Fujifilm X-E3 Accessories, Tips, and Sample Videos

One of the pieces of tech I bought this year was a mirrorless APS-C digital camera which replaces an ageing Nikon D5000. I wanted something super-compact, but with interchangeable lenses & the ability to record 4K video.

Since were so many options, I started researching cameras & ended up creating a spreadsheet to record all the things I was interested in :)

Long story short, I chose the Fujifilm X-E3 due to the price-vs-features, and 8 months later I’m still happy with my choice; it produces some brilliant images, and is very portable for taking with me & the family.

Video is pretty decent from the camera, as long as you choose the right resolution & FPS. I’ve uploaded samples from the camera into a YouTube playlist for anyone who is interested it how the different modes look.

There are a few things that could be improved; adding 60 fps for 4K video, longer recording times (it’s limited to 10min at 4K, 15 min for 1080p, which is low these days), a dedicated ‘Record’ button (rather than having to dip into the Drive Mode menu to switch from Photo to Video), and a larger flippy screen on the back. Let’s see what the X-E4 brings in 2021!

Camera Bag

Next, if you’re looking for a really compact bag, I really like the Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 10, which is the smallest I could find that fit the camera + the 18-55mm lens. It’s also pretty cheap at about £20-30 (watch out for deals!).

Extra Batteries

There are plenty of cheap 3rd party batteries available; the ones I chose are from Baxxtar and I’ve had no issues with them at all.. performance is just as good as the one that came with the camera.

Companion App

If you get any newer Fujifilm camera, there’s a companion app available which allows you to connect your phone to the camera & do automatic synchronisation of the photos. It does this after you turn the camera off, and sets up an ad-hoc Wifi access point to do the transfer (Bluetooth is too slow). It’s pretty handy, since your photos all end up on your phone, which can then sync with Google Photos when you’re back at home, making the whole process quite seamless.

However, if you use this, one thing you’ll want to do is enable full-resolution files, since by default it downsizes everything to keep the transfer fast. Here’s how to do that;

Synchronise Videos to Your Phone

The Fujifilm app won’t transfer videos, so you’ll need to use some other apps to sync them automatically to your phone using a USB OTG adaptor & SD card reader. One of the apps is called FolderSync, and the other is Automate. Here’s how I use them to automate the process;

That’s it, I hope these tips have helped anyone with an X-E3, or anyone doing their research on what camera to buy.

Sync Photos from a Camera SD Card to your Phone

As I get used to owning a Fujifilm X-E3 compact mirrorless APS-C camera, one thing I’ve just figured out is how I can transfer photos and videos off it to my Android phone.

The Fuji app is supposed to do a lot of this automatically, but I’ve found it unreliable (often not connecting to the camera), doesn’t sync video, and needs to use its own WiFi hotspot for the transfer.

What I’ve figured out is I can use a USB on-the-go (OTG) adaptor, USB SD card reader, and a couple of apps to do everything I need. Here’s how you can set up the same workflow:

Get a USB OTG adaptor and USB SD Card Reader. Make sure your phone can read the SD card when it’s attached.

You’ll need to use a file-browsing app to look for the attached USB device; phone manufacturers usually pre-install one for you.

If you can see the files on your SD card, you can move onto the next step!

Next download FolderSync. This will allow you to sync the files from your SD card to your phones’ internal memory. Set up a ‘folder pair’ to sync the files where you want them (even to the Cloud).

Now you’ve got the files syncing from your SD card to your phone, you may need to perfect things depending on the camera you have. Fujifilm cameras  save videos as .MOV files which don’t show up in Google Photos or the gallery app (not on Samsung phones anyway).

To fix this, I’ve used an app called Automate to rename the copied files to .MOV.mp4. That (weirdly) sorts it out!

If you haven’t seen Automate before, it’s a bit like Tasker, but you build the automation (flow) using blocks.

The MOV renamer process I built looks like this;

This can be added to my homescreen as a shortcut which runs the flow when I tap it.

I’ve published the final version of the flow to the Automate community so that you can download and adapt it however you see fit.

To help show you exactly how this works I’ve created a short video. I go into more detail on the flow I used, and you can see the whole thing in action.