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PRESS RELEASE

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DigicamReview have today posted their review on Fujifilm FinePix S5600 / S5200, a 5.0 Megapixel digital camera with a 10x optical zoom and running on 4AA batteries. Here’s what they say about image quality & noise:

“The camera has good colour - It took a good “Heather and Flower” photo - there is no red-eye in the photo. It has a decent flash, and copes well with group photos, although on AUTO ISO, the ISO setting is often increased, in this photo, the automatic ISO chose ISO400, and the photo appears to have high noise reduction applied resulting in a loss of detail, and the photo appears soft. The camera did a good job at focusing even in low-light.

Noise is visible in photos taken at ISO200 and ISO400, however, there appears to be quite strong noise reduction which does remove detail - ISO200 and ISO400 photos are still usable with quite acceptable results which is good, as a lot of other cameras produce unusable images when ISO200 or above is used. Noise levels at ISO800 and ISO1600 are very high…”

>> Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Hottest Deals
>> Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Review Roundup

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PRESS RELEASE

Valhalla, NY January 16, 2006 - Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc., is now offering a hardware upgrade for the FinePix S3 Pro professional DSLR camera that will improve its continuous shooting capabilities, as well as other performance enhancements.

The FinePix S3 Pro has found a home in the camera bags of thousands of wedding and portrait photographers thanks to its world-renowned Fujifilm color reproduction and industry-leading dynamic range. The 12 MegaPixel FinePix S3 Pro has six MegaPixels dedicated solely to the capture of dynamic range with another set of six MegaPixels dedicated to resolution. Together, these MegaPixel sets create high-resolution files with tremendous dynamic range. At its widest setting the FinePix S3 Pro’s dynamic range is 400% percent greater than that of other cameras of similar sensor design.

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CameraLabs’ Gordon Laing has just posted his review on Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom/FinePix S9000 Zoom, a 9 Megapixels with a long 10.7 optical zoom and 1.8″ LCD screen

“Starting with resolution, the S9500’s sensor and lens combination certainly out-resolved the current crop of budget 6 and 8 megapixel digital SLRs in our studio tests, although in real life you’d be hard pushed to spot much difference between it and the Canon 350D / Digital Rebel XT or Panasonic’s DMC-FZ30. That’s still a good result though.
As far as the lens is concerned, there’s softness in the corners at wide angle, but no more than you’d get with most 3x lenses bundled with digital SLRs. In terms of geometry and vignetting the S9500’s lens, like the Panasonic FZ30 and Sony R1, out-performs most digital SLR bundles.”

>> Fujifilm Finepix S9000/9500 Review Roundup and Sample Pictures
>> Fujifilm Finepix S9000/9500 Latest Price

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Dave Etchells has just reviewed the Fuji Finepix S9000, a 9.0 megapixels Super CCD HR with 10.7 Fujinon optical zoom lens equivalent to 28-300mm lens on a 35mm camera.

In conclusion, Dave wrote: “As time goes on, the falling prices of digital SLRs make it harder and harder for high-end all-in-one cameras to find a place in the market. That said though, the Fujifilm FinePix S9000 makes a pretty compelling case for itself, offering an excellent 10.7x zoom lens (that extends to a very useful wide angle equivalent focal length of 28mm) and loads of resolution at a price a hundred dollars or more less than the least expensive d-SLR equipped with only a modest 3x zoom. It doesn’t quite approach the quickness or low light/high ISO prowess of most d-SLRs, but certainly does well enough in these areas to suit the needs of most amateur photographers.

A flash hot-shoe permits the use of powerful external strobes, and it even offers a threaded cable-release socket on its shutter button. (Why more digital camera makers don’t offer this is beyond us, it can’t cost more than a few pennies to add to a camera, and is very useful for all sorts of situations where you don’t want to jostle the camera by pressing the shutter button.) Control-wise, the Fuji S9000 offers a full range of exposure modes from fully automatic to fully manual, with program, aperture-priority and shutter-priority in between, as well as a good handful of useful scene modes. This is a camera that a pure novice can start with and grow into as their skills mature. No camera is perfect, and the S9000 has its own set of foibles, but on balance, it’s a great choice for enthusiast photographers on a budget. “

Imaging Resource has recently posted their review on Fujifilm FinePix A345, a 4.1 megapixels camera with 3x optical zoom lens, a good-sized bright LCD monitor, and Pict-Bridge support. In conclusion they wrote:

