I took the new Fujifilm X-E5 and pancake lens on a city break, and they’re a dream pairing for travel photography

Take Fujifilm’s most popular camera ever, the X100VI compact camera, swap out its fixed moderate-wide lens for a lens mount that’s compatible with numerous X-mount lenses for different perspectives and use cases, and you have the new Fujifilm X-E5.

Well, sort of. You can read more about the other small differences between the two cameras in my X-E5 vs X100VI piece, which also compares the X100VI’s fixed 23mm f/2 lens and the new XF 23mm f/2.8 lens announced alongside the X-E5 – the pair can be purchased together as a kit.

The reason I draw the comparison is that I also predict good things for the X-E5 – it’s a slick and stylish rangefinder-style mirrorless camera, which is a rare commodity in 2025, armed with a stabilized 40MP APS-C sensor and with film simulations on tap, just like the X100VI.

These attributes make the X-E5 and 23mm f/2.8 kit a dream pairing for travel photography – which is why, ahead of the product announcement, Fujifilm invited me to road-test the new camera and lens in what should be a natural habitat – the charming city of Valencia in Spain.

With compact proportions similar to the X100VI’s plus a refined control layout, the X-E5 and 23mm f/2.8 proved to be a discreet pairing, and I’ve come away with some lovely shots that nicely capture my experience in Valencia, hitting the tourist spots and soaking up the local culture.

Trust me, the X-E5 is a ‘proper’ photographer’s camera, ideal for travel, reportage and street photography. With the new lens, it costs $1,899 / £1,549, while the body only price is $1,699 / £1,299 (Australia pricing TBC).

Here are a few things that stood out as I made photos that I was more than pleased with.

Top down of all black Fujifilm X-E5 alongside silver Fujifilm X-E5, on a wooden bench

The black and silver versions of the X-E5. Note the circular window next to the camera logo – it displays the selected film simulation. (Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

Getting the look

Fujifilm’s film simulations are no secret – they’ve been around for years now and are a major reason Fujifilm cameras have grown in popularity. Recently, these color profiles have gained prominent position in Fujifim’s cameras – a dial in the XT50 II and X-M5. Now it’s the X-E5’s turn, with the cutest pick of the bunch, a tiny window which reveals your selected film simulation, from a pick of six popular looks.

However, it’s the three slots for custom looks that I want to draw attention to. You can pick any one of the 20 film simulations to assign to one of the custom settings and further tweak the look to taste – also known as film simulations. Again nothing new, but the process is streamlined here.

Valencia’s city center is packed with ancient cathedrals and churches and charming streets, and so I wanted to shoot with color profiles that communicated that atmosphere.

For one custom slot, I used the Eterna Cinema film simulation – it’s a natural look, not too vibrant, not too flat, with an atmospheric grain. I further tweaked this profile, adding a little contrast here, a hue adjustment there, and settled on a look that felt right. Taking five minutes to do this before exploring the city paid dividends.

Given it was sunny too, and I explored a little during the brightest part of the day, I used one of the other custom settings for a high contrast black and white look; Fujifilm’s Acros with Red Filter, which adds drama to the sky and which perfectly suited the incredible architecture of the arts and science buildings just outside the old town.

Fujifilm X-E5 on a wooden bench, with the XF 23mm f/2.8 lens removed and propped up against the camera

(Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

Timing the shots

Valencia is a bustling city, alive with tourists and locals, which makes timing and composition crucial components for travel and street photography, and stretches your photography skills.

Waist level shooting is a subtle technique because you are looking down at the camera’s display rather than straight at the people around you. I used this technique a fair bit, angling the tilt touchscreen up. In fact, the X-E5’s display goes further than the X100VI’s 100 degrees of tilt – it can tilt up 180 degrees for easy selfies too, but sadly the resolution is just 1.04m-dots, which is a downgrade.

Another tool I employed was the camera’s digital crop, which can easily be accessed using a lever on the X-E5’s front. (In the X100VI, the lever is used to switch between electronic and optical viewfinder displays.)

Like the X100VI, the X-E5 has more pixels to play with than the X-E4 – 40MP stills to 26MP, meaning photos are plenty big enough still when using the digital crop (which reduces resolution), and which gave me a seemingly tighter focal length from the fixed 23mm lens.

There are three display options for the digital crop composition, plus the aspect ratio selection: the entire image area but with the cropped-out periphery marked out by a border or greyed out, or just your digital crop only.

With either of the options that let you see outside of the frame, timing street shots is much easier – giving you that extra moment before the action enters the scene. It’s the kind of trick I have previously enjoyed with the X100VI compact with its optical display, which sees outside the frame.

Overall, the X-E5’s design and handling has several welcome tweaks from previous generation Fujifilm cameras, which combine for a seamless travel photography experience. And I’ve only used the camera with the new 23mm lens – there are plenty of others to choose from, such as the similarly tiny 27mm f/2.8.

I’m currently completing an in-depth review of the X-E5, so make sure to look out for that for more details and to discover my final verdict. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the generous gallery of images, below.