By Talicia Marie Stewart
Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Fujifilm recently announced its plans for a new mirrorless digital camera, the X-T200. With Nikon’s D780 having been announced early this month, you can bet that 2020 is going to be a great year for camera lovers. It looks like there are a lot of new features on this little camera, and some qualities that make it unique.
This easy-to-use and easy-to-navigate camera is aimed at entry-level photographers; people that want to upgrade from their iPhones, but don’t want to spend too much or get bogged down in all the bits and bobs of other high-end cameras.
For the money, it is worth having a good camera. It has a great image quality in both stills and film.
The interface is improved compared with the last installment of the X Series, the X-T100. The LCD touch screen is bigger and the interface buttons on the side do not take up much room or get in the way. As well as being easy to use, the X-T200 is actually 80 grams lighter than the X-T100, weighing in at only 370 grams.
The biggest improvement by far is the enhancement to autofocus. On the X-T100, the autofocus was, how to say, less than desirable. It had poor performance which really brought down the overall quality of the camera. But the X-T200 is on par with the latest Fujifilm cameras like the X-A7, face-and-eye detection tracks are way better. It now has 425 selectable points in AF, which is a huge improvement compared to the X-T100, which only had 91.
It also has the same APS-C 24 megapixel sensor that you would find on the Fujifilm X-A7. This improves light capture, allowing you to shoot in low light whilst maintaining great quality. And it gives you full, 100% phase detect autofocus coverage.
It can track objects from further distances, and the shooting speed has gone up slightly as well, from 6 FPS to 8 FPS. However, the buffer rate is still pretty low. This means that if you are doing family photos, or group shots, this camera is great for you. But if you plan to do sports or wildlife capture, or high-speed objects, this is probably not the right camera.
As for video capture, the X-T200 has made substantial improvements. The X-T100 could only shoot 4K at 15 FPS, which led to a pretty unusable clip, jolty and stuttering. But the X-T200 allows for 4K up to 30 FPS, making the image much smoother and clearer.
The major limitation is that there is a 15-minute cut-off for each clip. This could make for pretty tedious shoots if you plan on filming for long periods.
Another feature that gives it a one up from the X-T100 as well as the X-A7 is that this is able to record at 120 FPS at 1080p. So if you want to grab something in slow motion, the X-T200 can produce nice quality results.
The X-T200 is set for release in late February 2020.
