A lot of reasoning for a Fuji X-T5

NOTE: This post is publishing while I am away in Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where the X-T5 is getting its first proper outing. Posts this week were scheduled in advance. I have a habit with cameras. I never buy the current generation. I bought the X-T2 after the X-T3 came out, and the X-T3 after the X-T4. It is not about saving money, though that is a side effect. It is about buying into something fully understood — stable firmware, known quirks, a used market that has settled. A new camera body is a promise. A one-generation-old body is a proven thing at a fair price. Which is why I had convinced myself I was not yet buying the Fujifilm X-T5. The body was sitting at around $1,999 new, or $1,650 to $1,700 used. That used price told me something: the X-T5 had not started depreciating. There was no X-T6 announcement to push early adopters towards the exit. I mapped the used market, tracked the depreciation curve, and worked out that the right moment would come when Fujifilm announces the X-T6 — not when it ships, but when it is announced. That is when early adopters list their bodies early and prices soften. I was looking for somewhere around $1,200 to $1,350 used. I had a whole framework. Then I bought the camera. The honest version of events is simpler than the framework. I had already saved for the X-T5. The money was sitting there. I was not waiting because I lacked the means — I was waiting because waiting felt like the disciplined thing to do. There is a difference between a strategy and a rationalisation, and I was not always sure which one I was running. What changed was the tax return. Bhavna and I filed our 2025 returns and received several thousand dollars back from state and federal. That money landed, and Bhavna looked at the situation and said: get the damn camera. She did not need convincing. She just needed me to stop performing patience I did not actually feel. There was something else. We were travelling to Bequia in early May — a small island in the Grenadines, and a place I have wanted to return to for a long time. I grew up in the Eastern Caribbean, and going back to that part of the world always means something to me. I did not want to make that trip with the X-T3. I wanted the 40MP sensor, the IBIS, and the extra reach that matters when you are trying to catch a frigate bird or a pelican over open water. Suddenly the timing argument I had been running looked a lot less convincing. So I stopped waiting. I ordered the Fujifilm X-T5 from B&H Photo in New York City. I do not think the reasoning I had done was wasted. Working through the storage question was genuinely useful, because those decisions did not change when I bought the body sooner. The X-T5’s 40MP RAW files are substantially larger than what I was producing on the X-T3. My 64GB cards would have filled up too quickly on a long outing, so 128GB is simply necessary. That forced upgrade also gave me reason to revisit the speed rating. I had assumed V90 was the right choice — better specification, end of discussion. But the X-T5’s buffer saturates in roughly one to two seconds regardless of card speed. The difference between V90 and V60 shows up only in how quickly the buffer clears afterwards, a few seconds at most. My shooting does not require instant re-bursting every few seconds, so I was paying for headroom I was not using. I went with Lexar Professional 1800x UHS-II V60 128GB cards. That is not a compromise — it is a correction. Batteries follow the same reasoning. Generic advice says carry three. But I charge daily, shoot for around two hours at a stretch, and do not monitor battery status until the camera prompts me. I started with two Fujifilm NP-W235 batteries. If real usage proves that wrong, I can adjust. I would rather learn from what actually happens than pre-solve a problem I may not have. On lenses: the Fujinon XF27mmF2.8 R WR came along immediately. The Fujinon XF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR paired with the X-T5’s IBIS is as good as I had hoped. The Fujinon XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR remains in the kit, but I may keep leaving it at home when the 150-600 is already in the bag — it costs too much of whatever weight budget remains. The Mark II is lighter, and I had hoped Bequia might settle whether that difference matters enough to justify adding it. I am still thinking about it. An Antillean Crested Hummingbird works the Ixora blossoms at Bequia. · Thursday 15 May 2025FujiFilm X-T3 · ISO 2500 · 1/1000 secXF150-600mmF5.6-8 R LM OIS WR · 484.5 mm · f/14 Last May I spent a week in Bequia with the X-T3. One of the birds I had been chasing all week was the Antillean Crested Hummingbird — a small, fast, impossibly busy bird that appeared briefly each morning as I walked back from breakfast to the beach cottage. I missed it repeatedly. On the last morning I finally connected. ISO 8000. f/14. The light was difficult and the bird did not stay. I got the shot, but I knew I was working against the sensor. This year I went back to Bequia with the X-T5. The posts that follow this one — shorebirds, seabirds, landscapes, sunsets, sunrises, and the general texture of a week on a small Caribbean island — were all shot on the new kit. Consider this post the introduction. The X-T5 is where chapter two begins.