Introduction

Ease of Use

It's probably best to start this review by considering what the X half isn't, rather than what it is, so that you can quickly decide if this camera is a good fit for you or not.

The X half is not a mini X100, despite clearly being styled to look very much like one. It has a different sized sensor that's smaller than the APS-C one in the X100 and offers a much more simplistic shooting experience with far fewer features and options.

It's not a film camera, despite clearly being modeled to act like one, from the 3:4 half-frame shooting experience to the frame advance lever and the full-on Film Camera mode (thankfully optional).

It's not a toy camera, despite being made entirely of plastic and weighing in at a mere 240g including the battery and memory card. The build quality is mostly fine given the materials used in its construction, although it's certainly not on a par with an equivalently priced regular camera from the Fujifilm range.

It's not a mirrorless/interchangeable lens camera, with the fixed 32mm equivalent lens and 1-inch sensor making it a digital compact camera, albeit one that shoots vertically rather than horizontally.

It's not going to be most people's main camera, whether they are coming from a phone-only background or are a more serious enthusiast. The X half will likely be an additional companion to whatever device you usually use to take photos.

It's not a camera for serious enthusiasts, lacking more advanced features like continuous shooting, RAW file support, AI-driven autofocus, weather-proofing, image stabilisation and some common external controls.

It's not a video camera, with the extremely modest specs looking somewhat out of place on any photographic device from 2025, even one that's so stills-focused.

It's not a camera for pixel-peepers, with much more of a focus on creativity and sharing rather than delivering the best image quality.

It's not an Instax camera, although in my view this is the device that the X half most closely resembles, offering a very similar experience that focuses on fun rather than features and out-and-out quality.

It's not particularly good value. The asking price seems rather too high, pushing it out of being an impulse buy into a much more considered purchase.

So what is the Fujifilm X half? It's a very unique, well-realised and stylish camera that blends together a little something from all of the above "isn't" categories into a surpisingly cohesive whole. There's quite simply nothing else like it on the market.

The X half is a very small, lightweight camera, measuring 105.8 v 64.3 x 45.8mm and weighing 191g body only. You can easily carry it around in a small bag or large pocket without noticing it and it won't draw too much attention thanks to its diminutive stature, making it well suited to every-day and travel photography.

It is entirely constructed from plastic, right down to the tripod mount, hence the low weight. Despite this, it feels well constructed enough, although certainly not on a par with the other X-series Fuji cameras. It's not weather-proof so you'll need to protect it in anything other than a light shower.

There's no hand or thumb grip, just a fairly grippy leatherette textured surface to hold on to, but given the lightweight nature of the X half, that's enough to make it feel secure in your hand.

Everything is geared towards the vertical, half-frame film format, digitally replicating half-frame film cameras that split a 36mm x 24mm frame into two 18mm x 24mm frames in order to yield more exposures from a roll of film.

Fujifilm have taken the concept beyond simply cost-cutting to making it easier to share on social media - most photos from cameraphones are vertical, so why not those taken with a "proper" camera?

You can take horizontal photos and videos by tilting the X half on its short side, but this feels rather strange given many years of doing the opposite, and also defeats the main purpose of using this particular camera in the first place.

In addition to the vertical sensor, there are two main ways of composing your images that are also vertically orientated.

There's a very simple optical viewfinder, rather than an electronic viewfinder or no viewfinder at all. It's pretty dim, has no markings of any kind, isn't particularly accurate, and suffers from barrel distortion, making it something to use in a pinch rather than all the time.

There is an eye-sensor alongside it that automatically switches between the OVF and the LCD screen and a small LED that flashes green to indicate successful focusing.

On the rear is a 2.4-inch LCD screen with 0.92million dot resolution in the 3:4 aspect ratio. It's also small, not very bright and rather low resolution, but does at least show a 100% accurate view of the scene and a preview of any film simulations or effects that you've chosen.

Alongside the main LCD screen is a much smaller lozenge-shaped sub-screen that by default shows an icon-based representation of the current film simulation. You can actually interact with it to scroll through the various film simulations and filter effects and to move through the main menu system. It's quite a neat, tactile dual-screen setup that adds to the camera's charm.

Rather surprisingly given the X half's modest video capabilities and Fujifilm's history of burying it away on previous cameras, there's a dedicated button on the rear for switching between stills and movies, alongside the Playback button.

Most things are accomplished by swiping up, down, left and right on the touchscreen LCD, from accessing the Quick menu and Main menu to toggling between film simulations and filters to pairing the camera with a smartphone and accessing the the Film Camera mode.

The X half doesn't actually have that many options compared to a regular digital camera so it quickly becomes second nature to use.

On top is a cold shoe which doesn't accept a flashgun or support a mic, making it rather redundant, alonsgide the chunky exposure compensation dial into which is set the threaded shutter release button. This will accept a screw-in soft release but not a cable remote release, as you can't use any form of remote release with the X half, not even through the dedicated app.

Towards the front of the exposure compensation dial is a knurled On/Off switch that has a distinctive click and there's a very retro film advance lever at the rear.

As there's no actual film, this is predominantly used to engage the 2-in-1 mode. Simply take a photo, pull the lever, take the second photo and voila!, the X half will automatically create a composite horizontal image containing both images side-by-side, with the camera also storing the two vertical images seperately on the memory card.

You can combine two stills, one still and one video, and even two videos, and if you don't want to do it in-camera, the X half app also allows you to create 2-in-1s.

