I recent sold my Fujifilm X-H1 camera and bought the Fujifilm X-S10 which comes with a flip out screen, and I was surprised how useless the screen is for us photographers.

Flip out screens have been a growing trend in the camera industry for some years now, but why get rid of the perfectly good flip screen and replace it with a flip out screen? How I see it most people watch camera reviews on Youtube, and those Youtubers really push camera producers to make them a camera with a flip out screen. They need it so they can record video of them self, monitoring the video without an external monitor. You often hear them mentioning “not having a flip out screen” as a negative for cameras. It’s the Tony Northrup types that do camera reviews not because they love the craft of photography but because it’s become a living for them. Camera producers follow what the the most popular reviewers say, and they want a flip out screen.

So why does the flip out screen suck?

Aligning the shot is hard

Looking through the EVF or though a normal flip screen it’s easy to align your photos and frame your subject. But with a flip out screen you look at a screen slightly to the side of the direction your camera is looking. To make it worse the flip out screen is mostly not straight for you to look at, and you often miss align the horizon making it uneven and meaning you have to crop later.

The neck strap gets in the way

You have your camera on neck straps like most photographers, you hold out your camera, flip out the flip out screen, but the neck straps is in the way. You try to lift your head or move the camera to get a clear view of the screen but it’s hard. The strap gets in the way most of the time, and it’s a big downside.

Not stealthy

I often use the flip screen for shooting more stealthy on the street, but with the flip out screen hanging of to the side, you are more obvious than with a normal flip screen.

Slower and more difficult to fold out

You are out shooting photos and suddenly you see a subject coming towards you. You want to shoot it without the subject noticing you so you don’t use your EVF. You flip the screen around, turn it out to the left, adjust the angle, but the subject have now passed you.

Compare that to a traditional flip screen, it’s only one movement. Often I even have the flip screen a little bit flipped down already ready making it even faster, which you can’t do with a flip out screen.

Final words

After using the Fujifilm X-S10 for a month I stopped using the flip out screen, and that’s a big downside for me since I mostly shoot with the flip screen out.

To make it all even worse I tried using the X-S10 for selfies and vlogging, and it wasn’t even that good for that. I prefer using a normal flip screen camera with a UURig R031 (a selfie mirror you put in the hot shoe of your camera). The UURig R031 make it look like you are looking into the lens, the flip out screen makes you look like you are looking to the side of the camera.

Am I gonna sell the Fujifilm X-S10 again? It does really bothers me, but I also didn’t like the Fujifilm X-H1 for the big bulky design (I’m thinking of other Fujifilm IBIS cameras with a flip screen here). But as soon as Fujifilm releases another camera with a flip screen and not flip out screen, and with IBIS, I will get rid of the X-S10.