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Reviewed by UK Guest, 31st Aug 2006. |
| Review Summary: Don't spend more on a DSLR . . |
Overall Score: 5/5
 
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Review: .. unless you are a pro (wildlife) photographer. But even then the lack of mirror noise might be a bonus? This camera is simply brilliant. I have no idea where the comments about low quality pictures come from - I can only think the other users must have set 1600 ISO and underexposed one or two stops; that does lead to a lot of noise. Or they used alkaline batteries (always a no no). Or perhaps the xD cards were faulty? And remember a 9m pixel photograph is only 1.8x the size of a 3m pixel one.
The first thing I did was to take more than 40 test shots of the same scene using a tripod and cable release, at 50mm 135 equivalent and 200mm 135 equivalent. ISO ratings were 80 to 3200 (1600 -1EV) and capture was RAW, 9F and 9N jpeg. Prints were done with Qimage professional on Epson paper with a Canon printer. Colours, exposure and levels of detail are all very good or excellent. Colour accuracy has in particular always been a Fuji strong point, and this camera is no exception. There is a little noise at 1600 ISO, and quite a lot pushed to 3200, but I would expect that. Given that most images will be captured at 80 to 400 ISO this is not going to be an issue. The zoom range is staggering, both in terms of quantity (28mm to 600mm using 2x digital zoom) and quality. And a minimum macro of just 1cm. I would only use RAW sparingly due to the after shot processing fag, using 9F jpeg for everyday pictures. The range and quality of this camera, including full manual control, make this a truly staggering value for money package, as well as the most capable non DSLR I have used, by a country mile.
Minuses seem petty in terms of the VFM of this camera as a stand alone. The supplied xD card is for demo purposes only - you need a 512 or 1 meg card. Use the supplied batteries in your torch, you need 2000 plus Nimhs. The supplied RAW software is rubbish, download s7raw (if you use Photoshop there may be file format issues) which is freeware and will edit and convert fuji RAF files.
I've seen the negative reviews of the Fuji FinePix S9500; I wonder if they are spoilers? If you don't try this camera you may regret it. |
Ratings
| Value For Money: |
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5 |
| Review Score: |
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5 |
| Recommended? | |
Yes |
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Digital Cameras