Pentax K-30 review

Pentax has produced a string of superb consumer SLRs in recent years, and the K-30 raises the bar yet again. Its price puts it in direct competition with the Canon EOS 650D, but various features position it closer to more expensive cameras such as the Canon EOS 60D.

The viewfinder uses a pentaprism rather than a pentamirror for a brighter view, and the 0.92x magnification and 100 per cent field of view are bigger than any other optical viewfinder at this price. It's hard to exaggerate how much of a difference this makes – it's like upgrading from a 19in to a 24in monitor. That's us pretty much sold already, but it gets better.

These images were shot through the optical viewfinders of the Pentax K-30 and Sony A550, and demonstrate how much bigger the K-30's viewfinder really is
There are dual command dials on the front and back for direct access to shutter speed and aperture controls. An electronic spirit level is built in, with feedback appearing either on the screen or through the viewfinder window. As with all of Pentax's SLRs, optical stabilisation is built into the sensor, so it's available regardless of which lens is used. The most surprising feature is a weather-resistant body, and the 18-55mm AL WR lens we tested is weather-resistant too (make sure you get this kit lens, as it's only £20 more than the standard model without the WR suffix). This is an extremely useful feature that's never been available before on an SLR at this price.

It lacks a passive LCD screen for displaying shooting settings, which is common on upmarket SLRs such as the 60D. It also lacks an articulated screen, which various other £600 SLRs have. Still, this helps to keep the bulk down. The lack of an HDMI port is less excusable, and the 410-shot battery life from its slim lithium ion battery is well below average. It can run off four AA batteries with the help of the optional battery holder (part number D-BH109, £30 inc VAT). You may as well buy a spare lithium ion battery for £45.
This is a striking camera, especially in the metallic blue finish we were sent for testing. The viewfinder hump and pop-up flash protrude to a sharp edge at the front. If we were feeling kind, we'd describe its appearance as sporty. On other days, we'd call it ugly. It's extremely comfortable to hold, though, with a substantial moulded handgrip and a contoured back for the thumb to rest on. The viewfinder only protrudes a few millimetres from the back of the camera, and we found it difficult to press an eye close enough to cut out light in our peripheral vision. Meanwhile, the SD compartment door made it a little tricky to grasp cards to remove them.

The controls are a triumph. We appreciate having dual command dials in manual mode, but they really excel in program mode. Here, adjusting the front command dial instantly takes the camera into aperture-priority mode, while adjusting the rear dial switches to shutter-priority. Pressing the green button beside the shutter release returns to program mode. It's simple and brilliant, and a massive improvement on the less prescriptive program shift concept. It's also really useful to be able to switch to priority modes directly from the current exposure settings rather than the last-used manual settings.
The other controls are as good as we've seen at this price. There aren't a huge number of buttons but Pentax has made the most of them, combining self-timer, continuous shooting and exposure bracketing into single drive mode button, for example. We particularly like how pressing ISO gives access not just to the manual ISO setting but also to the upper and lower values of the Auto ISO mode. It takes about a second to change this, whereas it can take up to ten seconds on Canon and Nikon's SLRs. HDR options are buried in the menu but the scene presets offer an alternative, quicker route to HDR shooting. We also really like the ability to shoot JPEGs but retrospectively save the last shot as a RAW image too. The lack of a depth-of-field preview button might frustrate some people, though.

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Canon PowerShot SX50 HS review

Ultra-zoom cameras are incredibly versatile, taking wide-angle, telephoto and macro photography in their stride. The best models cope well in low light too. Last year's Canon SX40 HS led the field for image quality, particularly in low light, but narrowly missed out on an award because of its trundling performance.

This year's SX50 HS ups the ante with a record-breaking 50x zoom lens – the biggest ever to grace a stills camera. More importantly to us, it's also significantly faster in general use, taking 1.8 seconds between shots. That's a big improvement on the SX40 HS's 2.8 seconds but still a long way off 0.6 seconds of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200.

Continuous mode is seriously fast, capturing 10 shots at up to 14fps in our tests. However, this performance is only available in a scene preset with barely any control over the camera, and it took six seconds to save these shots before we regained control of the camera. Most situations require more sustained performance, but the best it could manage outside of this scene preset was 1.9fps, or just 0.9fps with continuous autofocus. The screen was blank for most of the time between each shot, which made it virtually impossible to track moving subjects.
It's much more capable when shooting sedentary subjects. The 1200mm maximum focal length (35mm equivalent) let us frame subjects that we could barely see with the naked eye. Using such a huge magnification while shooting handheld meant we often lost track of the subject, so we really appreciated the button on the side of the lens to zoom out quickly and temporarily to help locate it again.

