Introduction

Ease of Use

The Fujifilm X20 is outwardly virtually identical to the X10 model that it replaces, so a lot of the comments that we made about the X10's features and ease-of-use apply equally to the new X20.

Available in all-black or silver and black, the Fujifilm X20 is a classically styled camera that recalls film rangefinders from the past, with a beautiful retro design that can't fail to impress everyone that sees it, and definitely everyone that holds it. In an age where digital cameras are virtually ubiquitous, the Fujifilm X20 stands out by a mile thanks to it unique styling and bullet-proof build quality, not to mention a wealth of photographer-friendly features.

Where the more expensive Fujifilm X100s is very much a niche product thanks largely to its non-interchangeable 35mm fixed focal length lens and strong emphasis on a manual way of shooting, the new X20 is aiming at a wider market, instead sporting a 4x, 28-112mm zoom lens that will instantly appeal to more people. The Fujifilm X20's lens has a fast aperture of f/2.0 at the 28mm wide-angle setting and f/2.8 at full telephoto, which in combination with the extensive ISO range of 100-3200 at full 12 megapixel resolution makes the X20 well suited to low-light shooting, allowing you to hand-hold the camera in places where you'd usually be reaching for a tripod (if allowed) or other support, especially as the camera also features built-in optical image stabilisation.

The Fujifilm X20 is an amazingly well-built camera, with absolutely no flex or movement in its chassis thanks to the die-cast magnesium alloy top and base plates and machined control dials. At the same time, it's actually a little lighter than a first glance might suggest, weighing in at 353g with the battery and memory card fitted. Measuring 117.0(W) x 69.6(H) x 56.8(D) mm, it's not that much smaller than the X100S though, and is also larger than its principal rivals, making it best suited to life in a small camera bag or large coat pocket. There are some plastic buttons and controls on the X20, most notably the memory card / battery compartment door and the rear circular control wheel and buttons, but other that that the X20 offers incredible build quality considering its price-tag.

Front	Rear

The X20 is supplied with a push-on, lined metal lens cap to help protect its 4x optic, although there's no way to connect it to the camera. You can use filters with the X20, but only by buying the optional LH-X20 Lens Hood and Adapter Ring set accessory, which allows you to fit 52mm filters. There's a subtle but effective hand-grip at the front of the X20 and a rubber thumb-rest on the rear, with your grip helped in no small part by the textured faux-leather surface that runs around the full width of the camera. Two small metal eyelets on either side of the body are used for connecting the supplied shoulder strap, which isn't quite as luxurious as the rest of the package. A metal tripod mount is positioned off-centre from the lens away from the memory card / battery compartment, so you don't have to remove the camera from the tripod to change either of them.

At the heart of the X20 is the brand new 12 megapixel 2/3-type X-Trans CMOS II sensor, a size that was used by several bridge-style compacts in the past but which has recently fallen out of favour. This sensor is larger than those in most compact cameras and promises to deliver better image quality, although not the equal of a compact system camera or a DSLR. Note that this isn't an EXR sensor, as used by the X10, so the innovative EXR options aren't present on this camera.

We ran into some issues in bright sunlight when shooting in aperture and shutter priority modes, where the top shutter-speed limit of 1/1000th second at f/2 or f/2.8 often caused under-exposure. Unlike the X100S, the new X20 still doesn't feature a built-in Neutral Density filter (something that we complained about with the X10), so you'll have to stop-down the aperture and sacrifice some depth-of-field to avoid blowing out the highlights. Alternatively you can switch to the Manual shooting mode, which rather bizarrely allows a faster shutter-speed of 1/4000th second. The X20 does offer a fantastic close focusing distance of 1cm, so macro shooting is definitely on the cards.

The Fujifilm X20's auto-focusing speed is even quicker than its already responsive predecessor. The X20 has an ultra-fast hybrid AF system with both a conventional contrast-detection system and built-in Phase Detection pixels which enables the camera to achieve a focus lock in as little as 0.06 second. If you mostly use auto-focus rather than manual then this one improvement alone is reason to upgrade to (or indeed buy) the X20.

Pop-up Flash	Side

Manual focusing is activated by setting the focusing switch on the front of the camera to Manual and using the rear thumb-wheel to set the distance, with the LCD display automatically zooming in on the subject to help you judge the sharpness. There's a handy blue distance scale along the bottom of the LCD screen with a red bar indicating the the focusing distance and a white bar showing the depth of field, which actually changes in line with the current aperture - very handy.

