5 Things I love about the new Fujifilm X-H2s
Welcome back! It’s been a while since I put some lines onto my blog. But here we go again. I have the new Fujifilm X-H2s since the first of July and already used it on quite a few jobs so far, mostly tourism themed shoots. Here I summarized my 5 key points of this cam, which struck me the most. Disclaimer: I’m not sponsored or anyhow involved with Fujifilm, I just love their gear and want to share my thoughts.
Before I go into details, this camera was used with a San Disk 256 GB — 1200MB/s CF Express Type B Card and a San Disk SD 128 GB — 300 MB/s Card. I wanted to make sure I can unlock the full potential of this camera, which includes ProRes Video Recording where you need the fast CF Express Card, it doesn't work with the SD Card.
Overall Speed
The first thing I noticed when shooting with this new camera, was definitely the speed. The Autofocus performance improved noticeably over the X-T4, especially with the new lenses. Now they also added special object and face / animal detection modes, which work also very good if you require them. I have a very hard time to miss some shots, everything is just spot on. Also shooting more stills per second, they just write so damn fast on to the cards. But yeah, the stacked sensor really shines with processing power of this new cam. It’s not called X-H2S without a reason.
CF Express Type B
I know this may be something more people bother, because they were used to shooting on to 2x SD Cards. But I really love the fact, that we can now shoot on to faster cards, which are also more solid built. Transferring and backing up photos now is even faster. Whoo. Absolutely, a small but incremental improvement here.
Image Quality
As usual, Image Quality is superb. For myself, I can’t notice that much of a difference to the X-T4. But for me, the X-T4 & 3 already have been on a level which is still enough for me. If you want to see more details, check out some pixel peeper reviews.
Video Performance
THIS! Whoooa. It’s such a beast in this area. So, where should I start here? Ok. Let’s go with ProRes. This beast records internally 6k 30p ProRes HQ / 422 / LQ with 10 bit 4:2:2 and I love it. My workstation has a hard time to decode the normal H.265 Codec of the X-T4 or 3, so I always decoded the H.265 files into the ProRes Format for editing. Now this whole process is gone, because I can natively record in ProRes. I know the files are getting bigger, but for me, it’s worth it. This cam shoots crazy bitrates up to over 1000Mbit/s in ProRes and even around 760Mbit/s in H.265. You can also record proxies if you want. You have the support of F-LOG2, which is even flatter and provides more Dynamic Range than the normal F-LOG. CineD did some tests and the DR is huge, around real 13 stops. This puts it above the BMCC6k. Rolling Shutter is very low, due to the fast sensor readout.
Here you can also notice the improved AF Performance. While it definitely took some time for the X-T4 to follow subjects or refocus with AF-C settings. This is now a thing from the past. I’m happy that Fujifilm improved in this area, so they’re now on a same level as Sony again.
IBIS
And last but not least, the good ol IBIS! While it was already good in the X-T4 they improved it very well. Especially for video. So with the X-T4 I always had the problems of micro-jitter. The footage always looked badly stabilized or something, especially when shooting handheld. It was OK, when you held completely still for a static shot, or when it was on a gimbal. But doing handheld motion always looked awkward. I don’t know what they did with the X-H2s but all those issues are gone. Handheld footage know looks similar to my SONY FX6 handheld footage, and this makes me very happy. Well done guys!
Conclusio
This is for me the perfect hybrid camera. I have a lot of jobs where I need to do photo and video. With this camera, it’s possible to get a step closer to deliver better content for my clients. I can shoot faster, because AF is more reliable, Video is getting insanely good and my Post-Production Workflow also got a boost due to better codecs and faster cards. Now I want the same tech in a X-T5 body, so I can have my dials back.
All the photos have been edited with my presets and can be found on my homepage: www.chrisperkles.at
