We take Fujifilm's latest and greatest prosumer camera optimized for nature photography for a spin. Don't miss our in-depth Fujifilm Finepix S100fs review.
Review summary of the FujiFilm FinePix S100FS:
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 The DSLR-alternative market remains small, but we'd like to see it grow, preferably with plenty of cameras like the Fujifilm Finepix S100fd. The camera might prove too involved for point-and-shooters, but for those looking for high-quality photos, full manual control, RAW and a DSLR-like feel without the associated expense and bulk, the S100fs is a great choice. We had minor issues with fringing, but otherwise the camera gave us one excellent exposure after another, and even better, we could process them to our heart's content in RAW without worrying about clipped contrast or excessive noising. If you're serious about photography, especially nature photography, the S100fs is a great choice. Release: March 2008. Price: $700.
Pros: Film-like noise, excellent RAW support, continuous RAW shooting, continuous zoom and focus rings
Cons: Some diffraction issues, unhelpful light meter
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Full FujiFilm FinePix S100FS Review:
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Design - Excellent
We can't complain about anything in Fujifilm's design for the Fujifilm FinePix S100fs, which is clearly styled after DSLRs and hits the mark perfectly. The camera is beefy and durable, with a solid heft that furthers its prosumer appeal. Its size and weight are roughly equivalent to an SLR with a standard lens, and from a distance, it looks like one, too.
Fujifilm's biggest win with the camera is the lens housing, which feels and performs exactly like an SLR lens. Both zoom and focus are fully continuous, and there are separate rings to control each. This single-handedly puts the S100fs into the 'big leagues,' so to speak, as freely variable zoom is one of the most important elements in really controlling a camera. We have seen other big, prosumer fixed-lenses with zoom rings, but the zoom still lurched forward in piecemeal steps just like any point-and-shoot, which essentially killed the whole purpose of having a big, fixed-lens prosumer. With the S100fs, Fujifilm got it right.
They also got the LCD viewfinder right. It's only 2.5-inches, but prosumer / professional cameras often have smaller LCD screens than consumer ones, simply because there are more controls on the back of the body. The viewfinder can be angled upwards at up to 90-degrees and downward up to 45-degrees, which can open up a wide range of atypical shooting styles. Granted, the ability to swivel it left and right also would have been nice. The secondary viewfinder is electronic and not optical, but it does have a deep eyepiece, so it should prove useful in direct sunlight and other bright situations.
The button layout is also ported over from a typical SLR design. An oversized mode wheel sits on top, and to its right are exposure compensation and ISO shortcuts, as well as a dial wheel for scrolling through shutter / f-stop selections. The back has a four-way controller more reminiscent of point-and-shoots, as well as a smattering of shortcuts and an automatic-exposure switch. Lens and continuous-shooting controls are available on the left side, next to the power, A/V and USB ports.
Interface - Very good
For the most part, the Fujifilm Finepix S100fs handles like a DSLR. That may prove overwhelming for neophytes, but it's a huge boon for manual photographers. As we mentioned, the continuous zoom and focus rings are professional quality, and the bevy of shortcuts make it a breeze to switch through various settings and functions. We particularly liked having immediate access to automatic-exposure and focus settings.
All in all, there's so much physical control on the camera's body that we rarely had to venture into the menus. Still, the menu system is clean and intuitive. One push of the ‘menu' button presents all of the camera's settings in one swoop, and we liked how the settings progressed, with the most important shot-settings first and the more esoteric system settings last (you'd be surprised how many cameras jumble everything up). The dial wheel also works exactly as it should, and the camera even has a shortcut to select ISOs.
The Fujifilm Finepix S100fs boots up fairly quickly and is ready for its first shot within a few seconds, though it was neither as quick as some compacts we've seen nor as fast as a good DSLR. Operation was fluid, though, and there were minimal delays before focus-lock and shutter-release. We've seen other behemoth fixed-lenses that were draggy at best (like our personal Sony DSC-R1), but the S100fs is fairly good at keeping everything snappy.
Our one complaint concerns the light-meter display, which is more reminiscent of a compact than a DSLR. For starters, there aren't any EV demarcations on the bar, so precise bracketing involves guesstimation, which almost defeats the whole purpose of having a light meter. In fact, there isn't a marker in the middle, so it's hard even to get a baseline exposure at 0 EV in the first place. The readings themselves were also imprecise and tended to jump around erratically. This just feels like a slight oversight on Fuji's part, but a few simple dividers and smoother readings would have made the light-meter much more useful.
