Fujifilm X-E3 Mirrorless Digital Camera w/XF18-55mm Lens Kit - Silver

I really love this camera although there are a few small details I feel could improve it. I still give it a five star rating when considering how picky the possible improvements are. The list of strengths and areas for improvement are:+ The autofocus is very fast and reliable. I have heard some criticism about performance in low light but I feel it still does very well when compared to other cameras I have used.+ The jpg's are wonderful!!! The fuji set up with film simulation and easy access to jpg settings when using the Q key makes photography MUCH more phone. I can't believe the amount of great looking jpg's I get straight from the camera. Way more than I every achieved with any other brand of camera.+ Very nice and light weight. Makes walking around with it easy and much more fun.+ The histogram is so useful. I just wish that they had had that option on prior versions of the Fuji cameras.+ The lenses are amazing! I set back and thought about my former Nikon and Sony that I had owned and their lenses. When looking reviewing the lenses I used with them and the ones I use with my Fuji camera, all of the top 5 best lenses I had owned where from my Fuji line. Camera's are important but in my opinion, the lenses are the most important aspect and this area really makes Fuji shine!+ Ease of use. The buttons are place in great positions and being given the ability to assign them to the uses I want enable me to keep my eye on the camera and reduce missed shots.+ The joystick is awesome. I just love how easy it makes it to get the focus point where wanted.- The location of the card slot on the bottom can be inconvenient when using the tripod since it can require you to take it down to chage the card although that rarely happens. What I would like more is for it to have two card slots. I just had a situation a long time ago when the card went bad and I lost a lot of photos and so that is an area of concern for me.- It would be nice if it had a tilt screen . I have used this with other cameras in the past and it can be useful although not a deal breaker for he.- My biggest compliant is the eye piece. I LOVE the rangefinder location which I feel is a much more pleasant experience having it off of one's face. However, the eye piece is terrible with keeping light out. When outside in the sun and turning different directions, I have definitely experienced situations where the vision was impaired. I just wish that they had made it with either a larger eyepiece or at least an option to alter what is on there. I know that this sounds picky but it is easily my greatest issue with this camera.

great little camera, paired with the zoom lens (18-55, F2.8-4) provides perfect package for most situations. Well built, it feels like quality when holding it in hands..It's a pleasure to just hold it and look at it..lol..I love the small and sleek look of this camera, while it still has some weight (with the lens) giving you a feeling of good sturdy high quality product...if you attach a pancake lens (like the 27mm F2.8), you will have very small package, close to the 100F.Picture quality through the kit zoom lens is amazing...OIS is great, allowing handholding at lower shutter speeds.It actually amazes me how good and versatile this zoom lens (18-55, F2.8-4) is.Having range finder style is way to go, if you are right eye dominant (most people), as your nose wont hit the screen and the EVF sensor will work perfectly.,And then there is the joystick for focusing points, which is soooo much better than the D-PAD on most of the other Fujis...Its faster, more accurate and just much better. and talking about no D-Pad, by not having it you have more space for your thumb, which again improves your grip!! The right front is nicely rubberized, so great for the grip again.Tiltable screen isnt available on the X-E3 but thats something I can live with.One disappointment is the promoted bluetooth....Fujifilm marketed it as something that this camera has, giving it something that the other models dont have. Well, unfortunately you still have to hook to the wifi if you want to transfer pictures...so not really sure, why the bluetooth is even part of this package. I wonder, if they will fix it via future firmware updates. But again, thats not a deal breaker for me, as I transfer pics via USB cable anyway.

I'm moving up from a Sony RX100V and wanted a compact interchangeable lens camera capable of producing outstanding images and I think the Fuji XE3 hits it right on the mark.In the past I've also used a Sony A7 with a Zeiss Batis 85mm 1.8 and can state that the results coming out the Fuji XE3 with a Leica Summilux 50mm 1.4 are substantially better - at least to my eye. Granted, much of that could be the lens, and the A7 is probably near the end of its product cycle, but the Zeiss is certainly no slouch and the fact that we can even compare results from a full frame sensor and an APS-C is really quite incredible. Given that this setup is about half the size of the A7+Zeiss and at a price point of <$1000 for the body I think its a great "value." I despise that word, especially in this case because it seems to imply a compromise was made somewhere where there wasn't.For reference, I handled a Fuji T20 and XPro2 though didn't use actually them - take it for what its worth but I found the center placement of the viewfinder on the T20 a real issue while the XPro2 felt a bit wide. The XE3 feels better in my hands than both and is quite a bit smaller than even the T20.In terms of handling, the joystick is pretty slick, it took all of 30 minutes to familiarize myself with the physical control layout, and the control wheels on the front and back are easily customizable so I have mine set for ISO and shutter speed. The electronic shutter is dead silent, whereas the mechanical shutter is relatively quiet and unobtrusive. I pretty much nixed the touch screen, I'm using the camera as a manual focus so really 80% of the features packed in this camera are not really relevant to me.The only major complaint I have is there seems to be some lag on the EVF / LCD when manual focusing, almost like the refresh rate goes to a crawl. I resolve it by depressing the shutter release halfway but its still kind of annoying. I have no clue if its the Fuji X mount to M mount adapter or the actual camera body, but this is all pretty minor stuff and I'm hoping a firmware update will resolve the issue.All in all a fantastic camera.-- update (still a fantastic camera) --I'd like to amend this review as my major complaint about the EVF / LCD could be completely resolved by setting the Performance setting under "Power Management" to High Performance, up from Standard...I guess I figured the camera set on Standard was already pretty good so High Performance is just being greedy, right?Tips on Using Manual FocusI didn't find the digital split image terribly useful, maybe if it were a sharper implementation that doesn't cover most of the frame I'd use it but for now my preferred methods are either plain standard or focusing peaking. I had found focusing peaking a bit difficult in certain situations with a color LCD / Viewfinder, namely due to a lack of contrast where the focus peaking color is the same as the subject e.g red focus peaking on a red fire truck, or where there's just no contrast at the point of focus at all.To resolve this, you need a black & white EVF / LCD liveview with colored focus peaking. To do so you can set the film simulation mode (ACROS, Monochrom, etc., perhaps a bit of a misnomer because it can be applied to stills as well as video), which can be configured to render a beautiful black and white jpeg still photo while maintaining red focus peaking in live view.To preserve the data in the shot, you can configure the image quality output to produce an additional RAW file (RAW + Normal/Fine) that preserves all color data captured on the sensor. In my opinion this gives the best of both worlds - a black and white view in the EVF / LCD with a contrasty Red focus peak, that produces an amazing JPEG while preserving a fully colored RAW file should I need it.In terms of button configuration, I set the top right AF-L button to "Focus Check" which allows me to do snap digital zoom so I can fine tune focus on relatively stationary subjects. I found this pretty essential for portraiture on a fast lens as the depth of field is almost deceivingly narrow.