We criticised the X10 for taking a lot of turns to change the focus from 0.1m to infinity, commenting that it was a much better idea to use the AFL/AEL button on the rear of the camera to set the focus automatically, then use the focusing ring to micro-adjust the focus manually, if required. This is still a viable technique, but is perhaps no longer required as Fujifilm have cleverly made the focusing ring more sensitive to how you use it - turn it slowly and the focusing distance changes slowly, but turn it more quickly and the camera quickly moves through the distance scale. It now takes less than 2 full turns and a couple of seconds to jump from the closest focus distance to infinity, a big improvement on the X10.

The X20 also now offers a Focus Peak Highlight function, which displays a white line around the subject when it's in focus, something that Sony NEX users in particular have been enjoying for a while. This addition makes manual focusing on the X20 more of a pleasure than a chore, although the revised fly-by-wire manual focusing ring operation is arguably more important.

The Fujifilm X20 offers not one, not two, but three ways of composing your images. In addition to the high-resolution 2.8 inch LCD monitor on the back, which has 460k dots and offers 100% scene coverage, the X20 also features an optical viewfinder. Optical viewfinders are something of a dying breed amongst modern cameras, so it's very refreshing to see X20 feature one, offering 85% scene coverage, diopter control, a bright display and zooming in and out as the focal length is changed. There's also a eye sensor alongside for enhanced usability, and even better, Fujifilm have added the curiously named and newly-developed Digital Trans Panel. Essentially this is a super-thin transparent panel which overlays the viewfinder and displays a host of shooting information, including the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focusing area. It even displays the information in one of three different colours, depending on the scene and shooting conditions - black in good light, green in bad, and red if an error occurs. Note that the viewfinder is fixed in the 4:3 ratio, making it trickier to use with 3:2 or 16:9 ratios. Still, we'd rather have an eye-level viewfinder than not, and the X20's is a marked improvement not only on the X10's but other camera's with a similarly bare-bones viewfinder.

Front	Top

In terms of operational speed, the Fujifilm X20 has some real standout highlights and very few weak points. Shutter lag is virtually non-existent on this camera, so once you have set the focus, you'll never miss the moment because the camera can't fire the shutter quickly enough. Continuous shooting speeds are much better than the X10, with a top rate of 12fps for 11 JPEGs. Note that if you're shooting RAW, the fastest possible rate is a slightly slower 9fps for 14 frames, although commendably still at full resolution. Note that both the focus and the exposure are set according to the first frame in each series, so it's not a particularly good system for tracking fast-moving subjects in varied lighting conditions.

The write speeds from pressing the shutter button to recording to the SD / SDHC / SDXC memory card are now perfectly respectable. Shooting a single RAW + Fine JPEG takes about 6 seconds to record to the card, although thankfully you can take another shot almost straight away (with a delay of just 0.5 second). Taking a 12 frame burst took the camera around 5 seconds to save, during which you can take more pictures, but not at the 12fps rate, while shhoting a burst of RAW files at 9fps took around 10 seconds to save.

One area in which the Fujifilm X20 excels is its handling, thanks in no small part to the numerous external controls that make changing the key settings a breeze, especially when holding the camera at eye-level. Surrounding the lens is a manual zooming ring, with 6 markings including Off, 28, 35, 50, 85 and 112mm. This ring performs two functions - it powers the camera on by turning it from Off to the 28mm setting, denoted by a definite click, and turns the camera off again by turning it in the reverse direction. Very clever.

It also allows you to quickly zoom the lens and set the focal length by turning it, with a short and tactile movement that works particularly well when you hold the camera up to eye-level. It's a little more awkward to use when holding the camera at arms length though, where a more conventional zoom lever would be preferable, although markings helpfully now appear on the horizontal zoom scale along the bottom of the LCD screen. All in all, though, the manual zooming ring works very well, practically begging you to hold the camera up to your eye.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

On top of the X20 are tactile dials for changing the exposure compensation and the shooting mode, the tiny Fn button which by default provides quick access to the ISO speeds, but can be customised to suit your own needs from one of 10 different settings, a small but responsive shutter release button with a thread for a very traditional mechanical cable release - there's no need to buy an expensive dedicated accessory for this camera - an external flash hotshoe for suitable dedicated external units, and finally the camera's built-in pop-up flash, which cleverly only appears when a flash mode is selected and which has a range of 50cm - 7m at ISO 800.

