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Appearance and operation
In the box you will find the usual duty accessories (battery, charger, cable, strap, instruction manual, CD with software) and - very laudable - a lens hood. Also it is in the printed Guide to an extensive version (monolingual in German), which is no longer taken for granted today.
On experience when unpacking Fujifilm should hone in their own interests still - too cheap already expected on the packaging. I have my X-M1 exempted from a thick-walled, but wrong and repelled looking box (which is the material).
The cheap impression is unfortunately the camera body continuously, which looks at first glance, especially from the front and sides, very plasticky. On my copy also adhesive residues were still visible on the edge of the black rubber pad that spans the housing. The remains I scratched with a fingernail. The case pointed factory already two small but deep scratches in the silver-painted lower part of the housing. That's a far cry from the impression I'm used to cameras from the houses Nikon, Canon or Sony - even in lower price ranges. My negative first impression was rounded off by clearly visible dust particles (cardboard leftovers?) To the bottom lens of the objective (despite protective cover) and the sensor (!) In the camera itself. This fluff I once blown away carefully.
The controls make mainly a solid impression, especially the two milled aluminum dials. The black selector wheel next to the display on the other hand is very plastic as standard. The power button is a bit too stiff and advised the trigger a little small and shaky. A big problem is not the but.
Otherwise, the case is grippy, the operating elements are clearly placed.
The swivel 90 degrees up and down the display is high resolution, contrast and color strength. It can be adjusted very bright, so that the operator even in bright environments is no problem. The illumination is somewhat uneven in my copy.
The built-in flash pops after pressing the mechanical release highly forwards out. This shadowing is avoided through the lens.
The kit lens has a bayonet made of plastic, but well made. The digital focus ring runs smoothly.
The extensive menu act cleaned up and give little riddle. Something ugly is that the X-M1 is not noted on the menu item you were last. On the menu entries, the camera responds quite quickly overall.
Display, controls and functions can be configured quite far-reaching. In this sense, the camera clearly aimed at photographers who wish to bring some experience and use the device more specifically.
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Photo quality and function
The image quality of photos from the X-M1 as a whole is excellent, and at the level of (beginner) DSLRs. The detail resolution is very good, the reproduction of contrasts and colors also. Even when noise performance of the sensor convinced though the ISO to the camera should be treated with caution - more on that later.
The kit lens does his job very neatly. Distortion and vignetting keep within narrow limits. The figure shows the wide angle end and at maximum aperture only slight edge blur to, from about 5 Aperture image into the corners is sharp. In detail a lateral CA is visible, which is not the way eliminated by the camera for the JPEG output.
The white balance produces hardly slips, and also the automatic exposure works quite reliably. Only with backlight situations it is not coming along well and produces alternately slightly above and underexposed.
The camera monitors when you turn on very quickly - in less than two seconds, it is ready to fire.
Shutter lag itself is barely perceptible. If you want to trigger with image control, but it also depends on the delay of the live image on the display. They can be felt at the X-M1, but is still completely in the green zone.
Really great is the auto focus, which works very fast and fail.
In series the X-M1 optional 3 or max effort. 5.6 frames per second. When recording of RAW and jpeg (high quality) is full to ten images of the internal buffer memory, and it is (depending on the memory card) with approximately 0.3 fps on.
A wireless connection to my Android smartphone I could not with the "Camera" - even with the "Photo Receiver" app manufacture, although the devices mutually recognized (both apps lt description in Google Play compatible with the X-M1. ). However, a control of the camera via WiFi, which I found most interesting is not possible anyway, but only the transfer of pictures.
Via USB the X-M1 transmits still acceptable 13.6 MB / s on my PC. Something stupid that when transferring photos to your PC, the modification date of the files is set to the time of transfer, not the time of admission. Unfortunately, it is the USB port is not (as in Sony's NEX cameras) of MPT switch to Mass Storage Device Mode.
For a system camera with no viewfinder, the battery life is very good - after about 450 images (without flash) the first of the three segments of the battery status display disappears.
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X-Trans sensor and image quality compared
To the qualities of the X-Trans sensor entwine some rumors. The sensor is quite powerful, but its special design makes the programming (good) RAW converter.
In order to assess the X-M1 better, I took photos of a test structure (many colors, shades, textures) with the X-M1, the Sony NEX-5D and the Nikon Coolpix A. Compared I have all ISO levels to 6400 in JPEG (from the camera), and in RAW to JPEG conversion by the supplied software (Raw File Converter EX SILKYPIX) as well as Adobe Camera Raw.
Result number one was that the X-M1 cheats at the ISO sensitivity. In direct comparison with the other two cameras the exposure times are doubled through the same aperture and sensitivity. So we can halve the ISO values of X-M1 mentally confidently what I have done in comparison. Fittingly, provides the X-M1 as a lowest sensitivity ISO 200, so according to the usual entry sensitivity ISO 100th
Result number two: The internal JPEG converter of X-M1 does its job very well in comparison. The results fall at high ISOs cleaner, but also in the overall picture significantly softer than the NEX-5T and particularly in the Coolpix A (the barely suppressed noise in the JPEG output). High-contrast details are still fairly well received by the X-M1, but delicate textures suffer somewhat. The conversion succeeds quite well now with Adobe Camera Raw (latest version 8.3). With fine, regular structures of the internal converter the camera still comes but solid organization. Camera Raw and the Silkypix converter produce here slight artifacts in the form of color streaks.
A look at the raw data shows that the color noise in the X-M1 slightly less concise fails as in the other two cameras. In terms of brightness noise and detail reproduction it is about midway between the NEX-5N and the Coolpix A (which has the sensor of the D7000 and how the X-M1 no low-pass filter).
Otherwise, the internal JPEG output can be quite largely configure, further reducing the need for a RAW workflow. With the default settings JPEG documents from the X-M1 depending on the image content and noise about 3 to 7, typically 5 MB. RAWs (Fujifilm RAF format) show fairly constant ever 25.5 MB.
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Videos
Full-HD video from X-M1 acting high contrast, sharp and clear, but with 30 fps slightly uneasy. They have unpleasant edge flares and staircase artifacts. Brightness control and auto focus function for quite supple.
The asset supported by a low-frequency background noise sound is loud and clear - despite two audio tracks and recording with a stereo microphone but you can imagine a stereo effect at most.
Overall, the video feature is quite useful, but only for moderate claims. On the video the NEX-5T the results do not approach from the X-M1. With about 4.5 MB per second, they are also very space-hungry. (Specification Video: 1080p max, 29.97 fps, AVC High Level 4.1, approximately 36 Mbps; Audio:. Stereo PCM, 48 KHz, 1536 Kbps.)
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Conclusion
It is understandable that the Fujifilm X-M1 demarcates by austerity measures of the more expensive X-E2. The use of plastic is fine. The processing should be better but for a camera of this price range. For this and the other above-mentioned small shortcomings I subtract a star.
But in photo mode, the X-M1 knows very well convince. It delivers excellent performance. The camera is widely configurable and easy to handle. Overall I give a recommendation and four stars ****.