The rest of the controls and well laid out, with a dedicated button for moving the autofocus point and a custom button that can be assigned to one-click white balance calibration. There's no button to toggle between the screen and electronic viewfinder, though. Instead, this is achieved by pressing the Display button twice, which felt too longwinded. Then again, the electronic viewfinder's small size and low 202,000-dot resolution meant we didn't have much of an urge to use it. The LCD screen is a little smaller than usual, too, at 2.8 inches, but its resolution is sharper than the SX40 HS's.
Video capture is at 1080p at 24fps. Quality in our tests was excellent, and we're amazed at how effective the optical stabilisation was at keeping handheld shots steady, even at the full zoom extension. Details weren't quite as sharp as from the FZ200, though, and low-light clips were noisier. It also lacks the FZ200's mic input and comprehensive manual control over video exposures. Clips are limited to around 16 minutes and slow-motion clips are at VGA resolution. The FZ200 is undoubtedly the better video camera.

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Nikon D600 review

A full-frame SLR is something most amateur photographers quietly dream about. With massive viewfinders, professional-grade controls and sumptuous image quality, it's easy to see why they cost four times as much as consumer SLRs. However, there aren't many amateur photographers who can blow over £2,000 on a camera.

The dream becomes a little more real with the arrival of the D600. Currently available for £1,500, it's the cheapest full-frame digital SLR to date. However, the similar Canon EOS 6D is arriving imminently and the more upmarket D800 has already been discounted to £1,920 at Amazon. This is an exciting time to be on the market for a full-frame SLR, but choosing one won't be easy.

Inevitably, there are some downgrades in comparison to the D800, but very few that we're upset about. For us, the biggest is the move from a 51-point to a 39-point autofocus system, nine of which are cross-type. That's still a lot of points, but they're packed together a little more tightly than on the D800 and don't stretch across the frame quite as much as we'd like. It's still a sophisticated autofocus system, though, with options to expand the active area to a group of nine or 21 points, plus a 3D tracking mode that follows subjects around the frame.

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Nikon 1 J2 review

In an age of me-too electronic gadgets, it's great to find some genuine diversity among compact system cameras (CSCs). The Sony NEX range leads the pack for low noise, Olympus and Panasonic offer fast performance and the biggest choice of lenses, while Samsung NX cameras excel for image detail and Wi-Fi functions.

The Nikon 1 system's niche is harder to define. As with last year's Nikon J1, the J2 scores highly for style and it keeps the controls simple to avoid intimidating casual users, but these are hardly unique traits. Meanwhile, Nikon makes a big deal about these cameras' performance, but its 1.4-second shot-to-shot time is nothing special.
Its continuous mode is more unusual, though, shooting at up to 60fps, and there are various tricks to get the most from this speedy performance. Even more unusual is that Nikon puts these performance-enhanced shooting modes centre stage by including them on the mode dial at the expense of traditional exposure modes and scene presets. These are available, along with ISO speed, white balance and all the other controls we'd expect, but only via tedious menu trawling.

The Smart Photo Selector mode takes 20 photos in quick succession and saves what it thinks are the best five, based on facial expression, composition and focus. It's even able to start buffering photos while the shutter button is half pressed, reducing the likelihood of missing a crucial moment. It's hard to gauge how successfully it judges these criteria without seeing the shots it rejects, but regardless, it's a great idea that works well in practice. Simply having five shots to choose from greatly increases the chances of a winning photo. It's worth noting that the camera uses fast shutter and ISO speeds to allow it to capture frames at a fast rate. This can lead to noisier images than when shooting in Auto mode, although on the upside it also minimises the chances of motion blur.

Smart Photo Selector tends to push the ISO speed up – as a result these skin tones are a little mottled but it's not too objectionable - click to enlarge
Motion Snapshot captures a two-second 1080p slow-motion video followed by an 8-megapixel photo. These play back in the camera with saccharine music in what Nikon describes as a "living image". However, the files themselves are silent and there's no obvious way to share living images. Longer slow motion video clips are available via the Movie mode, recorded at 400fps or 1200fps for 1/13- or 1/40-speed playback, but they stop recording after five seconds and the resolution is disappointingly low.

