First introduced in Fuji cameras with the GFX system, pixel shift promises unparalleled resolution. With the X-H2 and X-T5 camera bodies, Fuji has a “wow” factor by making us believe the cameras are capable of 160 megapixels.

By using the IBIS system, the camera “shifts” the sensor to capture different sets of pixels and is able to take 20 images that you must then combine using Fuji’s “Pixel Shift Combiner” software.

In theory: AWESOME! In actuality, however, Fuji’s system of implementing this rarely works well, if at all.

First of all, if anything is moving in your photo, forget about it. The photo will contain strange artifacts, such as in this photograph with the waving flags in the background:

And even when things aren’t moving that much, Pixel Shift mode leaves a lot to be desired.

These photos demand a tripod and near-perfect conditions. I had a little bit of wind on this day (not much!), so when I tested pixel shift on a building, it didn’t work well, creating blurry lines in all the details. Yes, I had the camera on a solid tripod.

Even in the studio, it’s difficult to get photos without Fuji’s software giving an error most of the time.

You can see this series of images I ran through Pixel Shift Combiner all contained an error. They were of a rock, indoors, taken with the camera on a tripod with a 10-second timer. There is no way to get better conditions than this, which makes the errors confusing and frustrating.

In the end, the Pixel Shift mode in the Fujifilm X-T5 and X-H2 is nothing but a marketing gimmick.