“Pro: Good skin tones, Auto white balance handles a wide range of lighting well, even does a fairly good job with household incandescent lighting, Better than average exposure accuracy, Good lens, generally low distortion (some chromatic aberration at wide settings though), Good camera styling, very compact, Very simple user interface, Accurate LCD viewfinder, Good low light capability (But only in Night mode), Case design fits both large and small hands well

Cons: Color is a little uneven. Greens and yellows are undersaturated, blues very oversaturated, Auto ISO boost in dark conditions makes for very high noise when flash is enabled (Images not really usable for prints larger than 4×6 inches), Only white balance and EV compensation options in Manual mode, Fairly slow from shot to shot, Only average shutter response at wide angle, very slow at telephoto focal lengths, Contrast is a little high, tends to lose highlight and shadow detail under harsh lighting, Very tight optical viewfinder, Some users may find the highly saturated blue colors unnatural”

Jeff Keller just posted his review on Fuji FinePix S9000 and wrote:

“What I liked: Very good photo quality (though see issues below), Good high ISO performance for a non-SLR camera, Nice focal range for an ultra zoom, 28 - 300 mm, Solid, SLR-style body with manual zoom/focus rings, Full manual controls, Fast startup, focusing, shot-to-shot speeds (assuming you’re not using RAW mode), LCD/EVF usable in low light, AF-assist lamp, good low light focusing, Hot shoe and flash sync port for external flash, Useful Natural Light, Anti-blur modes (though see issues below), No redeye, Good macro mode for an ultra zoom
Dual memory card slots, Excellent movie mode; zoom lens can be used during filming, Very good battery life, USB 2.0 High Speed support.

What I didn’t care for: While better than fixed lens cameras, images are noisier than similarly priced D-SLRs, Anti-blur mode works at stabilizing images, but increased noise limits output options; optical image stabilizers are better for this, Sluggish performance in some areas: RAW recording, continuous shooting write times, playback mode, Camera offers RAW mode but no software to do anything with it; RAW option is buried in setup menu, No focus distance shown on LCD/EVF in manual focus mode, Full shutter speed range only available in M mode, Body suffers from “button clutter”, Tiny memory card, no rechargeable batteries included ..”

Fujifilm FinePix Z2 Zoom: the sensitive supermodel that’s naturally slim

New member of the ‘Z’ series adds class-leading sensitivity
Fujifilm today announced the launch of the FinePix Z2 Zoom, a super-slim digital compact offering 5.1 megapixels, a high resolution 2.5” LCD monitor and improved sensitivity up to ISO 1600, all housed within a chic, sleek body.

As anyone with an eye for the world of fashion knows, occasionally you may want to take discrete photos in low light. With an amazing sensitivity setting of ISO 1600, this model certainly won’t be dropped for a poor performance.

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The new Fujifilm Finepix S3 Pro Upgrade will have more memory buffer (from 128MB to 256MB) which will make the camera able to shoot for longer with the same burst speed. The update is currently only available in Japan.

With the increased buffer memory, the FinePix S3 Pro will be able to shoot 8 RAW photographs in burst instead of 3 in the wide dynamic range mode. In the same mode, 16 consecutive JPEGs will be able to be taken – compared with the paltry 6 before. In the standard dynamic range mode, the increased buffer memory will increase shots from 7 to 17 in RAW format and 12 to 33 in JPEG format.

Related article: Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro Review, Ratings and Sample Photos

Dennis Hissink from Letsgodigital had a preview on FinePix S9000/S9500 Zoom and wrote

“Only a short while I have had the Fujifilm FinePix S9500 digital camera in my hands, and despite the fact that this model was of a pre-production status, I am enthusiastic about the versatile nature of the camera. The camera has a firm grip, lays perfectly stable in ones hand and it feels like you have been using this camera for some time. Though media are claiming and almost dictating us that 4 - 5 Megapixels is enough, I believe that Fujifilm is proving that high resolution like the 9 Megapixels of the Fujifilm S9500 offers more freedom in shooting and printing. Of course we do not need extra noise, but Fujifilm has its own secret powerful tool, the Super CCD HR image sensor, one remarkable sensor! I am sure the S9500 digital camera will find its way to the target group… As soon as we receive a full production model we will publish the Fujifilm FinePix S9500 digital camera review.. till then.. just enjoy the preview!”