You have to love Fujifilm’s math. In the fall of 2024, they’ve released a new entry level APS-C mirrorless camera, the X-M5, which has been positively received by the pundits. In a way, it’s a combination of the characteristics of two defunct models, the X-M1 and the X-A5.
I don’t own a X-M5 – and I don’t see why I would need to buy one at this juncture – but I’ve owned a X-M1 for a short while, and still use (and mostly like) the X-A5.
A quick review of the Fujifilm X-A5
In the days when the resolution of the sensors was low (12 or 16 Megapixel for an APS-C sized sensor), moire was a big issue, and camera makers had to place a low pass filter in front of the sensor of their cameras to mitigate the issue. But placing a low pass filter in front of the sensor limited the resolution of the images it produced even more. By developing their own Trans-X filter array as a substitute to the Bayer array that everybody else was using, Fujifilm was able to defeat moire without needing a low pass filter – boosting the real life resolution of their cameras. The X-Pro or the X-T1, for instance, were supposed to deliver images of the same quality as a full frame camera, because the performance of their sensor was not choked by a low pass filter.
It was a big thing 12 years ago. And as a result, Fujifilm’s Trans-X models could be sold at a premium.
In 2014, having launched the X-Pro, the X-100S and the X-T1, Fujifilm was ready to make Trans-X more accessible, and launched what could be described as a “premium entry level” model, the X-M1. Followed a few weeks later by its less fortunate little brother, the X-A1, where the Trans-X sensor had been replaced by a Bayer sensor. Premium vs Basic. Trans-X vs Bayer. Expensive vs cheap. As a premium entry level model, the X-M1 was not very successful, and the X-M line was abandoned rapidly. The X-A1, on the other hand, met its public, and was followed by a long line of models – the X-A2, X-A3, X-A10, X-A5 and finally the X-A7.
I’ve always liked small cameras, and I had bought a nice second hand X-M1. With a good lens and a static subject, image quality was extremely good (it shared its 16 Megapixel sensor with with X-Pro and the X-100S), but it was one of the Fujifilm cameras that had not transitioned to phase detection autofocus, and its contrast detection algorithm was slow and not very accurate – the camera’s keep rate on moving subjects was really bad, and I sold it rapidly (the same can be said of the original X-100 – I loved the images it produced, but far too many of them were out of focus).
The X-A line was probably the last to adopt Phase Detection autofocus in the Fujifilm line up, but when it did with the X-A5, it made all the difference. It’s a reactive and precise machine, and a joy to use.
Being a “A” model, it does not benefit from a Trans-X sensor, but with 24 Megapixels, its Bayer matrix sensor does not need a low pass filter and image quality is very similar to what you would get from a Trans-X camera like the X-H1 or the X-T3.
It’s an entry level model, but it’s not overly de-contented – and it’s built of good quality components (the rear display is articulated, and usable even under a bright sunshine). It’s a true Fujifilm camera, designed to produce Jpegs that can be used “out of the camera”, with all sorts of film simulations to personalize your images.
It comes with a 15-45mm collapsible Power Zoom, (the XC15-45mmF3.5-5.6 OIS PZ) which is very compact and produces images of good quality. I had used another copy of that zoom on a X-T1 a few years ago, and while the image quality was really good, I had been irritated by the “fly by wire” control of the focal length, at the same time too slow and over-reactive. I had also noticed it drained the battery of the camera rather rapidly. No such issue on the copy I’m using on the X-A5 (maybe the firmware of the lens has been refined, maybe shooting without a viewfinder forces the photographer to operate more slowly and masks the over-reactivity of the commands). In any case, its small size makes it a good fit for the X-A5. The body+lens combination is smaller than a Fujifilm X-100 – and than the most compact of the manual focus SLRs of the late seventies (Olympus OM-2 or Nikon FM).
Without an electronic viewfinder but with a power zoom, the X-A5 is definitely in a different category than an X-T or X-H camera. Fewer controls are available (no AE or AF lock buttons, no joystick, for instance), but the touch screen is very usable, the Q menus easy to navigate, and the two control wheels let the photographer adjust all the important parameters (speed or aperture or exposure compensation) on the fly. Ultimately, it’s a trade-off: it’s a small and light camera, and even if it’s not as powerful as a “big” X-T or X-H with a constant aperture zoom, it will be far less of a pain to carry around, and it is my camera of choice for casual photography.
