Quick Verdict
The Fujifilm X-A7 delivers a great combination of image quality, with a 24mp sensor, as well as a versatile and large 3.5inch screen. It could also be a great option for video use too, thanks to high-quality 4K video recording and a microphone socket, although a prime lens is recommended for the best results.
The Fujifilm X-A7 is Fujifilm's new entry-level mirrorless camera, designed to be easy to use for beginners, but also offer high image quality from a 24mp APS-C CMOS sensor, as well as 4K video recording. There's a large 3.5inch touch-screen on the back, which is the biggest screen available on any recent camera.
Fujifilm X-A7 Features
Updating, and replacing the Fujifilm X-A5, the X-A7 uses a 24mp APS-C CMOS sensor, this being a Bayer sensor, rather than the X-Trans sensor used in other Fujifilm models.
The 3.5inch screen is one of the stand-out features of the X-A7, larger than any other camera we can think of, the screen is a vari-angle screen meaning you can twist it out to face forwards, making it ideal for selfies or vlogging. It's also a touch-screen, and the camera has an updated, and easy to use user interface designed to make it easy to change settings, as well as preview different effects.
The "Smart" Menu*
This lets you easily change the look of a photo, so that you can, for example, request a blurred background, without knowing that the camera is changing the aperture of the lens. This is great in principle, and does make the camera easier to use, but if you're using a kit lens, with a limited aperture range, then it's likely you may be left wondering why the camera isn't able to produce the same kind of blurred background of a dedicated prime lens or a smartphone with a fake blurred background bokeh mode. * It's not us putting inverted commas around the word smart, this is what Fujifilm has called it on their website.
You can preview the effect of choosing different film simulations on screen, with a movable line between the before and after selections, and this lets you see the changes live, before taking the photo so that you can choose your favourite.
Face and eye-detection focus is included, as well as portrait enhancer, which smooths skin. The camera gives quick access to "easy" (or "smart") settings, using the touch-screen. You can use this, and there is built-in help giving information on the settings and options available, or if you want you can press the on-screen Q button, and get to the more advanced camera options.
You'll also find all the familiar P, A, S, M shooting modes, giving you full manual controls, as well as a number of scene modes, with SR+ (automatic scene recognition), advanced filter (toy effects, etc), SP (Scene Position) where you can choose the scene mode you want, which includes a new Light Trail scene mode (like bulb but on-screen development of the image). You can choose a Portrait mode in SP, and you'll find another Portrait enhancer on the mode dial, as well as an automatic panoramic shooting mode.
The camera is sold as a kit, with the Fujifilm XC 15-45mm OIS Power Zoom lens, which gives you a useful wide-angle zoom range from 22.5mm to 67.5mm in 35mm equivalent terms. As the X-A7 uses the Fujifilm X-Mount, it's also compatible with a wide range of Fujifilm lenses, and we've also been testing it with the XF 35mm f/2 WR (shown above), and the 50mm f/2 WR lens, both compact prime lenses that fit well with the compact size of the camera system.
The camera features 4K UHD video recording, at 30, 25, 24 and 23.98fps, as well as full HD video at 60fps. There are options to record high-speed video at 100fps (720p), as well as the option to enable digital image stabilisation. There's clean HDMI output, as well as HDMI record control, plus a microphone socket (2.5mm) on the side, giving the camera quite advanced settings and options for videographers.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are built-in, as you would expect with a modern camera, and this lets you easily transfer images to a smartphone or tablet, with the ability to remotely control the camera, as well as add location data to images from your smartphones GPS.
Key Features
- 24.2mp APS-C CMOS sensor
- Phase Detection AF, Face/Eye-detection
- 3.5inch vari-angle touch-screen, 2760K dot, 16:9 aspect
- 4K Video recording (3840x2160, 30fps)
- FullHD video at 60fps
- 2.5mm microphone socket
- Built-in pop-up flash, 5.7GN (ISO200)
- ISO100 to ISO51200 (extended)
- 6fps continuous shooting
- 270/440 shot battery life (standard, economy)
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity
- Available in silver/black, dark silver
Fujifilm X-A7 Handling
At first glance, you can see how Fujifilm has gone for a retro/classic design style, with a two-tone silver and black colour scheme. This looks better with the graphite/dark silver version of the camera (available on Amazon UK).
However, on closer inspection, the plastic body fairly quickly gives away the budget construction, with some slightly rough, or sharp edges on the plastic, as well as obvious flex if you grip the camera too tightly. The top of the mode dial is made from metal, as well as the flash hot-shoe, the tripod socket, and some of the other hinges in the camera, however, for the most part, the camera is constructed from plastic.
