Fujifilm X100s Review
Shooting, Drive and Flash Modes
The X100s is truly retro so there is no exposure mode dial and hence no scene modes. The shooting mode is determined by the combined settings of the shutter dial and aperture ring (like on your film Pentax K2, ZX-5, etc.).
Aperture ring | Shutter Speed Dial | Shooting mode |
| A | A | Program mode: The camera determines the shutter speed and the aperture. The main command dial shifts the program line |
| 2 - 16 | A | Av mode: You to control the aperture while the camera sets the shutter speed |
| A | T, 4 - 4000 | Tv mode: You set the shutter speed while the camera sets the aperture. If the dial is set to T you can set the speeds from 1/2 s to 30 s with the secondary command dial |
| 2 - 16 | T, 4 - 4000 | Manual exposure mode: You manually control both the shutter speed and the aperture. If the shutter speed dial is set to T you can set the speeds from 1/2 s to 30 s with the secondary command dial. A scale on the LCD monitor shows your exposure within +/- 2 EV of what the camera suggests as being correct |
| A | B | 30s exposure |
| 2 - 16 | B | Bulb: For manually seeting long exposre. The shutter remains open for as long as the shutter button is pressed down, up to 60 minutes |
The "A" setting on the aperture ring is not locked like on a Pentax lens. We miss that feature. Without it one can inadvertenly shift the lens into A mode. The shutter speed dial has extra space between 4000 and A so here one doesn't inadvertently end up in "A" mode.
So what about movie mode?
Movie mode is set from the drive menu, or it can be assigned to the Fn button.
Drive Modes
The drive modes are set by pressing the drive mode button on the left side of the back. This brings up a menu of drive modes. Which modes are available depends on whether one shoots JPG or RAW.
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
When shooting JPG all drive modes are available:
- Single still image
- Continuous shooting at 6 or 3 fps
- Auto-exposure bracketing in increments of 1/3, 2/3 or 1 stop
- ISO bracketing in increments of 1/3, 2/3 or 1 stop *
- Film simulation bracketing (which films to simulate are set in the main menu) *
- Dynamic range bracketing (three images are captured, at DR 100%, DR 200% and DR 400%) *
- Multiple exposure
- Motion panorama
- Movie
Self Timer
The self timer settings are activated from the quick menu:
 |  |
 |
The settings available are a delay of 2 and 10 seconds, respectively. Note how these screens (and many other) have a hint at the bottom on how to change the setting.
Annoyingly, when the X100s enters sleep mode after a period of inactivity it "forgets" this setting.
Flash Modes
The flash can be set to fire only when needed, to always fire, to never fire, to synchronize with a slow shutter speed, to control a dedicated remote flash, or to fire a third party flash. The flash menu is called up on the four way controller:
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
 |
Flash exposure compensation (up to +/- 2/3 stop) can be set in the shooting menu. Red-eye reduction can be enabled in the setup menu. This is a bit messy. All available flash settings should have been made available from the screens above.
Auto flash is only available in Program exposure mode.
The flash doesn't pop up but is always exposed and ready.
Setting the ISO
Setting the ISO can be assigned to the Fn button, and it is also accessible from the Quick Menu. Note the hint at the bottom of the screen: the setting is carried out with the command dial.
|  |
The ISO range when shooting JPG is from 100 to 25,600. When shooting RAW the range is reduced to 200 to 6,400. In other words, if circumstances force you to use ISO 12,800 or higher you are prevented from shooting RAW and doing your own noise reduction on the RAW image.
Upper ISO in ISO Auto mode must be set in the range 400 - 6,400. There is also a setting for how low the shutter speed is permitted to go before the camera will increase the ISO. This is a cool feature giving the photographer good control with what's going on.
Setting White Balance
There is a dedicated button on the back that brings up the white balance choices. Picking a setting and hitting OK bring up the white balance fine tune screen.
 |  |
| Hitting OK from the WB screen brings up fine tuning: | |
 |
We found auto white balance very accurate except indoors in tungsten light.
Setting the Metering Pattern
Also this setting has a dedicated button.
 |  |
We used the multi-pattern setting throughout.
Shooting Mode Verdict
While the retro design with aperture ring and shutter speed dial looks cool, it is not nearly as efficient to work with as a modern design with an exposure mode dial and one or two command dials. That the shutter speed is set differently depending on whether the speed is below or at/above 1/4th of a second also slows you down.
The X100s design limits the exposure modes to P, Av, Tv and M and so has no scene modes. This is of no concern to us, we never use scene modes anyway on cameras that have such.
Having 1/4th of a second as the lowest possible shutter speed in Av and P modes is an inexplicably and annoying restriction. It would have been preferable to be able to use Av at night and have the camera set the speed all the way down to 30 seconds if needed. As it is now one must use manual exposure mode and then fumble with the different ways of setting the shutter speed below and at/above 1/4 s.