The X20's LCD screen is large enough at 2.8 inches and of sufficiently high resolution (460k dots) to match the rest of the camera's high specification. I actually found myself using it less than with a DSLR, due to the ability to use the optical viewfinder, and you could conceivably turn off the LCD altogether to help eke out the 270 shot battery life even further. The LCD screen does have a handy Info view which presents all of the key settings at once, or you can switch to the Standard or Custom Live View modes, with the latter offering a multitude of customisable options. To make the camera less obtrusive, there's a Silent menu option which turns off the speaker, flash, AF-assist lamp and most importantly the artificially-created shutter-release sound, instantly making the X20 perfectly suited to candid photography.

The Fujifilm X20 can now record full 1080p movies at 60 with stereo sound, turned on by selecting the Movie option on the shooting mode dial. There are also several slow motion options - 30fps or 80fps at 640x480 pixels, 150fps at 320x240, and 250fps at 320x112. You can set the aperture and shutter speed before recording begins, but not during, and you can also set the Film Simulation mode, so black and white footage is possible. Continuous auto-focusing is possible, and you can now manually focus too, which encourages some more creative effects. There is a HDMI port for connecting the X20 to a high-definition TV, although as usual there's no cable supplied in the box. Also missing is a paper copy of the otherwise helpful manual, which is supplied on CD-ROM instead, along with the consumer My software the slow and rather unintuitive RAW converter (essentially a specially customised version of the commercial Silkypix application).

The X20 has a logical rear control layout. There's a vertical row of four buttons on the left of the LCD screen for image playback, exposure modes, drive modes, and white balance. On the right are the rear control dial and customisable AEL/AFL button, a circular control wheel which can be used to change the shutter speed and aperture and select other settings, and four options around it for setting the AF point, flash mode, self-timer and focusing mode. In the middle of the control wheel is the Menu button, which accesses the Shooting and Set-up main menus. Underneath are two buttons, the first for changing the LCD display or going back, and the second for enabling the new Q button. New to the X20, this calls up the very handy Quick View screen, a feature borrowed from the X-E1 and X-Pro1 mirrorless cameras, and also newly incorporated on the X100S. Opened via the Q button on the rear, this provides quick access to lots of frequently used shooting settings including the ISO speed, White Balance, File Size and File Quality, with the 4-way controller and command dial used to quickly change them.

The Fujifilm X20 is a much faster version of the original X10, with a few handling tweaks that make it even more intuitive to use. Now let's take a look at its image quality...

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Fujifilm X20 produces images of outstanding quality. It recorded noise-free JPEG images at ISO 100 up to 800, with a little noise and slight colour desaturation at ISO 1600 and more visible noise at ISO 3200 at full resolution, an excellent performance for a camera with such a small sensor. Even ISO 6400 is worth using, although the same can't be said about the range-topping ISO 12800. The RAW files were also excellent, with usable images throughout the entire range of ISO 100-3200, and they are noticeably sharper than on the original X10.

The Fujifilm X20's 4x zoom lens handled chromatic aberrations very well, with limited purple fringing effects appearing only in high contrast situations and at the edges of the frame. The built-in flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure. The night photograph was excellent, with the maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds being long enough for most after-dark shots.

Macro performance is outstandinga, allowing you to focus as close as just 1cm away from the subject. The images were a little soft straight out of the Fujifilm X20 at the default sharpening setting and ideally require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can change the in-camera setting.

The Dynamic Range settings subtly improve detail in the shadows and highlights, while the Film Simulation modes hark back to a bygone era. The new Advanced Filters provide some creative control over your JPEGs. Motion panoramas are the icing on the proverbial cake, although they didn't work very well in mixed lighting conditions or with moving subjects in the frame.

Noise

There are 8 ISO settings available on the Fujifilm X20 for JPEGs, and 6 for RAW files. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting for both JPEG and RAW files.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera JPEG images are a little soft and ideally benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can also change the in-camera sharpening level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Fujifilm X20's 4x zoom lens provides a focal length of 28-112mm in 35mm terms, as demonstrated below.

28mm	112mm

File Quality

The Fujifilm X20 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Fine being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.

12M Fine (3.90Mb) (100% Crop)	12M Normal (2.46Mb) (100% Crop)
12M RAW (18.5Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Fujifilm X20 handled chromatic aberrations very well during the review, with llittle evidence of purple fringing that was only present around the edges of objects in very high-contrast situations, as shown in the example below.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Fujifilm X20 offers a Super Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 1cm away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The flash settings on the Fujifilm X20 are Auto, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Slow Synchro, Red-eye Reduction Auto, Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash and Red-eye Reduction & Slow Synchro. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)
Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (112mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (112mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Forced Flash setting or the Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash option caused any red-eye.