In terms of handling, the front black leather-effect material has a soft touch, and is thin rubber, giving some grip. This grip is unfortunately interrupted by a silver band of plastic, making it slippier than it needs to be.
On the back is the usual and expected thumb grip, which protrudes from the camera, with a texture aimed to provide an area of grip. Unfortunately, this is made from hard plastic, reducing the effectiveness of the grip if your thumb is moist. The camera is provided with a stylish looking brown leather-effect neck strap, and using this is recommended.
There are a good number of dials, with two command dials, giving a front and rear dial, making manual modes easy to use, with direct and quick access to aperture and shutter, or exposure compensation depending what mode you're shooting in. The rear dial on the top has a middle Function button that can be used to start and stop video recording.
The screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is great for video recording, but when shooting 3:2 aspect ratio photos, you do end up with black borders on the left and right of the camera. Colour reproduction is good, and the screen gives a clear view of settings and menu items. You can also use the touch-screen to set and select menu items when needed. Unfortunately, there's not a dedicated Q button, so you do need to use the on-screen Q button.
The specifications don't specify how many focus points there are on the camera, however, when using the touch-screen, you can set the focus point to any area on the screen, with almost full coverage.
The camera starts up quickly enough, and focus is reliable and quite the majority of the time. The only issues you're likely to face [no pun intended] is when face detection picks the wrong face, however, this is the same with any camera with face detection. You can quite quickly and easily switch to another person using the touch-screen. Continuous shooting lets you shoot at 6fps for a maximum of 10 shots, or you can shoot at 3fps, and take a maximum of 50 shots.
Battery life - Battery life is rated at 270 shots in standard mode, or up to 440 shots when the economy mode is switched on. This is either below average or above average if you switch on the economy mode. Either way, we would recommend a spare battery just in case. USB Type-C connection that can be used for charging the battery in the camera.
Fujifilm X-A7 Performance
The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.
Fujifilm X-A7 Sample Photos
Sample Photos - On standard settings, the camera produces images with very good colour reproduction, and if you'd like more colour saturation you can select the Velvia film simulation mode. Face and eye detection do a great job of detecting the subject and focusing in the right area, adjusting the exposure to suit.
Dynamic range captured is good, although care needs to be taken regarding blacks, as the camera tends to favour leaving darker tones very dark, and this can result in the need to recover shadow areas. Thankfully this is easily done using the JPEG image or raw files. You can also choose a different film simulation mode that has less contrast, or adjust the highlight and shadow tones. There are options to expand the dynamic range recorded, with DR (Dynamic Range) options of Auto, DR100, DR200, and DR400.
Fujifilm X-A7 Lens test images
Lens Performance - Optical image stabilisation is built-in to the lens, however, didn't seem as effective as in-camera image stabilisation systems and the relatively slow kit lens will not help in low-light situations, where a prime lens would deliver much better results. You'll also be able to get much better bokeh (background blur) with a prime lens, rather than the kit lens.
The 15-45mm lens performs reasonably well, being sharp in the centre of the frame, becoming softer towards the corners of the frame, and the lens performed best when stopped down, in bright sunny conditions. The lens is resistant to flare, and we didn't notice any issues with purple fringing or chromatic aberration. Distortion is automatically corrected in-camera. The lens does give an impressively wide, wide-angle view, which is a nice bonus. The lens also gives good macro performance, for a kit lens, with close focus possible at both the wide-angle and telephoto ends of the lens.
The camera features built-in raw conversion, which can be extremely useful if you want to make a quick correction or change to an image.
Fujifilm X-A7 ISO test images
ISO Noise Performance - ISO100 to ISO800 produce images with the most detail and the lowest levels of noise. Noise starts to become noticeable at ISO1600 when viewing images at full-size. At ISO3200, the noise reduction looks a little better, and the camera should be able to provide a usable result. Results remain quite good at ISO6400 as well, with good colour saturation. Depending on your needs, you may find ISO12800 usable.
The Low ISO setting of ISO100 and the high ISO settings of ISO25600 and ISO51200 are only available when shooting JPEG only, and they're not available if you're shooting raw. ISO100 is best avoided, due to the reduced dynamic range.
Fujifilm X-A7 White-balance test images
White Balance Performance - Auto White Balance (AWB) gives a warm but pleasing image under tungsten lighting. The tungsten white balance preset gives a slightly more neutral result, but for the most accurate result, you'll need to use the manual white balance. Performance under mixed lighting is good. AWB performs the best under fluorescent lighting, particularly if you're looking to take product shots. The fluorescent presets all give a strong colour cast.
