AliExpress is kind of a double-edged sword. It’s a place where you can get some great bargains if you know what you’re looking for. I’ve saved a fortune over the years on electronics components. But there are also some iffy products on there, too.
Like this $35 digital camera that looks suspiciously like the Fuji X100V (buy here). But it has a much snappier title. This one was bought by Tom Calton who posted a video to YouTube telling us all about it.
A Fuji X100V for $35? Not really
The camera’s called the “4K Digital Camera Auto Focus 48MP Vlogging Camera for YouTube and Anti-Shake Video Camera with Viewfinder Flash & Dial 16X Zoom”. It’s a heck of a name, and one that I’m sure will be easily memorable to build up a loyal fanbase.
There are some obvious differences between this and the actual Fuji X100V, such as the grip and finger dial. But similarities in the rest of its design are difficult to ignore – even if the metal’s been swapped out for plastic.
It even has a built-in flash of a similar size and shape – which looks about as useful as a smartphone “flash” – along with a hotshoe on top. The hotshoe appears to be a standard single-pin trigger, but whether or not it works at all is anybody’s guess.
They’re not even close
It’s worse than the Fuji X100V in just about every way you can imagine, despite boasting a 48-megapixel resolution sensor. It’s a choice you’d never have to make in the real world.
But for those just starting out without a lot of money… Is this $35 knock-off worth checking out? Well, it’s not going to compete with “real cameras”. There’s no manual exposure, the 4K video is very choppy, it’s basically just a toy.
With that in mind, it does look like a very good toy, to be fair. For $35, it looks like a good camera to buy for your kids. They can shoot it to death and it won’t be a huge loss. And even if it doesn’t teach them about exposure, they can still use it to learn composition.
Be careful
AliExpress is basically just a venue, like eBay or Amazon’s 3rd party marketplace. As such, anybody can list anything, claiming pretty much whatever they want. It’s rife with fake memory cards, and other counterfeit products.
But sites like AliExpress and Wish can also occasionally present some bargains – for the right market. Photographers, however, are not the target market for this particular camera.