The main video mode is more successful, recording at 1080p for up to 20 minutes. Picture and sound quality were both superb, autofocus was responsive and completely silent, and priority and manual exposure modes are available.

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Fujifilm FinePix F800EXR review

We're big fans of Fujifilm's EXR series of cameras, and all the more so since they sprouted ultra-zoom lenses. The competition is catching up for image quality in low light, though. While the budget Fujifilm Finepix F660EXR earned itself a five-star review, the Fujifilm Finepix F770EXR couldn't match the all-round appeal of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ25.

Fujifilm has just one new model this time around, but with features taken from the F770EXR and a price that has already been discounted to around £230, it looks like a promising pocket ultra-zoom.
The F800EXR includes Wi-Fi – a first for a Fujifilm camera. With the help of accompanying free apps for iOS and Android, it can send photos to smartphones and tablets and use these devices' GPS radios to tag photos. It's a clever idea. Cameras tend to be turned on and off regularly, which disrupts GPS tracking, whereas a phone app can keep tracking constantly. The implementation is clumsy, though, requiring lots of finger ballet on both the phone and camera each time we wanted to update our position. The F770EXR's built-in GPS worked much more neatly.

Here's the iOS app in action
Transferring photos from camera to phone proved to be fairly arduous too. The camera creates a Wi-Fi network for the phone to join, but it often gave up waiting and closed down the connection before we managed to transfer anything. A little persistence usually paid off, though. It's great to be able to take a photo and immediately post it on Facebook without having to resort to a smartphone's inferior camera. This is going to become a must-have feature for all digital cameras.

Otherwise, the F800EXR appears to be identical to the F770EXR. That means a range of clever shooting modes to minimise noise or expand the dynamic range for better highlight and shadow detail. Priority and manual exposure modes are included, but not manual focus, and it's not possible to move the autofocus point. There are two function buttons for quick access to key settings, except that certain key settings such as white balance and raw mode are only available by delving through the main menu.

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Samsung EX2F review

When we're contemplating paying a lot of money for a premium product, we don't want to be forced to make compromises. With that in mind, the EX2F looks promising. Its oversized 1/1.7in sensor distinguishes from cheaper cameras, and its f/1.4 lens is as bright as you'll find on a compact camera. There's comprehensive manual control, 10fps continuous shooting, a hotshoe for an external flashgun, a 3in fully articulated screen and integrated Wi-Fi. No other compact camera can match this line-up of features.

The models that come close are a capable bunch, though, including the Fujifilm X10 with its sumptuous image quality and the Panasonic LX7, our current favourite premium compact camera for all-round appeal.
While the EX2F compares well on paper, there's a lack of attention to detail that makes it less rewarding to use. It should be well suited to photographic tinkerers with its front command dial, rear wheel, AE Lock button and drive mode dial. However, there are no dedicated buttons for exposure compensation, ISO speed or white balance. These are available via a Fn button, but navigating the 15 options that reside here isn't as fast as using single-function buttons, especially since the Fn menu doesn't respond while photos are being saved.

The rear wheel is used to navigate across these 15 options while the front dial adjusts the selected setting. However, it doesn't register quick spins of the dial properly, only adjusting the setting by a small amount, so large changes are annoyingly slow to make. For example, going from a 30-second to a 1/4,000-second shutter speed took 32 spins of the dial. The same dial is assigned to shutter speed duties by default in shutter-priority and manual modes, and performing the same task here took just four spins.

Shot-to-shot performance was pretty quick at 1.1 seconds for JPEGs, but raw mode was slower and quite erratic, averaging 2.4 seconds. The 10fps continuous mode lasted for 10 frames – a fairly typical achievement for this class of camera – but the slower 5.5fps and 3fps modes are also limited to 10 frames. All three modes took nine seconds to recover before being ready to shoot again, and they all showed a blank screen during capture. Continuous and raw modes can't be used together.
Other niggling issues include the lack of an orientation sensor, so portrait-shaped photos must be rotated manually. The 240-shot battery life might not last a day's use, and in-camera charging means you can't charge one battery while using another.

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Canon PowerShot S110 review

The S110 is part of an elite group of compact cameras with oversized sensors, wide-aperture lenses and manual controls. They're designed to appeal to keen photographers who want something that's more portable and discrete than an SLR but more capable than a budget compact camera. However, these people are increasingly turning to compact system cameras (CSCs), which offer genuine SLR quality in borderline-pocket-sized forms.