Fujifilm X-A7 Digital filters
Digital Filters - There are numerous colour options, creative effects, and scene modes available including 11 film simulation types (PROVIA/STANDARD, Velvia/VIVID, ASTIA/SOFT, CLASSIC CHROME, PRO Neg Hi, PRO Neg. Std, MONOCHROME, MONOCHROME+Ye FILTER, MONOCHROME+R FILTER, MONOCHROME+G FILTER, SEPIA), 11 scene modes selectable: (Portrait / Night / Fireworks / Sunset / Snow / Beach / Party / Flower / Text / Multiple Exposure / Light Trail), plus 12 Advanced filters. The advanced filters include Toy camera, Miniature, Pop colour, High-key, Low-key, Dynamic tone, Fish-eye, Soft focus, Cross screen, Partial colour (Red / Orange / Yellow / Green / Blue / Purple), Fog remove, and HDR Art. It's a shame there aren't some of the newer film simulations, such as ACROS and Classic Negative, which can be found on the Fujifilm X-Pro3.
The panoramic mode lets you take images at are a maximum resolution of 9600x2160 (vertical), or 9600x1440 (horizontal).
Video - 4K UHD video is recorded without a crop (up to 15minutes) except for the aspect ratio of 16:9, and is taken from data equal to 6K to give sharp detailed 4K video, which is recorded at a compression rate of 100mbps. FullHD video can be recorded at frame rates up to 60fps, with a 30min time limit. Use of the electronic zoom on the 15-45mm lens while recording can give some dramatic exposure changes and is best avoided after looking at our results.
Image stabilisation is not built-in to the camera, instead, you need to rely on the optical image stabilisation built-in to the lens, if you're using a lens with this. You can switch on digital image stabilisation, however, this does crop into the video slightly. Digital image stabilisation appears to be more effective when recording full HD video. You can use Touch AF to set the focus point while recording, and face and eye detection focus could make this a great option for vloggers.
Additional sample videos can be found on the ePHOTOzine YouTube Channel.
Value For Money
The Fujifilm X-A7 is available for £699 with kit lens, which makes it a little expensive when compared to the competition. We expect the price will drop over time, making it much better value for money. Alternatives to look at, include the following.
Fujifilm X-A5, 24mp, 4K video (15fps), £349 inc. lens.
Olympus PEN E-PL9, 16mp, 4K video, in-camera IS, from £440 inc. lens.
Panasonic Lumix GX800, 16mp, 4K video, was £299 inc. lens. (now discontinued)
Canon EOS M200, 24mp, 4K video, £499 with lens
With electronic viewfinder (EVF):
Fujifilm X-T100, 24mp, 4K video (15fps), EVF, £547 inc. lens.
Panasonic Lumix GX9, 20mp, 4K video, EVF, £599 inc. lens
Sony Alpha A6000, 24mp, FullHD video, EVF, £457 inc. lens
Canon EOS M50, 24mp, 4K video, EVF, £469 body only
Have a look at more options in the Top 20 Best Premium Mirrorless Cameras (with EVF), and the Top 11 Best Entry-Level Mirrorless Cameras (Entry level, may have EVF under or around £500). You'll also need to buy a memory card and a case or bag to keep your camera safe and protected - have a look at our complete guide to camera bags.
Fujifilm X-A7 Verdict
The Fujifilm X-A7 gives pretty much everything you could want from an entry-level mirrorless camera. There's a 24mp APS-C CMOS sensor, 4K video recording, and usefully a large 3.5inch vari-angle touch-screen. For those interested in the video side of things, there's HDMI out, as well as a microphone socket (albeit a 2.5mm jack - an adapter is provided in the box). For vlogging, the large screen, and face detection focus will also add to the camera's appeal.
Handling is reasonably good, with two top dials, however, it's unfortunate that there isn't a dedicated Q button on the camera, instead of having to go into the on-screen options to access. We've checked while you can customise the top Function button, you can't customise this to be the Q button. This shouldn't be a problem for most people, but for the more advanced photographer who wants to quickly get to the Q-button options, this could be a little disappointing. There's also the plastic build quality which is reasonable, but could be better and is slightly lacking when compared to other cameras. If the price drops over time then this could more easily be forgiven.
The image quality delivered is very good, and excellent when using prime lenses with the camera. Despite the lack of Fujifilm's X-Trans CMOS sensor, you still get excellent Fujifilm colour reproduction, and a good number of film simulations and options so that you can customise the results to your liking. Dynamic range recorded is good, and again, there are a number of options to improve this. In-camera raw processing makes it quick and easy to correct or change any image you want, and we're a big fan of this being built-in to the camera.
| The Fujifilm X-A7 delivers a great combination of image quality as well as a versatile and large 3.5inch screen. It could also be a great option for video use too, although a prime lens is recommended. |