Fujifilm FinePix S100FS

The S100FS is not an ordinary superzoom camera. The first difference is the size. Most other superzooms are like scaled-down SLRs, but not this one. Its size isn’t actually a disadvantage, though, because it makes it easier to handle, with controls that are well separated so that you’re not continually pressing buttons by accident. Smaller superzooms may be lighter, but they’re not necessarily easier to carry because the shape prevents them fitting in a coat pocket, regardless of their size. The next difference is that the Fujifilm has a mechanical zoom ring rather than electrically powered motors. You can twist the zoom from its minimum focal length to its maximum in a moment, rather than having to wait while tiny motors whir it back and forth. This, along with the camera’s size, makes the S100FS feel much more like a ‘proper’ camera.

The lens itself has an impressive 14.3x zoom range, which offers the equivalent of 28-400mm. That should be enough for just about any kind of photography, from wide-angle to extreme telephoto, and while a couple of other superzooms can beat even this focal range, it’s not by much. An optical image stabilisation system keeps those long shots steady, too – in fact, image stabilisation is essential at these focal lengths both to cut camera shake and to keep the subject steady in the frame while you compose the shot.

But while the Fujifilm might look and feel like a digital SLR, there are important differences. First and foremost is the viewing system. You can compose shots using the LCD on the back, which has a hinge that allows it to swing out for shooting at waist level or above your head – it doesn’t swing sideways, though. Or you can use the viewfinder to take pictures – and here’s the main difference. Digital SLRs use clear, bright optical viewing systems, but nonSLRs like this must rely on EVFs (Electronic ViewFinders), which are essentially smaller LCD screens viewed through a magnifying eyepiece.

These aren’t as good. They’re more coarse and ‘grainier’, and can be slightly sluggish at responding to changes in light level or fast-moving subjects. The Fujifilm’s EVF is useful on sunny days where the LCD on the back can be hard to see properly, and it is more comfortable shooting with the camera held to your eye rather than having to hold it away from you. However, its resolution isn’t particularly high and it’s not very sharp in the corners unless you keep moving your eye.

One problem with EVF displays in general is the need to press a button to switch between the EVF and the LCD (you can’t display both at the same time). This can be frustrating when you’re alternating between shooting and viewing photos. Fujifilm’s been quite clever here, though, because as soon as you press the Playback button, the S100FS automatically switches the display to the main LCD.

In fact, it’s a pretty well-designed camera all round. There are buttons on the top for adjusting the ISO and EV compensation, and on the back is a switch for changing the metering mode. It’s nice to find that feature on the camera body rather than buried in the menus.

On the other hand, there have been a couple of odd decisions. Fujifilm’s provided a button on the back for enabling the Face Detection mode, but there isn’t one for adjusting the white balance (this is buried in the menus). Fujifilm might be proud of its Face Detection system, but is it really that significant a feature?

On the side of the camera are buttons for activating the anti-shake system, changing the drive mode and adjusting the focus mode. In the middle of the focus mode switch is an autofocus button. This is actually very useful. It’s often useful to focus manually to avoid shutter lag, especially with long-range action shots, but manual focusing is very difficult without the optical viewing system of an SLR. But here, if you set the camera to manual focus then aim it at the point you want to focus on, you can press this button to get the AF to focus on that point. The camera will now stay focused at that distance until you either switch back to AF mode or refocus.

Some of this camera’s more interesting features are on the inside, though, rather than the outside. One of these is the range of Film Simulation modes. Fujifilm had a long history of film manufacture long before the advent of the digital age, and in these modes it’s trying to recapture the properties of two of its most famous film brands, Provia and Velvia. Velvia is the most famous, being a highly saturated slide film, beloved of landscape photographers in particular. Provia is more neutral and popular among commercial photographers looking for accuracy and predictability rather than outright vividness. The Fujifilm has two other Film Simulation modes called Soft and Portrait.

It’s a nice idea, but it has to be said that while the Provia mode does indeed produce good, predictable responses, the Velvia mode seems to be simply a higher-contrast, higher-saturation version. The S100FS can’t really reproduce the extraordinary depth and richness of Velvia film, although it does produce strong primary colours and a very vivid look.

It needs handling with care, though, because like all digital cameras, the Fujifilm has a limited dynamic range. And in this Velvia mode, it’s all too easy to blow the highlights. It’s not just areas of blank white in your subject that you’ve got to look out for, but areas of blue sky, too – the slightest hint of overexposure will turn these into a very unappealing cyan tone.

You have to be quite careful with the exposure, then, and this is where the Fujifilm’s histogram display is useful. When you press and hold the EV Compensation button on the top, a histogram appears, and as you turn the control wheel to adjust the compensation, the histogram updates to show whether you’re clipping any of that highlight detail. It might have been better, however, to have the histogram displayed full-time, otherwise how will you know whether you need to apply EV compensation?
The Fujifilm does have an answer to this issue of limited dynamic range, though. It has an extended dynamic range mode that can increase the brightness range, which the sensor can record by 200 per cent or 400 per cent. This is not a new feature on Fujifilm cameras. Previously, the company has developed SR sensors with two different sizes of photosites – one for regular tones and one for recording extreme highlights.

This camera seems to take a different approach, though. It uses a regular sensor and appears to achieve a higher dynamic range by reducing the exposure (to capture the highlights) and then increasing the ISO in the darker areas. The clue is in the way the ISO is adjusted when the extended dynamic range mode is used – at 200 per cent dynamic range, the minimum ISO becomes 200 (instead of 100) and at 400 per cent dynamic range, the minimum ISO becomes 400. This does affect the image quality to a degree, in that the ISO 400 darker areas are a little more noisy than usual, but most photographers would accept this in order to get the greater dynamic range, especially in contrasty lighting. Besides, if you leave the dynamic range set to Auto, the camera will only increase the ISO when necessary.

It does work well, although it is sometimes difficult to get your head around how the dynamic range and ISO are interacting. The other problem is that the extended dynamic range is only available when the Film Simulation mode is set to Provia, and you have to go through the manual practically word by word to find out that little snippet of information.

The zoom range, the SLR-style handling, the anti-shake and the extended dynamic range are all highly tempting and make the S100FS one of the most desirable of all superzoom cameras, at least on paper. But do its pictures match up to its promise? To an extent. The colours are good and the Fujifilm’s images look bright, clear and vivid. The sharpness holds up pretty well at full zoom, too, which is where nearly all of these superzoom images start to struggle. The Auto White Balance works well, especially in mixed and artificial lighting, and the anti-shake system is a huge advantage for those long-range shots.

But while the definition is good for this kind of camera, the Fujifilm doesn’t quite match that of an SLR, despite having 11-million pixels at its disposal. It’s all down to the size of the sensor these days, not the megapixels, and while the S100FS’s is slightly larger than the average compact’s, there’s not much in it and this has an inevitable impact on high ISO performance, too. Up to about ISO 400 the quality remains good, but after that it deteriorates markedly and unless you’re particularly unfussy about image quality, the higher ISO settings are likely to be of academic interest only.

Worst of all, though, is a strong tendency towards colour fringing, which produces visible green/magenta outlines around bright objects near the edge of the frame. This is visible even in A4 prints.

If you’re more concerned with specs and capabilities rather than outright image quality, the S100FS is a great buy. But if you want super-sharp noise-free images that you can blow up bigger than A4, the Fujifilm is not the camera for you. It certainly gives you an awful lot for your money, but you may wish in the long run that you’d saved up and bought an SLR with a couple of different lenses.