[keithwee] A visual review of the Fujifilm X-T3 at the Sepang Asian Le Mans car races.


keithwee

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Aug 20, 2010
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Photographers are visual creatures by profession and by heart, and of course while we will read text to improve our knowledge of the subject,

- few things surpass the joy of looking at the images themselves -
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This time, after my review of the Fujifilm X-T3 flagship model and X-T30 which shares the same imaging sensor and processor, I have a few readers inquiring about the X-T3’s capabilities in real world performance during fast paced events – where every single shot counts.

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XF50-140mm f2.8
Hence probably on a whim, an idea came up of using it at one of the most fast paced environments where the appearance of monster optics is common and adrenaline runs high.

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My kit was as basic as possible as mirrorless systems are by all rights designed for portability and consisted of:

1. the Fujifilm X-T3 body with a total of 3 fully charged batteries (in the end I only needed one battery’s load to photograph the event)
2. the XF100-400mm f4.5-f5.6 and XF50-140mm f2.8 lenses.
3. an iPad Pro 12.9 for editing the raw files and of course, to have the images readied within allocated timings.

Before having the photos do the talking on the performance of the Fujifilm system, a few standard disclaimers:

  1. The Fujifilm X-T3 and lenses used are my personal copies and running the latest firmware.
  2. I was not paid for this review in any form.
  3. All images shared were shot by me, and edited in Snapseed according to my preferences.
  4. I will be glad to share settings, however for the sake of brevity, I will comment on the lenses used instead.
  5. This is my first time shooting at the races. I have used the Fujifilm system for birding however that does not come close to the speeds here.
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The race-course (shot through glass with the XF23mm f2)
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XF100-400mm f4.5-f5.6
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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8
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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF100-400mm f4.5-f5.6

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XF100-400mm f4.5-f5.6

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XF100-400mm f4.5-f5.6

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XF50-140mm f2.8

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XF50-140mm f2.8
Conclusions.

Personally I was impressed by the performance of the Fujifilm X-mount system, on paper Fujifilm not be as fast as a Sony A9 system with its 600 plus AF points but the reliability of focus is there and I had a reasonably high percentage of keeper shots.

For us who know, we understand the difficulty in locating the moving object within view at telephoto focal lengths, and now at the races – this difficulty is further compounded with the fact that these racing machines move at incredible speeds, sometimes entering and exiting my frame even before I had time to react for the shutter button.

Even as a first timer shooting car races, the system helped facilitate the process of obtaining the shots while I was going through the concepts of panning etc-cetera. A huge surprise was that even while shooting in AF-Continuous and higher frame rates, the battery life held up pretty well.

If anything, I am now more confident in the Fujifilm system for more demanding usage, and of course I do know I can do better capturing even more professional images and I will strive to do so.

*P.S: A regret was I did not have access to the XF200mm f2 for this shoot, but I guess that’s life and I believe that monster lens would have done even better optically.

Thank you for reading.

I also blog mostly at my personal photography related and gear review site at www.keithwee.com
 

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