First thoughts on the Fujifilm X-T5 for event photography

Why I love the Fujifilm X-T5 for event photography

I’ve been using Fujifilm X-T series cameras for my professional event and wedding photography ever since the X-T1. I’ve upgraded to every new X-T camera except the X-T4, which I skipped because I didn’t really mind about IBIS and I absolutely loathed the ‘articulated screen’ they switched to from the lovely 3-way tilt screen on the X-T3. So I’ve got tens of thousands of hours (and even more raw files) logged with these cameras in a professional setting so I know exactly what I want and what they’re capable of.

After four years on the X-T3 body I was ready to upgrade, and when I saw the X-T5 was going back to the 3-way tilt screen I was overjoyed. Add in that new battery, better IBIS, bigger sensor, faster processor etc, and I pre-ordered two X-T5s within minutes of the X-Summit streaming on YouTube in summer 2022.

Fast forward to late 2022 and one week after delivery I’ve used them for three event shoots: one wedding reception, and two luxury corporate parties. Overall, it feels just like the camera I know and love, just… even better. Of course, there’s a couple of new things I really don’t like and I hope can be fixed with some firmware updates, but Fuji usually does listen to feedback and fix stuff so fingers crossed it’s going to get even better.

So here’s my first thoughts about the Fujfilm X-T5 as an event and wedding photographer.

• the new grip is more pronounced than on the X-T3 (never used an X-T4), giving you a bit more to hang onto, with a sharper angle where the grip meets the front of the camera. It’s still not as grippable as the X-H2 series, but you can still get a (very expensive) grip extension if you want that kind of grip (MHG-XT5 I think). I had that grip on the X-T2 and it’s really good, but not sure I want to splash out on it now the basic grip is better.
• the improved battery life after the X-T3 is fantastic. I suppose X-T4 users already had this revelation but it’s new to me and it’s excellent. Fujifilm says they rate it for like 700 shots or something? I shot 700 raw photos in Boost Resolution mode the other night and the battery only dropped one bar. I did about the same amount the next night and it dropped to two bars. I’m in the habit of turning off the camera between bursts of shooting so I can easily see me getting through a whole wedding on one battery per camera, maybe swapping to a second at the very end pre-emptively to avoid running out at a crucial moment. So I’m kind of regretting buying FOUR extra Fuji batteries at launch (three per camera). I doubt I’ll ever touch the third one, except maybe a few years down the line if one of the original batteries stops holding as much charge.
• The power switch handle isn’t quite as pronounced as on the X-T3 and not quite as easy to grab and manipulate. That’s a good thing for not turning the camera on in your bag, but I do find myself reaching for it and missing quite often. Muscle memory will re-learn eventually.
• The AE-L, AF-ON, and Q buttons have all swapped around compared to the X-T3. I rarely use Q in a hurry so I don’t mind about that, but where they’ve put AE-L and AF-ON seems the wrong way round to me. For my hand it’s much easier for my thumb to reach AE-L than AF-ON, which is a shame as AF-ON sticks out a lot more, making it dead easy to find by touch. But, my thumb needs to ‘reach’ for it, whereas AE-L is almost right under my thumb. It feels much more natural to use the AE-L button for back button focus, so I’ve swapped the functions of these two buttons in the menus. I’m using back-button focus much more often than I did on the X-T3 now, just for a change.
• The shutter button feels much more easily triggered from the half-press position than the X-T3 did. I’ve had to learn to be much lighter in touch with the half-press. That’s another reason I’ve started using back-button focus more often, it’s easier to hold a focus lock and shoot a few different frames over a few seconds this way.
• The metering dial has been swapped for a STILLS / MOVIE dial so I end up recording at least one video by mistake per shoot. It tends to get knocked by mistake when I’m adjusting other settings although it’s not been a big issue yet. Not too bothered about the loss of the metering setting being buried in menus now as I rarely used it.
• The 3-way tilt screen is fabulous, I much prefer this for stills. One fantastic improvement they’ve made is when you tilt it out so you can look down at it, where the eyepiece used to obscure the top part of the screen on the X-T3, on the X-T5 you can pull the screen out away from the body more (you don’t have to, but you can) so that it clears the eyepiece. Very nice quality-of-life improvement!
• The LCD is the same size as the X-T4, X-T3, and both X-H2 bodies, so if you can’t find X-T5-specific screen protectors you should be just fine with one made for the other bodies. I could only find Expert Shield Glass protectors for the X-H2S and it fits great.
• The ISO dial no longer has a user-customisable L(ow) or H(igh) setting, instead going for a lower native 125 setting, and a C setting that puts control of ISO on the front or back dial. That’s how you access the simulated extended ISOs like 80, 25600, or 51200.
• Connection Settings now have their own proper section in the menu sidebar, rather than being buried in the Setup (spanner) menu screen. There’s actually not that many times I need to use Connection settings but when I do it’s nice to be able to get to them quicker.

And now a few problems I’m not super happy about and would love to see a firmware fix for soon

• Clicking the MENU button no longer takes you to My Menu (if you have it set up).