It looks like Canon has found another group of people to target the S110 at; with so many people carrying smartphones everywhere they go, a dedicated camera needs to offer a significant jump in quality in order to justify its existence. The S110 delivers that jump, and thanks to integrated Wi-Fi, its photos needn't be locked inside the camera until you get home.
The camera creates an encrypted network for a smartphone or tablet to join, and the CameraWindow app for iOS and Android makes it easy to browse photos, view them full-screen and transfer them to the phone or tablet at a choice of resolutions. The app can also keep a log of the phone's GPS position, and by cross-referencing against the time photos were taken, it can retrospectively geo-tag photos stored in the camera's SD card. This isn't as seamless as having GPS built into the camera, as the older S100 does, but syncing this GPS data between phone and camera was a lot easier than on the Fujifilm F800EXR.
One advantage to having GPS tracked by a phone rather than the camera is that the location is tracked constantly. GPS cameras often spend a couple of minutes calculating the position each time they're switched on. However, we found that leaving the app running depleted our Android phone's battery faster than normal. Phones that require daily charging might not last a whole day. Battery life of the camera is a concern, too, quoted at 200 shots per charge. Extensive use of the Wi-Fi functions will reduce it further.

Browsing images on the camera via the Android app
The Android app worked faultlessly in our tests, but we had less success with the iOS app running on a third-generation iPad. The Wi-Fi connection worked fine but the app refused to communicate with the camera. Canon's UK press office assured us that the iOS app has no known issues, but we spotted a few user reviews on the Apple App Store stating that the app had stopped working since upgrading from iOS5 to iOS6. Whatever the reason, we hope it's just an isolated, temporary glitch.
If you can wait until you're home to transfer photos, there's an option to connect to a home network, whereupon the camera appears in My Computer for a selected computer. This worked without any need to install software on the PC, and it was a revelation after years of scrabbling around with card readers and cables. It's also possible to make a direct connection to another Wi-Fi Canon camera or Canon printer, although we weren't able to test this.

Otherwise, the S110 is very similar to the Canon Powershot S100 it replaces. There's a 12-megapixel, 1/1.7in sensor and a 5x zoom lens with a bright f/2 aperture for wide-angle shots but a gloomy f/5.9 at the telephoto end of the zoom. There isn't a huge amount of room on the camera for physical controls, but with a wheel on the back and another encircling the lens, adjusting exposure settings is pretty quick. One welcome improvement over the S100 is that the screen is touch sensitive. This makes it much quicker to move the autofocus point, and some menus are a little quicker to navigate too. Changing scene presets was a little slow, though, as the on-screen graphics didn't keep up with our input. This camera doesn't have the immediacy of the Canon G15's controls but it's better than most ultra-compact cameras.

Sadly, there's not much immediacy to its performance either. It took a pedestrian 2.4 seconds between shots in general use, while continuous mode ran at 1.9fps. These are well below average for a £350 camera, but while SLR owners might be frustrated, it's probably fast enough for more casual users.

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Samsung Galaxy Camera review

Samsung's cameras are often highly innovative, but the Samsung Galaxy Camera is by far the most ground-breaking example we've seen in a long time. It's essentially an Android smartphone that's equipped with a substantial 21x zoom lens and a 16-megapixel 1/2.3in sensor.

It's well specified as a smartphone, with a 4.8in, 1280x720-pixel LCD, quad-core 1.4GHz processor, 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS. It runs Android 4.1, with full access to the Google Play app store. You can use this camera to check emails, update your Facebook status and listen to Spotify – there's even a headphone socket. It can't take calls, though. Perhaps that's because holding a camera to your ear looks pretty stupid, but it does mean that the Galaxy Camera won't replace your phone.

Seeing it in the flesh, we were immediately struck by how big it is. With its 4.8in screen, it's inevitably much larger than most compact cameras that use 3in screens. Meanwhile, the 21x zoom lens means it's chunkier than any smartphone, at 35mm from lens to screen. Even at its thinnest point it's still 19mm thick – more than double the Samsung Galaxy S3's 9mm profile. It's more than twice as heavy, too, at 300g.