Forced Flash	Forced Flash (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash	Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash (100% Crop)

Night

The Fujifilm X20's maximum shutter speed is 30 seconds in the Manual, Shutter-priority and Aperture-priority modes, which is excellent news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 100. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Image Stabilisation

Image Stabilisation is Fujifilm's name for anti-shake, which in the X20 works via a sensor-shift mechanism. To test this, we took 2 handheld shots of the same subject with the same settings. The first shot was taken with anti shake turned off, the second with it turned on. Here are some 100% crops of the images to show the results. As you can see, with anti shake turned on, the images are much sharper than with anti shake turned off.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/10th / 28mm
1/15th sec / 112mm

Dynamic Range

The Fujifilm X20 has three dynamic range settings - 100% (on by default), 200%, and 400% - and an Auto setting if you want to let the camera take control. These settings gradually increase the amount of detail visible in the shadow and highlight areas, with the side-effect of more noise appearing in the image. Note that you can't actually turn this feature off.

100%	200%
400%

Advanced Filter

The Fujifilm X20 offers 13 different filter effects which can be previewed on the LCD screen.

Toy Camera	Miniature
Pop Color	High-Key
Low-Key	Dynamic Tone
Soft Focus	Partial Color (Red)
Partial Color (Orange)	Partial Color (Yellow)
Partial Color (Green)	Partial Color (Blue)
Partial Color (Purple)

Motion Panoramas

Just like Sony's Cybershot range, the Fujifilm X20 can create motion panoramas up to 360 degrees in length. Exposure is set on the first frame, which caused real problems for our indoor shot where different light sources caused large areas of vertical banding. The X20 performed much better outdoors, although watch out for moving subjects in the frame as the X20 won't compensate for this.

360 Degrees

Pro Focus

The Fujifilm X20's Pro Focus scene mode creates images with a shallow depth of field, with the camera taking a rapid series of exposures at different focal points and aligning them to produce a single frame showing a sharply focused subject against a soft, out-of-focus background.

100%	200%

Pro Low-Light

The Fujifilm X20's Pro Low-Light scene mode produces better image clarity at high ISO levels, with the camera taking a series of four high sensitivity/low-noise shots in quick succession which are then combined together using in-camera processing into an image with less noise than the single exposures.

Pro Low-Light	Pro Low-Light (100% Crop)

Multiple Exposure

The Fujifilm X20 can combine two consecutively taken shots to create a single multi-exposure

Multiple Exposure

Film Simulation

The Fujifilm X20 offers 8 different film simulation modes to help replicate the look of your favourite film stock from the past.

Provia / Standard	Velvia / Vivid
Astia / Soft	Monochrome
Monochrome + Yellow Filter	Monochrome + Red Filter
Monochrome + Green Filter	Sepia

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Fujifilm X20 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Fujifilm X20 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Fujifilm RAW (RAF) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.

Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Turned On

Front of the Camera / Flash Raised

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Quick Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

At first glance the new Fujifilm X20 looks virtually identical to the original X10, but it includes so many improvements under the hood, particularly to its operational speed, auto and manual focusing systems, optical viewfinder and image quality, that it feels like shooting with an entirely new camera. The one admittedly minor criticism that jumps to mind is the continued absence of an Neutral Density filter, but that's definitely nit-picking.

As with the new X100S, Fujifilm have taken the original X10 by the metaphorical scruff of the neck and tried to address all of the shortcomings of what was already a great camera. The X20 offers better image quality thanks to the new 12 megapixel 2/3-type X-Trans CMOS II sensor with no low-pass filter, much faster auto-focusing and operational speed, enhanced manual focusing that you'll actually want to use, and an innovative optical viewfinder that now displays key shooting information.

It also inherits the same retro feel, outstanding build quality and photographer-friendly design as its predecessor, continuing to deliver intuitive handling in spades. From the welcome inclusion of the enhanced optical viewfinder to the improved manual zooming ring, not forgetting the exposure compensation and shooting mode dials, flash hotshoe, clever pop-up flash and even the traditional threaded cable release, the X20 is a sophisticated compact camera flamboyantly dressed up in a pro-camera's clothing.

If your head has been turned by the headline-grabbing X100S, but you really, really want a zoom lens, then the X20 is on hand to more than satisfy your needs. £519 / $599 is admittedly a lot of ask for what is essentially still a compact camera at heart, despite all the fancy trappings, but for us the Fujifilm X20 delivers such a winning combination of old and new that offers so many important improvements over the original model that we can heartily recommend it for new and X10 users alike. Essential!

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	5
Image quality	5
Value for money	4.5

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Fujifilm X20 from around the web.

Specifications

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