My Menu lets you collect certain menu settings you need quick access to in a custom screen at the bottom of the menu sidebar. On the X-T3 when you have My Menu set up and click the MENU button it takes you to the top of My Menu. I have Auto ISO at the top as if I need to switch to a different setting I usually need it quickly. I put the Exp/WB Preview setting in there too as I need to be able to turn that off when using flash with manual settings so I can see the shot.

In the launch firmware for the X-T5, clicking MENU no longer takes you to My Menu even if it’s set up. Instead, it does something very strange: it will take you to the first level down in the hierarchy of whichever top-level menu item you left highlighted.

So for example if you go to the Setup menu screen and move the highlight to the Button/Dial menu item but DON’T click through to those settings, then leave the menu, the next time you hit MENU you’ll be INSIDE the Button/Dial settings screen itself.

This feels like a broken version of the default behaviour if you don’t have My Menu set up, which is to take you back to where you were last. Although tbh I’ve never not had My Menu set up, so I don’t know if this is how the menus have always behaved.

But I do have My Menu set up, and having to backtrack out of menus and navigate down to My Menu every time is a royal pain in the backside. If Fuji made this change deliberately, PLEASE change it back, or maybe add a setting that dictates how the MENU button should behave if My Menu is set up.

• There’s no double-click function on the focus lever any more

On the X-T3 if you single-clicked the lever it allowed you to re-size the focus point without moving it. If you double-clicked you could re-centre it. And moving the lever moved the focus point around. No longer.

Now there’s a choice of options for the focus lever single-click and move functions, but no double-click option. The ‘re-centre’ function is only available on the single-click, and then your only option for re-sizing the focus point is to move it first. This is really annoying because I’m constantly using the front dial to adjust my exposure. With these focus lever settings I find myself constantly adjusting the focus point size when I meant to adjust exposure.

I’ve reluctantly set it up so one click lets me change the size, and moving the lever moves the AF point without allowing a size change. This solves my ‘accidental resize’ issue but means I’ve got no ‘re-centre’ shortcut any more, which was handy in the thick of things if you lost track of the focus box (for example in a bright scene).

If Fujifilm added the double-click back function back in, it would be perfect.

• I’ve been having issues with the 56mm mk2 where the X-T5 EVF freezes for up to half a second while focussing

This is hard to reproduce at home testing it, but happens all the time on shoots because of course it does. Basically, I’ve found that if the shot is almost in focus already, and I either half-press the shutter or use back-button to lock focus, the EVF will freeze for a fraction of a second, sometimes it feels like half-second, while it focusses.

The freeze is long enough to cripple my chances of catching the moment I wanted at an event and it’s putting me off using the lens. It’s definitely not right and needs an urgent fix.

This doesn’t happen with any other lens, didn’t happen with this lens on the X-T3, and happens on both my X-T5 bodies. I originally thought I wasn’t seeing it in AF-C mode, only AF-S, but on a recent shoot I encountered it in every AF mode. Interestingly it seemed to be noticeably worse at f/1.4 than at f/1.2.

I have a feeling it may be something to do with how the 56mm focusses, which is the same mechanism as the first version. Although the new model is faster than the old model it still isn’t as snappy as any of their other new lenses like the 23mm mk2, or the 33mm. I think that’s because of the focus mechanism it uses and I wonder if this is somehow connected to what’s happening here. Got to be some reason this only happens with this lens.

• the NP-W235 battery charger design has an unusually crappy design

I deliberated about getting the Fuji battery charger, as the Nitecore charger seemed to be better reviewed, and half the price. But, it has a weird design with a battery on opposite sides so it can’t really sit flat on a surface. Great for space saving in a bag but I was going to use at home almost exclusively and wanted something a bit neater looking.

So I got the Fuji one in the end, but I’m quite annoyed by a couple of things.

Firstly, it doesn’t come with a cable. They recommend you use the one that came with the X-T5, but that’s just one foot long, or thereabouts, so it’s unusable unless your plug sockets are at desk height or you’re happy keeping the charger on the floor.

So, I ordered a 6 foot Anker charging cable, designed to work with the Apple MacBook Pro charger and other devices. Now I can keep the charger on a desk-height unit I keep all my other chargers on. The Fuji charger has a small display at the front… but the USB-C socket is also on the front not at the back like every other charger I own. Meaning to plug this thing in, and keep the display facing you in the correct orientation, means snaking the cable around the front and bending it back to meet the socket. It’s so ugly, and awkward, and just inexplicable really.

Another niggling issue I’ve found is that only the Fuji cable seems to work reliably with it and I can’t work out why. All other cables I’ve tried seem to cause the charging display to stop showing the second battery status after a few seconds. I’m not sure if that means that second battery has stopped charging until the first one is full.

The Anker cable I bought intermittently has this issue – I plug both batteries in, they both show a status, then about 5-10 seconds later the second battery status disappears.

Sometimes after I test the Fuji cable then switch back to the Anker, the Anker works ‘properly’ too, keeping both battery statuses displayed. But then a day or so later I’ll notice it’s only showing one battery status again. I don’t know what this means.