X-T5: Music x Flemming Bo Jensen

For my work as a professional music and event photographer, I really feel that the X-T line is my camera line. I have shot concerts and events with the X-T series ever since the X-T1 was released in 2014. All of my favourite concert pictures have been made with an X-T camera. For the past four years the X-T3 has been my favourite camera, a nearly perfect event camera for me. I have really been looking forward to the X-T5 and it does not disappoint.

The classic X-T three-way tilt-screen is a fantastic tool that I use all the time during a concert. I constantly shoot with the camera raised over my head and the screen tilted back, either because the stage is tall or I am shooting over the audience from the back. And the top dials for iso, shutter speed and EV are an integrated way of how I use the camera. The X-T5 fortunately brings back the classic tilt-screen and also keeps all the dials and buttons I use all the time. It meant I could pick up and work with the X-T5 with very few adjustments because the body and controls are so similar to the X-T3, the X-T5 camera stayed invisible allowing me to focus on making pictures.

One of the first major improvement I noticed was the tracking and particularly the face and eye detection. It is so big an improvement that it is really a revolution. I can now actually depend on face detection even during a difficult environment like a concert where the lights constantly change. I love this, because it means I can spend even less time thinking about the camera, I can focus on capturing the energy and emotion because I can depend on the camera keeping the singer in focus.

The new 40 megapixel sensor is another great improvement and it really is a very noticeable improvement in details and dynamic range compared to the X-T3. Concerts are often photographed in low light and hazy environment so that means you are struggling for detail already, but the new sensor really excels at picking out details and colour depth through the haze.

The 40 megapixels and high level of detail also means I can easily use 1 raw file as the basis for 3 different crops, 3:2, square and 9:16, and still have plenty of resolution in each crop. I was worried that the sensor would have higher noise and worse dynamic range at ISO6400 and above due to the much smaller pixels, but the new 5th generation X- Processor offsets this very nicely so noise and dynamic range at high ISO is on par with the X-T3.

The Internal Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) is a great tool for still photographs. In low light during concerts, it means I can stand at the back of the venue with the camera raised above my head and make perfect sharp pictures. A great little feature about IBIS is how much it helps when capturing laser lights. Big patterns of laserlight must be shot at slow shutter speeds such as 1/15 to 1/50 or you will only capture a small fraction of the laser beams. Here the IBIS again means I can handhold and capture these laser show pictures and have the picture come out razor sharp with the laser pattern fully painted in the picture.

The grip and the body feels great and very comfortable. I believe it to be the best ergonomics of an X-T camera so far, I have used the X-T5 for 10-12 hour long days of photography with no problems.


The X-T5 uses the NP-W235 battery and that in itself is a major upgrade, now I don’t have to carry 6 spare batteries in my pocket as I did when using 2 x X-T3 cameras for concerts. But the X-T5 is also very economical in power usage. I shot 1600 RAW pictures during a concert with the X-T5 in boost mode and still had 50% power left.

I have used the X-T5 for more than 15 concerts now and I am so happy with the camera, it is an awesome upgrade from the X-T5 and I honestly love everything about it. I’m always striving to get the definitive live photo of the artists I work for and with the X-T5 I have the perfect camera to focus on photography first, making great live pictures.