When it comes to digital camera one-upmanship, autofocus-speeds have finally usurped megapixel-counts. This is a good thing. Everyone can find a use for a faster-focusing camera, and everyone from Olympus to Panasonic to Sony has been hot-rodding their AF systems lately.
Add the Fujifilm X-E2 to the race. The company claims its new camera is the fastest-focusing APS-C camera of them all, with a phase-detection AF system that's able to lock in on a subject in less than a tenth of a second (0.08 seconds, to be exact).
It uses the same 16-megapixel X-Trans CMOS II sensor as the equally peppy Fujifilm X100S, and like the X100S, the X-E2 doesn't have an optical low-pass filter. There's one huge difference between the two: The X-E2 is an interchangeable-lens X-Mount camera instead of a fixed-lens shooter.
In rapid-fire mode, the X-E2 captures 7 frames per second with focus locked on the first frame or 3 fps with dual contrast/phase-detection autofocus making adjustments on every shot. It's no slouch in video-capture mode either, with the ability to shoot 1080p video at a smooth 60fps. ISO ramps up to 6,400 if you're shooting in RAW (or 25,600 if you're capturing JPEGs), so you should be able to use fast shutter speeds in the dark.
Like most recent Fujifilm cameras, the X-E2 has throwback aesthetics that are as functional as they are fashionable. You get physical buttons and dials to adjust shutter speed, exposure-compensation settings, focus/exposure lock, focus modes, and other adjustments. There's also a nice, chunky grip. The body may look old, but it's festooned with Wi-Fi capabilities, so you can offload images to a mobile device or a computer without messing around with cables.
You'll be able to buy it in November, either in black-and-silver two-tone or in all black. The Fujifilm X-E2 costs $1,000 for the body only, and it will sell for $1,400 as a kit with an 18-55mm/F2.8-F4 zoom lens. The camera has a focal-length multiplier of 1.5X.
