Fujifilm X-T3 Video Cheat Sheet

Although the Internet (and Youtube) are full of information about using the Fujifilm X-T3’s video capabilities —kudos to Chris Lee’s Pal2Tech Youtube channel for his incredible work— having a ‘quick ‘n’ dirty’ cheat sheet works better when all you need is information and not entertainment.

This cheatsheet is organised according to (my personal) logic rather than to the camera’s menu order. It starts from the outside and goes deep down the intricacies of the various features. It also highlights some techicanilities that, although written in the manual, have not so obvious implications.

A final word: this is a work-in-progress. More information will be added as soon as they become available.

General settings

• Set the left ring under the ISO dial to ‘Movie‘ (the icon that looks like a cinecamera)
• Detach the LCD from the body so to favour heat dissipation
• Enable the Tocuh Screen (in the Menu, go to Setup-Wrench Icon/Button-Dial Setting/Touch Screen Setting–>ON)
• Enable the Movie Silent Control (in the Menu, go to Movie Setting-Cinecam Icon/Movie Silent Control–>ON). BEWARE: TURN IT OFF WHEN SHOOTING STILLS. WHEN ACTIVE, IT DISABLES DIALS AND BUTTONS
• Set up the LCD screen so as to enable:
  • Electronic Level
  • Zebra (set it a 90% so to stay on the safe side when it comes to clipping)
  • Histogram

Exposure

Shooting in Manual Mode (no ‘A’ option selected for Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed) disables Exposure Compensation.

Shutter Speed

• Shutter Speed doubles the Frame Rate
• With Movie Silent Control enabled, select the Shutter Speed with the Touch Screen
• With Movie Silent Control disabled, select the Shutter Speed with the Shutter Speed Dial and fine-tune it with the control dial located on the back of the camera between AE-L and AF-L
• When NON in AUTO, expose as usual then press AE-L. The lock works until the next time is pushed and the Exposure Compensation Dial works
• In a sunny day, at a base ISO of 160, an ND32 filter makes the camera works at 1/50. However, color consistency in different light condititions is an issue to consider.

Focus

• Set Focus Area
• Set Movie AF Movie to Area
• For Manual Focus set
  • The small lever on the low-left of the camer to M
  • Focus Check to ON
  • MF Assist to PEAK
• In Manual Focus, enabling the focus via Touch Screen allows the focus pull by tapping on the different parts of the screen
  • Select the first area and put it in focus
  • Start recording
  • Select the second area while the camera is recording
  • Push AF-L to focus on the new area
• Pushing AF-L
  • in Manual Focus, focuses without the need to operate the lens,
  • in Continuous Focus, prevents the camera to focus other objects

Colour Handling

• Set the White Balance manually
• F-Log works with a base ISO of 640
• Dynamic Range (DR)200% works with a base ISO of 320. At 400% the ISO is 640. DR settings affects ISO independently from F-Log
• Set Noise Reduction to -4

REC FORMAT/CODEC/COMPRESSION

In Movie Mode (Cinecam Icon) set:

• FHD/25p/200mbs
• H265/4.2.0
• LongGOP

AUDIO SETTINGS

WARNING: THE X-T3 MIC INPUT IS A MIC-LEVEL AND NOT A LINE-LEVEL. Therefore it is not possible to connect an external recorder such as the Zoom H6 that has a line level-only output, unless using an attenuator cable or fiddling with the line output level.