I know I'm not the only one who was super intrigued by the announcement of the Fujifilm X-Half. Once again, Fujifilm has shown creativity and innovation in the photography world which is something that I don't see happening that often from other camera manufacturers.

The Fujifilm X-Half presents as a super cute, rangefinder style camera with the unique feature of shooting half frame images on a vertical sensor. With a range of film simulations built into the camera that can be toggled through via a dedicated touch screen, film effects such as halation and light leaks, and a feature that can be switched on to emulate a classic point & shoot film camera - to say I wanted to give one a try was an understatement. But then I saw the price...approximately $1200 AUD - that was going to be very hard for me to justify considering I already have some beautiful cameras that definitely would outperform the X-Half (a Fujifilm X100VI (review here) and a Sony A7CII (review here)). And I know that the X-Half isn't marketed as a high performance camera, it has a completely different design philosophy and target audience. But with all that said and done, is it one I will add to my collection?

Purchasing this camera wasn't an option for me as I only recently bought a Fujifilm X100VI (which I am obsessed with), but I was browsing one of the online camera stores here in Australia (Digital Camera Warehouse) and saw that they were advertising their latest photography competition. I knew they often ran monthly competitions, I've just never entered any. However, the first prize for this competition that they were hosting with Fujifilm was, and you've probably guessed it by now, a Fujifilm X-Half 😍 Long story short, I entered my image (the these was to submit two photos showcasing chaos and calm) and to my surprise received an email saying that I won!

I won't go too far into the technical details as there are so many videos and other reviews about this camera that do much more in-depth research into them. Instead, I prefer to write about how my experience is in everyday life with these products. So, let's start from the start - unboxing the X-Half!

My first impression was "WOW THIS IS SMALL". When people say that this is a small camera, they mean it. It is literally pocketable and incredibly lightweight. Here's how it compares in size to my other two cameras:

I quickly started playing around with it, testing the flash (which is an LED compared to the standard flash types), and seeing what the diptych feature is all about. To create a diptych (which is basically just two photos that get placed side by side to create a singular image, telling two different sides of a scene), all you need to do is take a photo, pull the 'film advance lever' and then take your second image. That's it (which I thought was pretty cool). Here's my first, super professional diptych of my pets:

The controls

This was one thing that immediately made this not feel like a camera that I would choose to use. The only physical controls are an aperture ring on the lens, and a toggle for the flash (oh and an exposure compensation dial, but that doesn't help when shooting manual). Yes this has a manual mode, but to adjust all the parameters you need to individually tap through the small touch screen to change the values which just didn't feel that intuitive to me. So in order to use this, I succumbed to the fact that it was easiest to just pop this into Auto, and happy snap away.

Film Camera Mode

Now this is a feature I know is getting talked about the most. Essentially, you can put the X-Half into 'Film Camera Mode', pick your film type, and choose how many shots on your 'roll of film'. Once selected, the camera functions as a retro point & shoot film camera. You can't see any image previews on LCD screen, instead you have to use the optical viewfinder (note: as it isn't an EVF, you see no details regarding what's in focus, exposure levels etc). You can turn the camera off and on as you please and it will remember what setting you are in and keep your place in the 'roll of film'. Once you take a photo, you won't be able to take another photo until you crank the film advance lever (which feels a bit gimmicky but I kinda liked it in this mode).

Once you have completed your 'roll of film' you can connect to your phone via the custom build Fujifilm X-Half App, and send the 'roll of film' across to be 'developed' right in front of you. It's a pretty cool process and I love that Fujifilm is trying to bring those analogue experiences to the digital world:

Photo quality and examples:

Look, maybe I had my bar set too high. After my first experience of using Fujifilm being the X100VI, I was very excited to give this camera a go. But, I think I've been spoilt by the image quality of the X100VI...it's such an incredible camera. These images definitely look like they are from an old film camera, but not from a high end film camera. I was hoping for quality similar to the Canonet QL17 that I once had, but instead it left me a bit disappointed (maybe there was user error? I'm not sure).

I shot through a full 'roll' on my birthday so I could see what the whole end-to-end process was like for using it in this mode - here are some of the photos (note: this only shoots in jpeg, no raw files):

Closing thoughts and who I think this camera is for

Overall, I love that Fujifilm are innovating in this space, so I can't be mad about that at all. For the price, it does feel a bit steep when comparing it to other cameras, but I get how this would really appeal to a lot of other people (especially when people are starting to buy old digicams from the early 2000s for the 'vibe'). It would be easy to justify the price if I was an avid film shooter that loves automatic film cameras because the cost of film these days is very expensive (approx $20AUD for a roll, and $20ish to get developed). So, after shooting 30 'rolls' on the X-Half you would have easily felt that value for money - so I get it. But for me, someone who shoots professionally and loves full manual controls, I'm not so sure. One thing I will say though is that I always thought the X100VI was small and light, but after using the X-Half for a full day - it made the X100VI feel like it weighed a ton 😂

I love some of the features introduced in the X-Half, and would love it if some of them came to other cameras. For example, it would be amazing if, via a firmware update, the film roll feature could come to the X100 line of cameras. I also wish there was the ability to create a diptych in the normal Fujifilm X-App instead of only having that feature in the X-Half app.

All in all, I think it's a great offering from Fujifilm that will definitely appeal to a lot of people, but for me, I'm not sure if it will stay in my collection (but time will tell)

Get a Fujifilm X-Half