While Fujifilm does a whole lot right, they need to improve on the battery life of their cameras.
The battery life on a Fujifilm camera is pretty bad, and it’s only now that I’ve realized it. Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve picked up my Fujifilm cameras. The reason for this is because I’ve been exploring who I am as a creative. The other reason is that I’ve needed to test all this additional gear that’s come out. So when pairing the company’s 16-80mm f4 R WR OIS with my X-H1 and X-T2, I was reminded of a problem. The battery life on Fujifilm cameras is pretty awful. It was great for a long time, and then the firmware and tech demanded more juice. Unless you’ve got a vertical grip on your X series camera, I don’t think the battery life is sufficient at all. In one night, I went through two batteries; that’s unacceptable.
The company I expected lousy battery life with was Sony. For years, their smaller batteries were terrible. But then they started upgrading their cameras to the bigger, beefier batteries. And the cameras are much more capable now. They’re still not on par with Canon and Nikon’s mirrorless camera options, but they’re outstanding. Fujifilm is worse. Fujifilm cameras use these itty-bitty batteries that barely hold a charge. Dim your screen, take off of boost performance, etc. and you’ll see that even then the battery life just degrades. It’s annoying.
Fujifilm is already sort of at a disadvantage. Their colors are fantastic straight out of the camera and often don’t need to be edited (if you know what you’re doing). But the lack of a full-frame option means that you need to spend a whole lot more money for Medium Format. That level of medium format can deliver excellent image quality, but it lacks versatility. The autofocus still can’t keep up with full-frame cameras, and the lens selection is critically missing fast glass. To that end, the more affordable option is the X series. X series cameras deliver a heck of a lot more pro features than lots of other full-frame mirrorless cameras on that market. But the trade-off is that you end up buying a Fujifilm camera, two or three excellent primes and maybe five batteries. In fact, that’s what I have.
The next camera from Fujifilm should not only have incredible battery life, but it shouldn’t wholly gimp us on the features of other cameras. I’m talking about precisely what I wish of the Fujifilm X Pro 3. This camera will need:
- Class-leading autofocus
- Colors like no other. I’ve been told that the higher the megapixel count gets, the less advantage the X Trans sensor has
- Image stabilization at the sensor
- 6K video
- Headphone and microphone jacks for content creators and journalists
- That continued fantastic weather sealing
- A further extension of the Multi-Exposure mode
- A more natural way to add a star to an image so that when a pro transfers the photo to their computer, they’ll have an edge up on the culling process
- Improved viewfinder and LCD screen
- The ISO dial kept the way it was, stacked
- Battery life to support all these features
The next camera will need to be a real workhorse. When the Fujifilm X-H1 was launched, Fujifilm marketed it as such when they talked to the press. And that’s what we need. Oh, and please start working with third parties on more lenses.