The most serious gripe I have is not directly at the camera, but at the inconsistency of the way the aperture is set on Fujifilm lenses. If you’ve started using Fujifilm cameras with the X-Pro or the X-T1 and fixed focal length lenses (or one of Fujifilm’s high-end constant aperture zooms), you’ve been used to setting the aperture on the aperture ring of the lens, like you would have done with a manual focus SLR in the seventies. But cheaper sliding aperture zooms have an aperture ring with no marking, and entry level zooms (like the one coming with the X-A5) have no aperture ring at all. Which means you must use the control wheel to set the aperture , and check the aperture value on the rear LCD display. At the top of that, the control wheels are not always located at the same place on the body of the camera. It depends on the model. It’s not an issue if you shoot exclusively with an X-A5, but confusing if you alternate between a “big” X-T (or X-H) and a “small” X-A5 body, or between expensive and cheaper lenses.
When you’ve used a recent Fujifilm camera (anything they’ve launched in the last four years), you’ve most probably connected the camera to your smartphone using Fujifilm X-App, which takes advantage of Bluetooth and Wifi to make photo transfers, remote control and firmware upgrades with ease. That’s something that you will miss on the X-A5, which has to rely on the older and more cumbersome Cam Remote.
The X-A5 is a tad too big to be the camera I always carry with me – that would be role of the Olympus Tough TG-4 or the Fujifilm XQ2 if I was not so lazy and generally used my phone to take pictures – but it’s a good camera for casual sorties – like a walk in an old neighborhood or a week-end in an interesting city – when I don’t want to schlepp a bigger X-T and its heavier lens. Even with the 15-45 kit lens, you don’t lose much in terms of image quality. Overall, it’s a very pleasant camera, and a keeper.
The X-A5 was launched in 2018 and replaced with the X-A7 in 2020. It can be bought second hand for approx. $300.00 (body only), while nice copies can fetch up to $500.00 with the kit lens and OEM batteries and chargers.
What about the X-M5? It’s an M series camera, and as such it benefits from a Trans-X sensor, in this case the 26 Megapixel chip also seen on the X-T4. And its video section has been seriously beefed up, because that’s what the market is asking for at the moment. As Fujifilm’s entry level camera, it has been priced very aggressively, and if it’s as good (compared to its peers from other brands) as the X-A5 was six years ago, Fujifilm got themselves a winner.
APS-C – what does it mean? A long time ago, when film was still king, Kodak and the leading camera makers decided to launch a new film format, which was supposed to address some of the shortcomings of the well known 135 (aka 35mm) film format, save on silver halide, and bring more revenue. That format was named APS.
The film (and the cassette containing it) were smaller than the conventional 35mm film and cartridge. APS cameras offered the choice of three form factors: the default showed the same 3:2 proportions as the 35mm negatives or slides, but at a reduced 0.66 scale. It was named APS-C. A second form factor, APS-H, placed the images in a frame of 16:9 proportions and APS-P produced panoramic pictures.
When camera makers started designing dSLRs in the late nineteen nineties, the chip foundries could not manufacture full size sensors (sensors of the same size as a 35mm negative) at a remotely acceptable cost. Nikon and Canon had to adopt smaller sensors, which were roughly the size of the APS-C negatives. It became a sort of standard, and we still use “APS-C’ to designate an image sensor of 24x16mm. Approximately 10 years later, sufficient progress had been made in the chip foundries to make “full-frame” sensors commercially viable. Today, Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony sell interchangeable lens cameras of two sensor sizes, APS-C, and Full-Frame. Fujifilm is primarily selling cameras with APS-C sized sensors.
Fujica AX-5 and Fujifilm X-A5. Fujifilm have been in business for almost a century, and at some point sold their cameras under the Fujica brand. They later sold them as “Fuji” before settling on “Fujifilm”, right when the market started moving to digital. Go figure. But they’ve always had a fondness for the letter “X”. In the late seventies/early eighties, they had a whole range of SLRs named AX-something (AX-1, AX-3, AX-5, AX Multi…). They were not bad by the standards of the time, but certainly not as good or popular as their competitors from Canon, Minolta, Nikon and Pentax.
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