Fujifilm X100 Flash

Coverage and Range
A moderately powerful flash for its class, with uneven coverage. Our standard shot required less than the average amount of exposure compensation.

Coverage. Flash coverage was rather uneven as can be seen from our coverage target above, though part of the darkening is due to corner shading in the lens itself. (We measured about 1/2 f-stop of corner shading in JPEGs at f/2.0, but the above shows well over an f-stop of darkening in the corners.)

Exposure. Our Indoor Portrait test scene required +0.3 EV flash exposure compensation for a reasonably bright image. (Most cameras we've tested required about +0.7 EV for this scene, so the Fuji X100 performed better than average here.) Auto white balance combined with a slightly slow shutter speed of 1/30s resulted in quite a warm image from the ambient lighting. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced bright, even results with no exposure compensation, though with a stronger pinkish-orange cast from the ambient lighting.

ISO 100 Range. Flash exposures started out very bright at 6 feet at ISO 100 and gradually became dimmer from there, though brightness was good out to about 9 feet. Flash range will of course be greater at ISO 200, by about 1.4x.

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Fuji X100's built in flash is rated equivalent to a Guide Number of approximately 4.5m at ISO 100. That works out to about 7.4 feet at f/2. In the shot above, the X100 performed as Fuji says it would, producing a bright exposure at the rated distance. The flash target was actually overexposed slightly, by about 1/2 f-stop. Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 100, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. We now also shoot flash shots using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims.