I picked up a new camera on a whim a few weeks ago, the Fujifilm X-Half. It’s an odd little thing that I didn’t think I needed, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. There’s a lot of gimmick to it, and a long list of what it isn’t, but with that in mind, it’s a neat little thing to play with.

Back in the day, film cameras had an oddball format called the half-frame. These would use standard 35mm film, but they would take portrait-orientation photos that would fit two exposures per standard landscape-sized frame, and only advance the film a half-frame at a time. This meant you got 72 shots per roll, albeit half the resolution per shot, and they were “sideways” when you held the camera upright. The Olympus Pen was a popular example. The Kodak Ektar H35 is a modern throwback version.

The X-Half is a throwback to this, but in digital form. It uses a one-inch 17-megapixel sensor that’s in portrait orientation, ala what a cell phone is by default. The camera is small, maybe the size of a pocketable point-and-shoot, and has a vintage look to it, similar to Fujifilm’s popular X100 series, but a bit smaller. The lens is a 10.8mm fixed, which is roughly 35mm equivalent. It has a focus ring, an aperture ring, an exposure compensation dial on the top sitting around the shutter button, and a “film wind” lever on the right side.

The camera has an optical viewfinder, and then two small screens on the back, which is part of the whole “film” gimmick it has going on. First, there’s a portrait viewfinder touchscreen. Next to it is a small vertical strip that is the “film window,” which displays the currently selected film emulation. When you swipe up and down, it selects one of the dozen film emulations, ranging from simulated Velvia, Provia, Fujichrome, or a Neopan Acros with swappable color filter. You can also override the film sim with various effect filters, like light leak, expired film, and artificial HDR.

There is a “camera mode” which is a bit hokey, but some people are into it. Basically, when you turn it on, the camera’s digital viewfinder turns into a simulation of the back of a film camera, and you can’t change films or filters or preview your shots until you shoot 36 or 72 shots in the “roll.” You also have to manually advance the “film” with the thumb lever. Then when done, you throw the stuff over to the iPhone app and “develop” the film, at which point you can then finally see your shots. It’s maybe a neat concept, although I’m far too impatient to use it.

The camera is fun to shoot. It’s autofocus, although with such a short throw, it’s sometimes better to turn it off and simply range focus with the ring. You can do AE, aperture or shutter mode, or just go full manual. There is a tiny flash built in, plus a cold shoe. It shoots video too. The X-Half uses full-sized SD cards and the same battery as the X-100, so extras are dirt cheap. It’s fairly pocketable, and quick to start and focus, provided you update to the latest firmware. It has an iPhone app and uses bluetooth and Wi-Fi to talk to it, so you can do fun stuff like put borders on images, put them in albums, and shoot them over to an Instax Evo for printing.

The biggest limitation is that it doesn’t shoot RAW. Everything goes through the film sim and burns them to .jpg in the camera. One school of thought is that this is obviously crippling. The other is that one should just go with the flow and work with the limitations, like shooting a toy camera. Pick a good film sim, and the work is on you to frame up a good shot. This is a popular meme now, with the “distraction-free” screenless digital cameras like the Camp Snap, or people going back to film and Lomo-type cameras.

The other thing about this camera is the price. When it came out last year, it was about $800, which was ludicrous. I remember trying one in the shop and the plastic body and gimmick of the whole thing immediately turned me off. Fujifilm later slashed the MSRP by $200, with the street price being even lower. When I took a look last month, Fuji had an instant rebate going, plus my local shop had an in-store rebate on all cameras going on. I ended up paying $250 for it, which was an insane deal. The X-Half is not an $800 camera, but it’s definitely more than a $250 camera.

If you try one out, this Reddit article is super helpful. I love the Classic Chrome emulation, and if I set the white balance to 7500K, it looks a lot richer, like shooting with Kodak Gold 200. I also like to drop into the B&W emulation and crank up the EV by a stop or two to get a really high-contrast silver halide look.