Fujifilm FinePix S1500 Review
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Nice design, easy to use, plenty of features.
Thumbs Down:
Slow performer.
Inside the Trunk:
Utilities & drivers, FinePix Viewer, USB cable, A/V cable, Shoulder strap and lens cap.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Fujifilm FinePix S1500 is a 10 mega pixels camera, shooting programs include Panorama assist, Night (tripod), Portrait mode, Natural light, Party/indoor, Sports mode, Night mode, Landscape, Fireworks, Sunset, Museum, Flower, Beach, Text, Snow. Light sensitivity options include ISO 6400 (3Mpix), ISO 3200 (3Mpix), ISO auto, ISO 1600, ISO 800, ISO 400, ISO 200, ISO 100, ISO 64. The camera has a 5.7 x optical zoom, exposure modes include Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, Automatic, Program, Manual. White balance presets include Fine, Incandescent, Fluorescent light (cool white), Fluorescent light (daylight), Fluorescent light (warm white).
Videos are stored in AVi, MJPEG format, images are stored in JPEG, video capture resolution AVI – 320 x 240, AVI – 640 x 480, image storage resolution options are JPEG 640 x 480, JPEG 1600 x 1200, JPEG 2048 x 1536, JPEG 2592 x 1944, JPEG 3648 x 2432, Fine 3648 x 2736. Flash modes include Red-eye reduction, Flash OFF mode, Slow synchro, Fill-in mode, Auto mode. The S1500 has 23 MB internal memory and the camera accepts SD Memory Card and MultiMediaCard.
Additional features Automatic Scene Recognition (SR Auto), In-camera red-eye removal, Dual image stabilization, Digital image rotation, USB 2.0 compatibility, PictBridge support, Histogram display, Date/time stamp, Audio recording, Face detection, Instant zoom, DPOF support.
The S1500 has zoom lens- 5.9 mm – 70.8 mm – F/2.8-5.0, with 12x optical zoom, lens aperture is F/2.8-5.0, Macro Focus Range is 5-300cm, Minimum Focus Range is 15.7 inch. The camera has 2.7 inch TFT LCD display. Connectors on the camera include Composite video/audio output and USB. The device is powered by 4x AA sized batteries.
Razzle Dazzle:
The Fujifilm FinePix S1500 is not good looking camera but then mega zoom cameras are mostly ugly with the protruding lens. Battery compartment and the lens protrude out so it won’t be easy to carry this camera around in a coat pocket.
Inside Dope:
Fujifilm FinePix S1500 is a camera which is priced a bit steep. The camera is a mixed bag, it has a good features but the price is a turn off. It has a 10 mega pixel rating, costs about $180 but photo quality starts dipping past the ISO 200 mark which is really poor. However on the bright side, it has a 12x zoom lens for taking pictures of distant objects.
The battery compartment bulges out to give you a great grip on the right hand side of the device. There dedicated buttons for image stabilization and face detection as well as on/off slider, zoom ring and shutter release. You have to hold the on/off button for a long time to power on the device. The mode dial on the top has 10 main options of shooting.
On the left of the device there is a button to switch between the LCD and the Electronic View Finder. Below these are the exposure compensation, menu/OK, F-mode, display and playback buttons. There is also a four way direction pad and changing flash, macro and burst settings. The F-mode brings up context sensitive shooting menu and there is another set of setup and shooting menus when you press the OK button.
The large number of shooting options brings this camera quite close to a dSLR. It has full-manual and semi manual modes which gives you a lot of room for experimentation. You can store the settings which you frequently use in the Custom mode. The camera also has scene, SR Auto (automatic scene recognition) and program modes. There is also option of Panorama shooting which lets you capture 3 consecutive pictures and then stitch them together.
When in Auto ISO mode, you can block the camera from going past ISO 800 or ISO 400. The latter will give you better pictures. There are plenty of burst shooting modes too. Top 15 is fastest but the resolution dips to 2 MP, at top 6 the resolution is 5 MP, last 3 and top 3 exploits the full resolution.
Fujifilm FinePix S1500 is a bit slow when compared to other cameras. It takes 3 seconds to wake up and start shooting. In bright and dim light conditions, the shutter lag is 0.8 seconds; shot-to-shot times were 3.3 seconds with flash switched off and 4.4 seconds with the flash on. When we tested the unit in our labs, we found that the autofocus was a bit slow.
Photo quality is the best when you stay at ISO 100 or ISO 64, the details are very good and there is no significant noise. However, noise starts to creep in when at ISO 200. Till ISO 400 the small prints look good. At ISO 1600 and ISO 800 (which are the last 2 resolutions), colors look flat; pictures are hazy and very noisy. Color representation is best at ISO 400 or below. Photo quality is good when you are shooting outdoors, indoors it is mediocre and it is poorest in dim light.
The quality is sharp when at Super Macro and Macro modes as the details are pretty good. However, photos will look soft when you are outside these modes. We saw purple fringing when we shot around subjects of high contrast. At there widest position of the lens, there was barrel distortion.
Nitty Gritty:
We loved the versatility that Fujifilm FinePix S1500, it is one of the best mega zoom cameras at price range below $200. The issue with this camera is the slow speed and the prints beyond 5×7 size suffer in quality.
