Fujifilm X70 review

Fujifilm X70 review – Image quality

The 16.3-million-pixel X-Trans CMOS sensor and EXR processor have become a familiar sight in X-Series cameras over the past couple of years, so there’s no nasty surprises when it comes to results from the X70.

Files offer plenty of flexibility in post-production, allowing you to recover decent levels of highlight and shadow detail

While 16.3-million-pixels might appear a little behind the times compared to some rivals, don’t forget that it does away with an optical low-pass filter. This means the sensor can resolve an impressive amount of detail – more than you’d expect, perhaps, from a traditional Bayer arrangement, and without suffering from any unwanted artefacts either.

Resolution

As we’ve seen from other X-Series cameras, the sensor in the X70 is capable of resolving excellent levels of detail, with results from our Applied Imaging test chart at around 3200l/ph at ISO 100. As you’d expect, this drops slightly as sensitivity is increased, achieving 2900l/ph at ISO 1600 and 2700l/ph at ISO 6400. At JPEG-only sensitivities, though, noise starts to have a major impact, with ISO 51,200 seeing the resolution reduced to just over 2200l/ph.

JPEG ISO 100

JPEG ISO 400

JPEG ISO 1,600

JPEG ISO 6,400

JPEG ISO 25,600

JPEG ISO 51,200

Dynamic range

In our Applied Imaging tests, the X70 measured 11.32EV at ISO 200 – almost identical to results from other X-Trans CMOS sensor-based X-series cameras and giving plenty of latitude in exposure and flexibility in post-processing should you need to recover lost detail. This drops to 8.47EV at ISO 800, which is still respectable, while dropping to 6.07EV at ISO 6400 – noise in the shadows becomes more pronounced, but it’s still a solid performance at this sensitivity.

Noise

Despite only being able to shoot JPEG files at ISO 100, the X70 delivers very clean files at this sensitivity, with excellent detail and pleasing colours. Shooting at ISO 200 and looking at RAW files, there’s little to fault here – detail is very good with images displaying no visible signs of noise. It’s only at ISO 1,600 that noise begins to impose itself on the image, with detail in the shadows starting to suffer. That said, even at ISO 6,400, results are still more than acceptable, but beyond that, and shooting in JPEG only, results aren’t that great – top ISO is certainly best avoided.