Fujifilm EF-X20 Shoe Mount Flash

I like Fujifilm products and therefore waited a long time before this review so that I could try the flash under a wide variety of circumstances. Unfortunately, I like the flash less and less. The positive: It uses common alkaline batteries, is compact, nicely made, and in appearance is a good fit to my X-E2 camera. The negative: Very slow to power up to the first shot, and, with fresh batteries, the charge time between shots is a minimum of 5 seconds and is usually much longer. The result is an extremely slow camera rig with a huge number of missed or marginal photos. The good of this, I suppose, is that it reimposes the discipline of taking time to compose a shot. You have no other choice. The price of the flash seems reasonable given its construction quality. Considering its utility, the flash is way overpriced. The flash is definitely more powerful than the in-camera flash, but it still has trouble filling a room and it lacks a bounce option. Given the EF-X20s limited features and slow performance, I often end up using the in-camera flash. Finally, as noted by other reviewers, the power on indicator is almost impossible to see when using the flash outdoors. This would not be a major issue if the flash was reliably ready soon after each shot, but such is not the way the flash operates. An outdoor session using fill flash requires patience, prayer, and keeping your eyes glued to the EVF, waiting for the flash-ready symbol to appear.

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Well made and powerful for its size, not as versitile as other flashes, no tilt, but it can be operated as a slave.

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Looks great with the X-pro1 and X-E1 (probably the only bodies from a look standpoint with the upcoming X-M1). Performance is good, recharge speed is snail mail slow if flash is used at max firing (will eat up your AAA rapidly...), otherwise bulb recharge cycle time under fractional firing is fine. Pricey mostly due to its styling and size.

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The first one I had to return because it didnt work, this one is OK, it has some weird characteristics though, and fires and reloads slowly. The batteries are spent quickly. Not worth the money, the tiny one in the X30 is just fine, all what you need IMHO.

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Great, convenient size with adequate power for 90% of scenarios. I knew ahead of time that it did not have tilt or bounce, but you can work around this by using a Canon off-shoe cable. Unfortunately, there are two cons: (a) since it uses AAA batteries, dont expect rapid flash recycle after using the flash and (b) when the flash goes into hibernation mode after being idle for a few seconds, the TTL seems to lose the connectivity so you have to turn both the flash and the camera off and or to reestablish the link. Unfortunately, the EF-42 is too big in portion to the X-Pro 1 or the X-E1 for that matter. Hopefully, Fujifilm can fix con (b) with a firmware update.

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Doesnt fit properly: the shoe foot is too tight to fit in the cameras hot shoe; and also will not fit into the supplied plastic flash foot. I tried to gently wiggle the flash into the shoes but stopped before I broke anything. The flash foot is just not sized properly for the shoe mounts it must fit in to. I really wanted it, but, sadly it was returned.

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I like it a lot. I was going to contact Amazon because it was not working. I tried 3 sets of batteries and nothing. I had to install a set of FULL CHARGED batteries to make it work. I have only don test shots and it looks good. Ill update as soon as I use it.

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Works great with the gfx50r and the 45 and 63 lenses

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Nice little flash for both on and off camera use. Ive been using this off camera with the Wein Pulsar IR trigger for poking around with one light setups. The fit and finish are outstanding. The only downside is that it uses AAA batteries and its a bit slow to cycle, especially if you use the higher exposures.

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I love the size, the ability to limit the amount of flash, everything about it is eons better than the one which comes with the fuji xt2 kit

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