Fujifilm X-E1 Performance

Mixed performance from the Fuji X-E1.

Power on to first shot is sluggish even for a compact system camera. Buffer clearing times are good with JPEGs, but slow with RAW and RAW+JPEG files, even with a very fast 95MB/s UHS-I card.

Play to Record is quite fast as is displaying a recorded image, but Record to Play is a bit slow.

The Fuji X-E1's autofocus speed is slightly slower than average for compact system camera these days. The Fuji X-E1 produced full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) that ranged from 0.44 second using Area AF mode (center), to 0.52 second using Multi AF mode in our tests. With the flash enabled, the X-E1's full AF shutter lag increases to 0.58s, to account for the preflash metering. Manual focus shutter lag is faster at 0.24 second, though that's not impressive as some CSCs have full autofocus shutter lag in that range. Prefocused shutter lag is quite fast, though, at only 0.054 second. This is much faster than most SLRs and faster than many CSCs as well, though not as fast as some models with electronic first curtain shutters.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle times are slightly slower than average for a CSC. We measured 0.92 second when shooting large/fine JPEGs, 0.97 second for RAW files, and 0.93 second for RAW+JPEG files.

"Continuous 6 fps" mode speeds are good, ranging from 5.45 to 5.56 frames per second depending on the file type, though that's a bit below Fuji's 6 fps spec and slower than some other recent CSCs. The Fuji X-E1 also offers a "Continuous 3 fps" mode, but we didn't test that mode.

Full resolution buffer depths are fair for JPEGs, at 16 frames with our difficult to compress target. You'll likely do better with typical subjects. When shooting RAW files, buffer depth drops to 12 frames, and 11 frames with RAW+JPEG. Buffer clearing is a fairly quick 8 seconds after shooting a max-length burst of JPEGs, but this increases to 13 seconds for a RAW burst, and 18 seconds for RAW+JPEG burst.

Download speeds are reasonably fast, quick enough that you probably won't feel the need for a separate card reader. (Note that this test was performed with a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/sec SD card: Slower cards would likely show slower transfer times.)

Bottom line, the Fuji X-E1's performance was a mixed bag during our testing. Startup time was sluggish while autofocus speed was slightly below average these days, as were single-shot cycle times. Prefocused shutter lag was however very good and burst mode speeds good, but buffer depths were only so-so. Buffer clearing was good with JPEGs, but slowed down markedly with RAW files.

Battery Life
Average battery life for a compact system camera.

The Fuji X-E1 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and charger. The CIPA rated 350 shots per charge is about average for a Compact System Cameras these days. As is usually the case, we recommend getting a second battery for your X-E1 if you plan any extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))