If you press and hold the film advance lever inwards, the last image that you took is displayed until you let go of the lever. In the film camera mode, the lever almost lives up to its name by digitally winding-on after evey shot is taken.

As its name suggests, the film camera mode turns the X half into a fully-fledged film camera, albeit one with no actual film inside it.

The LCD screen is turned off, instead displaying the remaining frames, so you can only use the rudimentary optical viewfinder for composition and your images aren't displayed, you have 36, 54 or 72 exposures with the settings fixed at the first frame, and you use the app to "develop" a contact sheet of your photos when the film is complete.

You can cheat and interrupt the film camera mode by removing the battery or memory card, and the images that you take are accessible from the meory card, so you're not completely locked out of the digital experience!

The 32mm-equivalent focal length lens is encircled by a physical aperture ring whith whole-stops running from f2.8 to f/11, complete with an A (Auto) setting if you want the camera to take control and a knurled lever which makes it easy to locate and change even when looking through the optical viewfinder.

There's also a generously sized manual focus ring at the end of the lens barrel, although given how low-resolution the LCD screen is, we're not sure that relying on anything other than auto-focus is a particularly good idea.

Disappointingly there's no filter thread on the end of the lens barrel and the lens is protected by a rather simple push-on rubber cap that can be attached to the camera eyelets with a thin strap, as can the supplied wrist strap.

The AF system is pretty basic, being just a Single Point AF 3×3 system locked to the middle of the frame with Face and Eye Detection on hand for human subjects. It's pretty fast and reliable, but the inability to track a moving subject, detect something other than humans or even move the AF point is rather startling on a 2025 camera.

Above the lens is the LED flash unit, activated by a sliding switch on the left-flank of the camera that sits above the covered USB-C port. The flash isn't very powerful at all but might prove useful close-up in a very dark environment.

The USB-C port is the only one on the camera and as well as letting you recharge it from mains or a powerbank and transfer images to another device, it also doubles up as a headphone connection for monitoring the sound.

A familar NP-W126S battery that provides 880 frames of CIPA-rated life sits inside the shared compartment on the bottom of the camera alongside the single UHS-I speed SD card slot. Next to this in-line with the lens is a standard plastic tripod mount.

As this is a camera with film leanings, Fujifilm have added the ability to directly print to an Instax Link printer, something that X-series users have been asking for for ages. The currently supported models are: instax mini Link 2, instax mini Link 3, instax SQUARE Link, instax Link WIDE.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 17.74 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 6Mb.

The Fujifilm X half produced images of above average quality. It records noise-free images from ISO 200 up to ISO 800, with a little noise at ISO 1600 and progressively more visible noise at the faster settings of ISO 3200 and 6400 (ISO 12800 is best avoided).

The extensive range of Film Simulation modes hark back to a bygone era, the Advanced Filters allow you to have a little fun in-camera, and the Grain Effect adds film-like grain to your images.

Noise

There are 7 full ISO settings available on the Fujifilm X half, ranging from ISO 200 to ISO 25600. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

Film Simulations

The Fujifilm X half offers 13 different film simulation modes to help replicate the look of your favourite film stock from the past.

Provia / Standard

Velvia / Vivid

Astia / Soft

Classic Chrome

Reala Ace

Classic Neg.

Nostalgic Neg.

Eterna / Cinema

Acros

Acros + Yellow

Acros + Red

Acros + Green

Sepia

Advanced Filters

The Fujifilm X half offers 19 different creative filter effects with some having several options.

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)

Canvas

Retro

Vignette

Blur

Fisheye

Color Shift

Mirror

Double Exposure

Light Leak

Halation

Expired Film / Green

Expired Film / Red

Expired Film / Neutral

Grain Effect

Off

Weak / Small

Weak / Large

Strong / Small

Strong / Large

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Fujifilm X half camera, which were all taken using the 17.74 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

The Fujifilm X half is an endearingly charming blend of old and new that clearly costs too much but is eminently desirable none-the-less.

Unlike anything else on the market, film or digital, past or present, it successfully blends all of those into one surprisingly coherent whole that is genuinely a lot of fun to use.

The X half bridges the gap between the disparate worlds of Instax and mirrorless, building on the social sharing aspects of the former and combining them with the retro styling of the latter.

After a while you forget about megapixels, screen resolutions, noise levels and even the half-film format itself, instead enjoying the film simulations, filter effects and sharing your creativity via the polished app.

Which is a good thing, because taken individually the building blocks of the X half aren't all that. The image quality from the 1-inch sensor falls short of other comparable fixed lens compacts from Sony and Canon, the optical viewfinder is nigh on difficult to use, the build quality falls into the satisfactory rather than stellar camp, the hotshoe and flash are largely redundant, the LCD screen is small and low resolution, and modern features like continuous shooting, RAW file support, AI-driven autofocus, weather-proofing, image stabilisation and some common external controls are all absent.

Somehow, though, despite all of those drawbacks, the X half is a delight to use as a creative addition to your main photo-taking device, be that phone or camera. Which makes it a real shame that the whopping £699 / $849 price-tag will surely put off a lot of those would-be second camera owners who will simply opt for no purchase at all.

If you can afford it, though, the one-of-a-kind X half could add another string to your creative bow whilst also successfully expanding the Fujifilm universe to encompass a wider range of users, both of which are surely good things in a time of incremental camera upgrades...

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	3
Value for money	3

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Fujifilm X half.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Fujifilm X half from around the web.

Specifications

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