Features - Very good
The S100fs's feature set also edges closer towards a DSLR than it does a nominal fixed-lens camera. RAW is fully supported, as is 3-fps continuous shooting in full RAW resolution and 7-fps in JPEG. Speaking of resolution, the camera features 11-megapixels on a 2/3-inch CCD. We're a little surprised and underwhelmed by the sensor – the sensor in Fuji's point-and-shoot F100fd is nearly as big, and the full 16mm sensor in our fixed-lens Sony simply dwarfs it – but no matter: the S100fs's image quality is so good you'd never guess it was coming off a compact sensor.
As with most newer cameras, the Fujifilm Finepix S100fs features dynamic-range boosting at 200% and 400%. We don't like Fuji's system as much as Nikon's D-lighting, because Fuji's requires a commensurate boost in ISO at each step (200% requires ISO-200). The results are comparable to Nikon and Casio's implementations, but they're inevitably noisier. Of course, at the prosumer level, dynamic-range boosting becomes moot: with a little more time and a dash of expertise, you can get much better results through RAW development. Nothing beats the human touch, at least not yet.
One interesting feature of the S100fs is its film modes, which simulate Velvia, Provia, soft and negative film stock for better saturation, accuracy, diffusion and portraiture, respectively. These emulations give far more interesting results than mere color filters, and coupled with dynamic-range boosting, they should give JPEG shooters an excellent amount of control over their exposures. Once again, RAW bypasses all this, as it should. Finally, the S100fs accommodates auto-shooters with 14 scene-modes and full face-detection.
Image quality - Very good
The Fujifilm Finepix S100fs takes great photos, no bones about it. The camera doesn't come cheap, but the premium gives definite returns on popping color reproduction, sharp exposures and near-DSLR performance. As a full-auto camera, its JPEG photos are at the top of the fixed-lens heap and far better than a typical compact, thanks no doubt to that huge Fujinon lens. For RAW shooters, it's simply a joy: if you want 99% of the functionality of a DSLR but without blowing all sorts of coin and space on multiple lenses, then the S100fs is right up with the Sony DSC-R1 as a viable SLR alternative.
Time Square looming
To see how well it could handle unmitigated chintz, we took the S100fs into the technicolor yawn that is Times Square. Considering the amount of RAW processing done on this image, noise is surprising low. We pushed saturation and contrast to the breaking point – darn near tortured the poor image – and we were surprised to see how much pop we could get from the S100fs's exposure. We've seen other cameras with RAW exposures that would fall apart with the slightest prodding, but the S100fs has plenty of headroom. There is some slight fringing, but in the camera's defense, it was exacerbated considerably by our post-processing.
Dump it here
Macro performed excellently. The Fujifilm Finepix S100fs has a ‘super-macro' setting, so you can essentially press the lens against a surface and still lock focus. This sample is at a more typical macro range, and there's nothing to complain about. Geometry and focus were fine in our testing.
Water spouts
The S100fs's shutter goes up to 1/4000-second, so it can freeze almost any high-speed subject. This sample was taken at 1/320-second to allow a little motion blur, and again we were surprised by the results: the detail is simply amazing. Whatever Fujifilm is doing to get this level of performance out of a 2/3-inch CCD, they should certainly keep doing it.
Urban
This sample is straight-out of the camera. The result is a little more subdued without our over-zealous processing and demonstrates that the S100fs is perfectly suitable as a no-fuss JPEG camera. There is some green and purple fringing, especially at the bottom, and there's a strange white line along the vertical middle, almost like a clothesline where no clothesline could possible be. Still, we particularly like the noise-management, which looks more like film grain than it does ugly, digital blocking.
Fenced flowers
Lest the concrete murk of NYC confuse you, the Fujifilm Finepix S100fs is also perfectly capable of bright, cheery colors. This result was achieved with only a little boost in saturation and vibrancy in RAW development, and again the results were excellent, with only some diffraction issues in the corners.
Oval window
Finally, we tested the geometry of the lens at full wide-angle. Of course, some pincushioning is to be expected, especially from a 28mm (equivalent) focal point, but the S100fs kept such distortion within reason. Not to sound like a broken record, but again we were floored by the amount of fine detail rendered by such an unassumingly small sensor.
Price and availability
The FujiFilm FinePix S100FS will start selling for $700 () in March 2008.
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