Fujifilm X-T1 Performance

Generally very good performance from the Fuji X-T1.

Power on to first shot was fair for its class at default settings, but there's a pre-press penalty (if you press the shutter button too soon after power-up, it won't take a shot and you need to press it again). Switching from Play to Record required two presses of the shutter button to take a shot, making it slower than average. Buffer clearing times were quite good with a very fast 240MB/s UHS-II card (the X-T1 is the first camera we've tested that supports the new UHS-II interface standard for SD cards).

The Fuji X-T1's autofocus speeds were faster than average for a compact system camera in the lab, and indeed faster than most DSLRs. The Fuji X-T1 produced full-autofocus shutter lag (with the subject at a fixed distance) of only 0.144 second using Area AF mode (center). And full AF shutter lag increased only slightly to 0.151 second using Multi AF mode in our tests. With the flash enabled, the X-T1's full AF shutter lag in single (center) AF area mode increased significantly though, to 0.551s to account for the preflash metering. Manual focus shutter lag was oddly not any faster than full AF in our tests, at 0.155 second, but prefocused shutter lag was quite fast, at only 0.051 second. This is much faster than most DSLRs and faster than many CSCs as well, though not as fast as some models with electronic first curtain shutters.

Note that we used default AF settings (other than Single vs Multi area) for the above tests, but we selected Focus Priority release mode as the X-T1 oddly defaults to Release Priority in single-shot mode, and we wanted to make sure it was actually focusing. Enabling "High Performance" and "Pre-AF" options did not seem to make a difference in our lab tests. We did however find that the lens used made quite a difference. With the Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 prime lens for example, we got much slower results (0.417 second in Single Area AF mode and 0.566 second in Multi Area). On the other hand, the 14mm lens Fuji specifies for its AF speed claim (which does not include capture) was no faster than the kit lens in our tests. Bottom line? The X-T1's autofocus can be very fast, but your mileage may vary.

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 were good for a CSC. We measured 0.67 second when shooting large/fine JPEGs, 0.68 second for RAW files, and 0.68 second for RAW+JPEG files.

Continuous High mode speeds were very good, ranging from 8.13 to 8.31 frames per second depending on the file type. The Fuji X-T1 also offers a "Continuous Low" mode, but we didn't test that mode.

Full resolution buffer depths were very good at 30 JPEG frames with our difficult to compress target. You'll likely do better with typical subjects. When shooting RAW files, buffer depth dropped a bit to 23 frames, and 22 frames with RAW+JPEG, but that's still pretty good. Buffer clearing was a fairly quick 7 seconds after shooting a max-length burst of JPEGs, 8 seconds for a RAW burst, and 11 seconds for a RAW+JPEG burst.

Re-cycling the bundled flash after full power discharges took an average of 4.5 seconds, a bit on the slow side.

Note: We no longer test USB transfer speeds since most folks use a card reader these days.

Bottom line, the Fuji X-T1's performance was generally very good in our testing, with very fast autofocus, good single-shot cycle times, fast continuous mode and good buffer clearing times. The bundled flash was somewhat slow to recycle however, perhaps because it's powered from the camera; a self-powered unit could certainly recycle faster. Power-up to first shot was fair for a CSC, but slow compared to most DSLRs, and switching from Record to Play and taking a shot required a second press of the shutter, producing a result slower than most cameras in its class.

Battery Life
Average battery life for a compact system camera.

The Fuji X-T1 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. (Note that the included EF-X8 flash was not mounted for this rating.) As is usually the case, we recommend getting a second battery for your X-T1 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))