Samsung quotes the battery life as up to 280 hours standby – there's no stated battery life in shots. That makes sense, though, as this camera is likely to be doing much more than taking photos. The flipside is that the battery will probably run out faster than usual. We managed to take 134 photos and four videos over three days from a single charge, although that was with minimal use of the Wi-Fi and 3G functions. With heavy use it might need daily charging.
As this is an Android device, pressing the power button puts it to sleep rather than turns it off. Waking it and taking a photo is quick at around three seconds. It returns to the last-used app, though, so it took five seconds to wake it and launch the camera app when we had been checking Facebook during our last session.

It doesn't stay in sleep mode indefinitely. It drops into a Fast Power-on mode after one hour (by default), whereupon it took six seconds to switch on and take a photo. That's still reasonably quick, but after 24 hours of inactivity the camera fully powers down. It then took 26 seconds to switch on and shoot, which potentially means missing a crucial shot. This rather complex power management is one downside of fusing camera and smartphone technology.

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Sony NEX-5R review

The Sony NEX-5R replaces the award-winning Sony NEX-5N - one of our top recommendations throughout 2012, thanks to its svelte magnesium alloy body and stunning photo and video quality. The outgoing 5N has had some strong competition to contend with, though. No other CSC at this price has beaten it for photo quality but the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 bettered it for performance, hands-on control and the quality and choice of compatible lenses.

The new Sony NEX-5R addresses many of the 5N's weaknesses without diminishing any of its strengths. There's a new Function button and command dial for quicker access to photographic settings. Pressing the button reveals six customisable functions, which can be picked from a list of 15. With ISO speed, drive mode and exposure compensation available separately via the navigation pad, there's little reason to visit the main menu in normal use.

Updated controls alone make the 5R superior to the 5N
The old 5N can be configured to provide a similar set of controls, but only by reassigning the centre button on the pad, thereby losing quick access to the shooting mode. On the 5R, the centre button brings up a virtual mode dial on the screen, which is adjusted by spinning the wheel on the back of the camera. It's not quite as effective as a dedicated physical mode dial but it's a big improvement on the 5N.
The 3in wide-aspect screen is tilts up and down as before, but now it can tilt up by 180 degrees for self-portraits. Doing so automatically enables a three-second self-timer, so you've plenmty of time to steady your arm and gurn before the shutter goes. Various other CSCs have articulated screens but none are as petite as this one.

The new articulated screen is great for self portraits
Otherwise, the 5R and 5N are virtually indistinguishable – and that's fine by us. It's an extremely handsome camera, and surprisingly comfortable to hold and use considering its diminutive design. Our only lingering concern is the detachable flash unit, which isn't as tidy as an integrated flash and is likely to be left at home as a result. Then again, building a flash into the camera would inevitably make it bigger – as demonstrated by the Sony NEX-F3.

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Canon EOS 6D review

Full-frame photography has got a lot more interesting in the last 12 months, especially for people whose next camera isn't a business expense. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Nikon D800 and Sony Alpha A99 all helped to redefine what an entry-level full-frame SLR was capable of. Hot on their heels came the Nikon D600 and now the Canon EOS 6D, which both redefine what an entry-level full-frame SLR should cost.

The 6D's 20-megapixel sensor is marginally the lowest resolution of these five cameras, but that's still enough for A3 prints at 300dpi. The flip side is that noise levels are slightly lower than from the 5D Mark III – a truly incredible achievement. JPEGs at ISO 100 and 1600 were virtually indistinguishable, and the top ISO 25600 setting produced perfectly usable results. With the help of Canon’s sublime JPEG processing engine, image quality is beyond criticism. All five full-frame cameras capture stunning photos, but for us, this is marginally the best of the bunch.

The subtle nuances of skin tones are captured superbly, and so too are the strands of hair across the eye

Shooting in the shade with a 400mm lens pushes the ISO speed up to 1000 but there's barely any evidence of noise

Noise here is incredibly low for a ISO 25600 shot
The 6D is also the first SLR to incorporate Wi-Fi. There's an accompanying EOS Remote app for Android and iPhone (but not a native iPad app), and it's much more sophisticated than the Camera Window app for the Canon PowerShot S110. The Remote Shooting mode provides a responsive live view feed in the app, with touchscreen autofocus and efficient control over exposure settings. The only downside is that the camera's primary autofocus is disabled to allow for a live view feed. Contrast-detect autofocus must be used instead, which typically means a two-second lag between pressing the remote shutter button and taking a photo. The Android app gets around this by having separate buttons for autofocus and shutter release, but the iPhone app currently lacks this feature. Then again, remote shooting usually involves a tripod and a static subject, so it's not too much of an inconvenience to focus once and then switch to manual focus.

