Photography News Issue 65

Camera test 19

Photography News | Issue 65 | photographynews.co.uk

Performance: ISO

The X-T30’s native range is ISO 160 up to 12,800with expansion available, giving options to ISO 80 at one extreme and 51,200 at the other. As you would expect, shooting at the low and medium ISO speeds you get smooth tones, lifelike colours and good contrast. Fine detail is also crisply resolved, so shoot up to ISO 800 and you get results straight out of the top drawer. Digital noise starts making its appearance from ISO 1600,

but it’s fine and doesn’t have any negative impact on overall image quality and detail still looks crisp. In fact, I’d have no reservations shooting at ISO 1600 and 3200, because the X-T30’s BSI sensor does such a great job at maintaining impressive quality even at such high speeds. There is a quality drop off by the time you get to ISO 6400 and 12,800. Such speeds are still usable if the lighting is poor, but you need decent shutter speeds.

Original image

Images The test shots of Rome were taken using the FujifilmX-T30 mounted with XF16-55mm f/2.8 R LMWR and XF55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LMOIS lenses

ISO 100

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12,800

X-Trans sensor is the first from Fujifilm that is backside illuminated (BSI). In a BSI design, the sensor’s circuitry is on the rear of the sensor, which means light reaches the light sensitive sensors without having to travel through the sensor’s circuitry. That means more efficient light capture and less digital noise at high ISOs. The X-T30’s AF system uses 2.16 million phase detection pixels on the sensor – a quadruple increase on previous Fujifilm sensors – and coverage is nearly 100% of the

imaging frame, with 425 points in a 25x17 grid. If you want to autofocus on a subject composed at the far corner of the frame, the X-T30 has that potential. AF sensitivity in low light is better at -3EV compared with +0.5EV previously, so AF in very low lighting is possible. With the X-Processor 4, AF has improved eye/face detection and there is a new Face Select feature, too, which gives AF priority on a selected person within a group. AF on our sample was

ISO 25,600

ISO 51,200

Images An evening scene in Chester was the subject for our X-T30 ISO test. The exposure was 1.3sec at f/10 for ISO 100 . The camera’s NR was set to zero and no noise reduction was used in ediitng.

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