Fujifilm FinePix S100FS review

Fujifilm FinePix S100FS Review

Reviewed by: Rich Trenholm

Reviewed on: 23 May 2008

Extended dynamic range is popular at the moment, and the S100 gets in on the act, with the option to capture a greater range of detail in darker and lighter areas. Dynamic range is one of the options that can be bracketed, along with film simulation and exposure. This function captures three frames at different settings with one press of the shutter.

Playback mode allows for a 3x3 thumbnail grid -- or even a 10x10 -- but the screen is rather too small for that to be useful. Fujifilm has seen the light with regard to memory cards, and the S100 is the latest to support the near-ubiquitous SD and SDHC card, as well as the proprietary xD card.

Performance
Raw performance is excellent at 1fps and an impressive 3fps in continuous mode. Continuous mode will stop after seven JPEGs and three raw files. Top 7, last 7 and top 50 burst modes save the first and last seven or first 50 images, but at a vastly reduced 3-megapixel resolution. Start-up time is two seconds, with a shot-to-shot time of one second without flash, and two seconds with flash.

This crop, taken on the full automatic setting, shows the purple fringing that creeps into many images

The large sensor and lens combination give crystal-clear images, with no distortion or vignetting. Purple fringing is more pronounced than we'd like, but it could be argued there is a trade-off in noise control. Noise is well handled up to ISO 800, and even above that the extra detail crammed in is worth putting up with pebbledashing in darker areas. The maximum ISO speed is 10,000, which is pointlessly fast, as images are murdered by speckles.

As the mechanical image stabilisation is complemented by ISO-boosting, we recommend limiting the maximum ISO speed to 400 or 800 to get the best results. Image stabilisation easily saved us two or three stops.

There is a fair bit of noise reduction applied to images, which smears fine detail, but you can get around this by shooting unprocessed raw images. Be warned, however, that raw files are an enormous 22MB.

Conclusion
As a bridge camera, the Fujifilm FinePix S100FS is definitely closer to the dSLR side of the bridge than the compact. Fujifilm has packed it with features and given many of them their own controls. The Olympus SP-560 UZ may be less intimidating, while for a similar amount of money, you could get into dSLRs with an entry-level model such as the Pentax K200D. Still, the excellent, versatile lens and wealth of options make this a serious camera to take charge of your photography.

Editing by Jon Squire