Remote Shooting mode in the iPhone app, complete with exposure controls at the bottom

And here's the Android app. Note the extra button at the centre-right for invoking autofocus
Image browsing includes options to view a grid of 15 thumbnails, or four larger thumbnails with accompanying date, ratings and exposure data. Tap a thumbnail and a 2.4-megapixel copy is transferred in about two seconds for a full-screen view. From here, there are options delete or give a star rating (with ratings synced back to the camera), to email the photo and to save it to the phone or tablet's local storage. However, there's no option to inspect or save full-resolution photos, so it's not possible to check for focus. The app doesn't support video either. It can't stream pre-recorded clips to a tablet, and doesn't work as a remote monitor while recording – a big disappointment. In fact, video recording isn't allowed at all when Wi-Fi is enabled. It's not enough just to be not using Wi-Fi – it must be disabled in the menu first.

Browsing photos from the app is superbly implemented, with detailed information and the ability to rate photos

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Nikon D800 Review

Boasting a 36-megapixel FX format sensor, the Nikon D800 is currently the highest-resolution “35mm size” digital SLR camera in the world. As a successor to the venerable and deservedly popular D700, the Nikon D800 offers a similarly rugged, weather sealed magnesium-alloy body and a broadly similar control layout; and adds an all-new high-resolution imager, a new viewfinder with 100% frame coverage, an upgraded Multi-CAM 3500FX auto focus module, an all-new metering sensor, a revamped Live View mode and Full HD movie recording capabilities including the ability to stream uncompressed video to an external recorder via HDMI. Other highlights include the addition of a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, microphone and headphone jacks, dual CF/SD memory card slots, an intelligent self-diagnostic shutter rated for 200.000 actuations, a user configurable Exposure Delay Mode, a dual-axis Virtual Horizon, a 3.2” rear display and in-camera HDR exposure blending. As of writing, the Nikon D800 is available body-only for £2499.00 / $2,999.95 in the UK and the US, respectively.

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Nikon D4 Review

The Nikon D4 is a new professional-grade digital SLR camera with a sixteen-megapixel FX sensor, EXPEED 3 processing engine, upgraded Multi-CAM 3500FX auto-focus module, a brand new 91,000-pixel RGB metering sensor and a weather-sealed magnesium alloy body. Capable of recording 1080p Full HD movies at 24/25/30fps as well as 720p HD footage at up to 60 frames per second, the Nikon D4 comes with microphone and headphone jacks and an HDMI port that allows for the streaming of uncompressed video to an external recorder or monitor. Other highlights include a Kevlar reinforced shutter rated for 400,000 actuations, the ability to shoot full-resolution stills at up to 11fps, an expanded buffer, dual CF and XQD memory card slots, two ergonomically placed rear joysticks for quick AF point selection, two different LiveView capture modes, in-camera HDR exposure blending, a user configurable Exposure Delay Mode, a dual-axis Virtual Horizon, a 3.2” rear display and a new focusing screen. Powered by a newly developed EN-EL18 battery and outfitted with an Ethernet port, the Nikon D4 even allows you to assign it to its own IP address and operate it from a distance via a Web browser interface, using a PC, tablet or smartphone. As of writing, the Nikon D4 is available body-only for £5,289.00/$5,999.95 in the UK and US, respectively.

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Fujifilm X-E1 Review

The Fujifilm X-E1 is a new compact system camera featuring a retro design that bears more than a passing resemblance to its big brother, the X-Pro1. At the heart of the X-E1 is the same 16.3 megapixel APS-C sized “X-Trans” CMOS sensor, which has a colour filter array that mimics film grain and no optical low-pass filter for higher resolution images. The X lens mount has a short flange-back distance of just 17.7mm, and a new standard 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS zoom lens is available on launch which features a traditional aperture ring and an iris diaphragm with rounded aperture blades. The X-E1 has a 2.36-million-dot electronic viewfinder, a built-in flash, in-camera raw conversion, a range of film simulation modes, multiple exposure and panoramic shooting modes, a number of auto bracketing options and Full HD video recording capabilities. The Fujifilm X-E1 is available in all-black or silver and black and costs £749 in the UK and $1000 in the US body-only, or $1399 with the new 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS lens.

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