriously clean up your images without super negative After Effects uh it does leave your shadows and all those spots a little bit soft but if you really want to touch up your images just shoot raw the x30 has Wi-Fi capabilities for remote shooting and transferring photos and I love that I can connect my phone to uh the camera either iOS or Android and transfer the photos to Instagram and maybe back up a few my favorite captures of the day you do have to go through this process every time so enable the Wi-Fi uh and connect to the camera through the Fujifilm app uh but it's still faster in my opinion for sharing than having to offload the SD card and from my time with the camera you really get a sense of handling something like this a combination of retro and modern with the x30 really the best camera feature all the manual adjustments if you want to have full accessible control of everything that's there on the body and you can remap things you can adjust of what the Rings do and that's really good to see the electronic viewfinder is awesome fast focus for pictures and even Wi-Fi link is great uh 1080p video capture at 60 frames a second is all right uh and really amazing macro results round this up for an all-inclusive package plus don't forget raw capture pictures come out really sharp with great lighting but you come IND door and the conversation changes as the smaller sensor has difficulty with retaining detail and high ISO performance is just not passable I really wish that the dedicated exposure compensation dial at the top was uh something else because the only time I'm actually used the exposure compensation was when I was outside I didn't want to blow out thegu set it to negative 1 and went on my way but that's easily done in a software regardless and if this was a customizable dial you can put it maybe to ISO or shutter speed then you'll actually come to use it more often I also not a big fan of the turning on mechanism especially because if you want to just view your pictures you have to take off the entire cap and it's a little bit cumbersome process plus the video record button beside it is in a very difficult spot to access if you have bigger fingers luckily that's remappable so the bottom line the x30 you know it's high in appearance it's high in features uh the best feature is all the manual controls that are right there but the main compromise is its sensor size so if you can you know face the imitations if you can work around the sensor size and it's uh a high poor ISO performance a poor low light then you might actually love the x30 so guys thank you so much for watching this concludes our Fujifilm x30 review let us know how we did on our first ever camera review here at ronx don't forget to like if you found this review helpful uh don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already and we'll see you in the next one\n"