Fujifilm X-E3 Performance

Generally very good performance in the lab.

Best case power on to first shot was faster than average for a mirrorless camera at about 0.7 second, but still not quite as fast as most DSLRs. Play to Record was a bit faster at 0.6 second, but a pre-press penalty means it's difficult to measure these reliably because if you press the shutter button too soon the camera will ignore it, and if you press the shutter button repeatedly too quickly the camera can hang up indefinitely. The camera does however switch from reviewing the previously captured image to taking a shot immediately when you press the shutter in review mode, in as fast as 0.1 to 0.2 second.

The Fuji X-E3's single-shot full autofocus shutter lag was a little faster than average for a mirrorless camera in our lab tests. The Fuji X-E3 produced a full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) of 0.160 second using Single Point AF mode (center) with the Fujinon 60mm f/2.4 Macro lens. Interestingly, switching from mechanical to electronic shutter actually increased lag to 0.21 second. Using the bundled flash in TTL Auto mode almost doubled full AF shutter lag to 0.312 second due to pre-flash metering. Note that flash is not supported when using the electronic shutter.

Manual focus shutter lag was quite low at 0.066 second, increasing quite a bit to 0.152 second with the electronic shutter. Prefocused shutter lag was a bit faster at 0.049 second, but also increased with the electronic shutter, to 0.087 second.

The X-E3 also has a High Performance power management mode which is said to increase autofocus speed (and the display refresh rate) at the cost of significantly lower battery life, but we found it made little difference to the X-E3's AF speed in our tests. Full AF shutter lag improved just slightly from 0.160 to 0.157 second with High Performance mode enabled, so it hardly seems worth the ~25% decrease in battery life. It may however make more of a difference with moving subjects out in the real world.

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 ranged between around 0.3 and 0.4 second, which is quite fast. (Note that we no longer test single-shot mode with just RAW files, as the results are usually somewhere in between JPEG and RAW+JPEG.)

The Fuji X-E3's top continuous burst mode speed with the mechanical shutter was good for the class, at around 8 frames per second no matter the file type, meeting Fujifilm's spec. The X-E3 also offers 5, 4 and 3 fps continuous modes with mechanical shutter, but we did not test those modes in the lab.

Fujifilm rates the X-E3's top burst speed at 14 frames per second when using electronic shutter. In the lab, the camera managed between around 13.5 and 13.6 fps, which is pretty close to the spec and quite fast. There is also an 11 fps mode with electronic shutter, however we did not test that in the lab.

Full-resolution buffer depths were pretty good at 8 fps with our fast 64GB Lexar Pro 2000x UHS-II SDXC card, with buffer depths of 48 best quality JPEGs, 26 losslessly compressed RAW files, and 25 RAW+JPEG files before the camera slowed in our tests. Buffer-full rates weren't too bad for JPEGs at about 4.7 fps for JPEGs, but they dropped to 3.5 fps for RAW files and to about 1.7 fps for RAW+JPEG.

As expected, buffer depths fell in the faster "14 fps" electronic shutter mode especially for JPEGs which dropped from 48 to 28 frames. RAW and RAW+JPEG modes only dropped by 2 frames to 24 and 23 frames respectively.

Buffer clearing timers were reasonable, taking about 6.5 to 15 seconds to clear after a max-length burst depending on the mode and file type, and the camera lets you adjust settings as well as view just-shot images while the buffer is clearing. (Note that the X-E3 is not UHS-II compliant, but we've found that our Lexar Pro 2000x UHS-II SDXC card is about as fast in UHS-I mode as the fastest UHS-I cards on the market so we didn't test the X-E2 with our usual SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-I card.)

Recycling the bundled flash after full-power discharges took an average of 5.2 seconds, which is sluggish.

Bottom line, the Fuji X-E3's performance is generally quite good for its class with fast startup, good autofocus speeds, low shutter lag, fast cycle times, and very fast bursts modes. Buffer depths are decent and buffer clearing times are reasonable when using a fast card. The camera does however have an intermittent shutter pre-press penalty, and oddly, shutter lag actually increased when using the electronic shutter.

Battery Life
About average battery life for a mirrorless camera.

The Fuji X-E3 uses a custom NP-W126S rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and a dedicated charger, although in-camera charging via USB is also supported.

Fuji provides battery life numbers for when using the electronic viewfinder or LCD monitor which are identical, as well as for Standard and High Performance power management modes. CIPA-rated battery life is about average in Standard mode for a mirrorless camera but no where near a typical prosumer DSLR, and High Performance mode reduces battery life by about 25%. As is usually the case, we strongly recommend getting a second battery for your X-E3 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))