Categories: Hands-onNews

This is Fujifilm’s take on the “selfie expert” and it’s very small and very light

Fujifilm Malaysia just launched their version of a selfie expert. No, it’s not a smartphone, obviously. It’s a camera. The successor of their previous mirrorless camera for the selfie generation, the X-A3. This is the Fujifilm X-A5. Don’t ask me what happened to 4, we don’t talk about that.

This year, Fujifilm is focusing on making their entry-level X-series mirrorless camera smaller and lighter than ever. As a result, the new X-A5 is just 496g with the kit 15-45mm lens attached.

With its 24.2MP APS-C CMOS sensor, the camera has the ability to shoot 4K video, but on this camera it can only do so at 15fps and can only do it for 5 minutes at a time.

There’s also a mic input, which would make it seem like a decent choice for a vlogging camera but since the screen flips up, you can’t really see anything if you mount a microphone in the hot shoe mount.

Besides that, the X-A5 is also the first X-A camera to feature phase detection pixels, allowing it to focus much faster than its predecessor via an intelligent Hybrid AF system.

As usual, there’s no viewfinder, but there is a reasonably good 3-inch 1 million dot LCD touchscreen that you can use to take pictures, focus and change a bunch of settings. The focus mode selector in front has been removed so you will have to resort to the touchscreen to change AF settings.

Battery life is pretty decent on this camera as it’s rated to up to 450 shots per-charge.

But the camera isn’t the only thing that’s new. Fujifilm also revealed a brand new XC lens with this camera. It’s called the XC15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ lens and the thing that makes it special is that this lens first electric-powered X-mount zoom lens.

This allows the lens’ body to be more compact and the XC15-45 can also focus at subjects just 5cm from it. Much like the rest of the camera, it feels rather plasticky, but that makes it very light as well.

Fujifilm’s X-A5 and the XC15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ lens will be on sale as a kit for RM3,288. Fujifilm informs us that you can’t buy the lens or body separately for now, so tough luck. They also said that the camera will go on sale sometime this month.