Fujifilm X-E4 Review – Mirrorless is more

There’s a certain reassuring factor to owning a camera, even in an age where you can snap a fantastic picture with your phone and show it online in seconds. Setting your aperture, checking your ISO settings, and focusing on your subject matter always gives you a finer level of control, and if you’re feeling bitten by the shutterbug lately, there’s no shortage of great options out there.

Take the Fujifilm X-E4 for example. It’s a compact mirrorless lens offering from the company, that provides a great entry-level approach within its slim design. Inside of it you’ll find a 26.1-megapixel X-Trans sensor, an improved tilting screen, and the interchangeable lens approach means that you can slap on a new piece of focusing hardware easily when the need arises.

But it’s a camera that also has several compromises in its design that helps it reach an affordable price point. While they aren’t exactly deal-breakers, they do emphasize Fujifilm’s approach to creating a camera that specializes in one field as opposed to other brands that opt for a Jack-of-all-trades approach.

For example, the body has no grip on it, but it does have Fujifilm’s trademark style of a metal top, plastic body materials, and a leather-simulated texture. It’s a solid piece of hardware, but you’ll need to make certain that you’ve got it strapped around your neck when you’re out and about unless you want to learn a very expensive lesson. There’s also an electronic viewfinder, and the body has dedicated dials for shutter speed and exposure compensation, with the rest of the functions available through its menu.

And ordinarily, that’s not the end of the world, it’s a facet of this camera’s design that just takes some getting used to. The drawback here is that cycling through drive mode options is somewhat clunky and slow, which is a pity considering that the LCD screen has a sharp image, touchscreen controls, and supports swipe gesture control. The body’s svelte design doesn’t make it great for larger lenses either, as I had an XE 18-55mm lens strapped to my review unit and I certainly felt the pull of gravity when I was walking around with the camera. Ideally, you’re going to want a small prime lens to keep this camera’s pocket-sized design manageable.

But everything else you could ask for is included on the X-E4. There’s a hot shoe mount at the top, a USB-C port that serves multiple roles, and a 3.5mm jack for audio monitoring when you’re shooting video. You won’t be doing too much recording though, as the NP-W126S battery lasted me around 45-50 minutes of 4K video shooting on a full charge, a feature that’s commonplace in entry-level mirrorless lens cameras from multiple brands these days.

Lastly, there’s some solid wireless functionality included in the X-E4. You can choose between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to connect to Android, iOS, phones, and tablets, which comes in handy when you’re out in the field. The key takeaway with the X-E4’s overall build is that it’s a taste of what Fujifilm’s capable of with its mid and high-end models, an appetiser with a leaner approach to the signature design quirks of this camera brand.

So what’s the image quality like then? Pretty darn great!

Autofocus is a step up when compared to previous models, and while it may still be lagging behind the ungodly speed and precision of rivals like the Sony ZV-E10, the X-E4 can be counted on to reliably capture some sharp images when you let it take over. Lens choice obviously matters, but more often than not I found myself surprised by the clarity of the images that I was able to snap. Said images also look fantastic, full of natural colour, accurate capture of your subject matter, and a bevy of colour profiles to choose from.

Quick note: My SD card with my cooler cat photos is…somewhere…so for now I only have some toy photos to show off in this review. I will find it, dang it.

Veterans should be able to squeeze an impressive amount of quality out of the image when shooting in RAW, as the final image can be customized beautifully in programs such as Adobe Lightroom. I found the X-E4 to be brilliant for street photography, and with some fine-tuning done beforehand to open up the dynamic range and ensure that the image was as sharp as could be for my personal tastes, I was having a ball.

The same can’t be said for the video recording though. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still be able to record good-looking video on the X-E4, which maxes out at 4K 30FPS, but there’s something missing from the end result. It’s good, but not great, and that’s even with one of several film simulation modes applied to the shoot, such as a professional-grade flat F-Log profile that’s meant to offer more flexible editing options in post-production. There’s no stabilized sensor functionality either, so be prepared to see some wobbliness when you’re out and about unless you happen to have a DJI Ronin on hand.