Fuji FinePix S7000

I know its not hifi/av related, but i know some of you are into photography so thought i'd post it here. Have any of you got any experience with this camera? I was looking to buy one in the next few months, as it has dropped dramatically in price (you can get them new for £350 now, they were £550 just before christmas). I am only an amateur photographer, although i will be using it a lot when i go back to college in september, but buying it mainly from an amateur photographers p-o-v. So, is it any good??

 

Don't know that specific camera but for excellent reviews and info check out:

www.dpreview.com

..also has some pretty good forums.

Michael.

 

Looking on the spec's shown on that site which Mike posted ( DIRECT LINK ) it say's the max shutter speed is 1/15 of a second. This seems quite limited to me. And so does the minimum apperture size of f8.

I don't use digital myself, but my girlfriend has a (non SLR) fuji finepix which gives great point & shoot results, and has enough options to get good results in many situations.

Sounds like a well reviewed camera, (I may have some other reviews in magazines somewhere - i'll have a look), and if it's going for half price then can't really go wrong! My girlfriend got hers off ebay for a great deal cheaper than RRP.

 

No it doesn't! It says the max is 1/10000 and the min is 1/15.

1/10000 is plenty fast enough.
1/15 is a little limiting for night time shots without flash though.

As for f8, I'm not sure they have it straight. Best to check the Fujifilm website as this may be the maximum aperture fully zoomed in, f2.8 being the maximum when fully zoomed out.
I could be wrong though. With a shutter speed of 1/10000, f8 is probably small enough anyway.

 

MO! the link you posted is not actually part of DPREview. For the correct specs see here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilms7000/page2.asp

The max shutter speed is 1/2000 sec in auto mode which is plenty fast enough (it wasn't so long ago that the max on most SLRs was 1/1000) and the min speed is 15 seconds, not 1/15 second. In manual mode you can select a max shutter speed of 1/10000 sec which is bordering on useless IMO.

Aperture range is F2.8 - F3.1 / F8 meaning F2.8 and F3.1 are the biggest apertures at minimum and maximum zoom respectively. F8 as the smallest aperture seems a little low but in practice I'm sure it would be no problem. 1/2000 and F8 should be fine even in extremely bright conditions.

See here for the full in-depth review by Phil Askey (the owner of dpreview.com).

Michael.

 

F8 is pretty normal for digital cameras and, no doubt, has a lot to do with the focal length of the lens in question i.e. lenses on digital cameras are a lot wider angle than their 35mm equivalents (due to the small CCD size) so you end up with a 7-21mm lens which equates to say a 35-105 lens on a 35mm camera.

From a depth of field perspective, F8 on a digital camera will give you amazing depth of field - much more than you would get on a 35mm camera at F16 for example. This is great for landscape pictures - the problem comes when you want to use a really narrow depth of field for a portrait - it's simply not possible to throw the background way out of focus with your average digital camera - the depth of field even at the widest aperatures and the longest end of the lens are too great.

That's the biggest issue I have with consumer digital cameras: the lenses used to cater for the small CCD's do not allow small depths of field and they all suffer from barrell distortion. The pro digital cameras have much bigger CCD's to help get around the problem but it would be even better if/when the CCD's equal the size of the 35mm frame.

As for the Fuji - very nice camera - the only thing to be aware of is their "number of pixels" issue - always look for the actual pixels not the recorded pixels. Mind you, the 7000 has 6.3 recorded pixels which is more than enough for anyone.

Matt.

 

Yes, I totally forgot about that issue.

I don't agree. Canon (EOS-1DS) and Kodak (DCS 14n) both have digital SLRs with "full frame" CCDs but I think it's the wrong direction to be going. In fact, because CCDs work best when the light hits them "straight on" and not at an angle (something that's not an issue with film), the larger the sensor compared to the lens the more critical the lens quality becomes. With a sensor that's "too small" for the lens it's only using the centre part of the lens. In the full frame CCDs edge distortions are much more apparent as the more difficult to get right edges of the lens come into play. An issue with both the 1Ds and 14n and the thing that killed the Contax full frame D-SLR.

Olympus's "Four Thirds" initiative (as used on their E1 D-SLR) is a much better idea. Use a smaller CCD (about APS sized) and make interchangable lenses to suit it. There's no reason why good lenses can't be made for a smaller sensor size. The 35mm frame size is purely arbitrary. Provided you can get the resolution on smaller sensors (which you can) then there's no reason at all to use bigger ones. In fact, the larger photo sites in a larger sensor make them more subject to noise.

The benefits of a smaller sensor (smaller and lighter cameras and lenses) are huge.

The issues with most current D-SLRs is that they're using lenses that were designed for 35mm film with smaller CCDs. Smaller CCDs with lenses designed for them (as on my Olympus E-10 and on the new E-1) don't have any depth of field or distortion issues at all.

Michael.

 

really to me, the manual functions aren't that important. For normal everyday use i shall just be using automatic, it will only be for 'serious' college work, and some serious wildlife shots that i shall be using the manual functions. I opted for this over others (nikon 5700 specifically, although i was looking at different models) due to the 6.3m recorded pixels. Seems quite a nice camera. Brand new on ebay (shipped from US) is £350 plus P+P and they reimburse import charges and VAT. Seems a good buy already, but considering it will be another 2-3 months til i have the cash, it should hopefully be even cheaper (i'll be buying second hand if i can find one).
Thanks for all your input.

Lee

 

Mmmm - I couldn't find much on the E10 but the of the similar E20 I found this:

"The Olympus E-20 has the focal length ratio of 1:4, therefore its lens at F/2.8 provides depth of field of an equivalent 35-mm camera lens at F/11.2."

Source: http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/dof/

That suggests to me that the chances of throwing the background out of focus for a portrait shot are slim.

Also, it must be said that the E10 has 1.2% barrell distortion at the wide angle end. See dpreview.com - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse10/page13.asp

You make some good points about CCD sizes though - I guess my issue with it is that I want to be able to blur the background out as well as I can with my 50mm Nikkor at F1.4 or F2.8.

Also it would be nice to be able to take those Nikkor lenses and use them on a digital camera without them doubling up their effective focal lengths i.e. I want the pricey 24mm lens to remain a 24mm lens when attached to a digital camera.

Matt.

 

For people who have an existing lens stock, full frame D-SLRs are a good interim solution but I hope not the final solution. In any case, only the very best (and therefore most expensive) 24mm lens would likely give decent results on a full frame D-SLR for the reasons I mentioned.

You're right about the DOF issue, it does affect even the E-10 I wonder if the 4/3 system is any better. As for wide angle lenses, AFAIK it's not difficult (hence expensive) to make a very wide angle lens per se, it all has to be taken in relation to the sensor size. At maximum wide angle my E-10 has a 9mm focal length which would be almost fish-eye on a 35mm camera. There is some barrel distortion but I think that comes from it being a zoom lens. I think a similar 35-140mm 35mm lens would probably have the same issue.

Michael.