This was not a planned purchase at all, I just came across it while looking through a well known auction site. It had such a good price on it, no problems with the camera itself and the seller assured me it was in 100% working order. I couldn’t say no.
The reasoning behind the purchase was the body form. I.E. I feel that lenses such as the 18-135 f3.5-5.6 is just too heavy for bodies such as the X-E2 or X-T1/T3. They just don’t balance well at all on that type of body. The X-H1 though is something else. I took the X-H1 out with the 18-55 kit lens and the 18-135 zoom to see if my reasoning was correct.
One thing I can say, the weight is certainly heavier than all the other Fujifilm cameras. I’m talking about their APS-C offerings here and not any of their medium format cameras. They are certainly out of my budget, and then you need the lenses to go with them. I think I’ll stay with the APS-C.
Let’s take a look at the specs:
Fujifilm X-H1
Weight: 673g (X-T3: 539g)
Resolution: 24MP (X-T3: 26MP)
Dual SD card slots
Environmentally sealed
IBIS - 5 axis
Price new: €1200 (X-T3: €1500)
The X-H1 is the only camera that has IBIS. Why this is, I can’t tell you but it does work in the X-H1 so maybe we’ll see Fuji incorporate it in future bodies.
Focusing is much better than the system in the older models but gets trumped by the X-T30/T3. Those two cameras have excellent AF. Not that the X-H1 is a slouch, it’s not. It’s just that the newer cameras have a much better system.
The screen on top seems to be the rage again. Personally I haven’t really used it yet. Maybe when I’ll use the camera on a tripod I’ll use it.
It uses the same battery as all the other Fuji cameras. Great, really, I appreciate that. Maybe the shot count per battery isn’t all that good, but I have enough spare batteries so all is well. Doesn’t bother me at all.
The shutter sound is to die for, probably the best I’ve ever heard and used. It really makes you want to shoot some more images. Strange that.
The AF-On button on the back of the camera is excellent. I think all cameras should have one of these.
I haven’t used the 18-135 f3.5-5.6 lens much on the other cameras because it really didn’t balance well and I didn’t think it was the best lens in the Fuji line-up. However, having used it on the X-H1 for test images the lens seems to shine. At least it did on my X-H1. Very sharp images. See below.
All the following images were taken with the 18-55 f2.8-4.0 kit lens
Here are a few taken with the 18-135 f3.5-5.6
Conclusion:
Not everyone will like this camera. You certainly note the weight after handling the camera for a couple of hours, especially if you have a bigger lens on it. The form factor does offer better handling when user longer and heavier lenses. It's about perfect. However, I can recommend the camera evn if you like using the Fuji small lenses because of the IBIS. It works well and is the only camera in the Fuji stable to have this function. Generally speaking, I hightly recommend the camera as the images have a nice rendition and are sharp with nice colours.
