Fujifilm FinePix HS10 10 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 30x Wide Angle Optical Zoom and 3-Inch LCD
- 10-megapixel CMOS image sensor for superior low-light performance and photo-quality, poster-sized prints
- Fujinon 30x (24-720mm equivalent) manual optical zoom lens; 24-720mm (equivalent on a 35mm camera) range from true wide-angle to ultra telephoto
- HD movie mode with stereo sound; mini HDMI output
- Triple Image Stabilization; ‘Super Intelligent’ Flash
- 3.0-inch High-Contrast Tilting LCD and Electronic View Finder
- Triple Image Stabilization , Super Intelligent Flash
- HD movie mode with stereo sound and mini HDMI output
Fujifilm FinePix HS10 – 10MP BSI CMOS, Fujinon 30x Wide Optical Zoom (24 – 720mm), 3.0″ High Contrast Tilting LCD. Other features include: Face Detection w/ Red Eye Removal, Face Recognition, Tracking Auto Focus, Triple Image Stabilization, Full Resolution Continuous Shooting at 10fps, High Sensitivity 6400 ISO, 6 Scene – SR Auto Automatic Scene Recognition, HD Movie 1080i w/Stereo Sound, Super High Speed Movie Mode Captures 1000fps, Motion Panorama Mode, Motion Removal Mode, Multi-Motion Captur
List Price: $ 399.00
Price:
I’m really impressed with the new HS-10.,
I’ve been waiting for this camera ever since I found out about it a month ago and flew down to the camera shop as soon as they told me it had arrived. I had read all the specs and seen the pics of the camera, and wanted to find out if it was all style and no substance, or if there really was a heart inside the beast. The shop owners opened the box for me to inspect, attached the screen protector, strap and lens cap string, and I took it for a spin before I even left the shop.
Before I say anything more, I’d better let you know my digital camera background. I’ve been using them ever since they first came out about 10 years ago. Sony DSC-30, Kyocera SL300 (world’s first 3.3 fps limited only by size of memory card), Nikon S4, Canon 350D, Nikon s10, Nikon P90, Pentax k-x. In addition, I have always used mobile phones with cameras- xcute (world’s first 3 mpxl mobile phone camera), SE k810, k850, Motorola ZN5, Samsung Innov8, SE Satio. So i’ve used a wide range of digital cameras.
Initial feeling:
1. Camera felt lighter than I expected, even with the 4 AA batteries in place.
2. Solid plastic, yet at the same time a little hollow.
3. Great grip- right side hand grip is deep and rubberised for gripping.
4. Thankfully the lens cap has a string attaching it to the shoulder strap- no chance of losing it or wondering where to put the cap when you take it off.
5. Lots of buttons at the back. Going to have to refer to the manual quite a bit.
6. The “chrome” ring on the bottom right feels a bit cheap. Though I guess use of plastic helps reduce the weight.
7. It’s amazing how friendly store people can be once you buy something from them. I was dripping sweat- hot day, so they gave me a cup of water
8. The screen is beautiful. I can’t say it enough. It’s very clear and bright, even with screen protector on.
9. The lens has an INCREDIBLE zoom range- 24mm to 720mm (35mm format) and feels very smooth when you manually zoom.
10. Zooming ring has good grip, but the pattern isn’t attractive.
11. Shop owner told me the lens is 58mm diameter- that’s good because I can use my IR and UV filters.
12. Electronic view finder is ok, but I find for “bridge” cameras they tend to be small in size. Only the dslr’s have eyepieces which are a good size which is comfortable for your eye. Ignoring the size, the EVF quality is good, and you may have read about the sensor next to it, which activates the EVF when you bring your eye to it. So the 3 inch LCD screen turns off and the EVF turns on when you bring your eye to the EVF.
What about the photos?
13. Really good. I’ve taken about 100 photos so far, mostly at night. You have to be quite steady, even with the shake reduction function on (there are 4 options for shake reduction!!!), especially at the maximum zoom. But if you are, then the photo is very very good and sharp. Not quite as sharp as the Pentax k-x, which is known for it’s low light performance, but it’s pretty damn good. It’s certainly good enough for me. Colours seem accurate and bright. Focusing in good light was pretty fast. Focusing in low level light was slower. In poor light it might even hunt for 2-4 seconds and flash a focusing light. It takes about 1 to 3 seconds to save a photo, so it’s not high speed unless you use that function.
14. The focusing is active. That is on auto, it will focus on faces, and even if those people are moving around, you can see the focus square remain glued to their face. My friends had to move side to side pretty fast for the HS-10 to lose the lock.
There are so many fancy functions on this camera that I have really only just scratched the surface of what this baby can do. But I’m very glad to say there is substance in the HS-10. If you are in the market for a bridge camera, the HS-10 should definitely be on your shopping list.
Added 15th April 2010.
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Despite the overcast and rainy conditions which plague me whereever I go, I’ve taken another 120 odd photos during the periods of “only” cloudiness and intermittant sunshine.
15. The photos are 24mm and at 720mm have differing sharpness. Colour is good for both though.
At 24mm, you can see the whole photo, but you quickly see grainy outlines when you try to zoom in.
At 720mm, the photo remains surprisingly sharp when you enlarge or zoom in on the photo. Not quite the same sharpness as my Pentax k-x, but much better than I expected.
16. I’ve always had high zoom cameras and each time I buy up, I get surprised by how much closer I can get to a subject. This time though, I noticed something new. Usually, if I take a photo at the widest angle and then one at max…
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|Finepix HS10 Exposed,
Well…I did it! I made up my mind and purchased the Fujifilm Finepix HS10. After months of reviews, trials and testing, mainly between the HS10 the Sony HX1 and the Canon SX20 I spent the $500.00. First let me say the HX1 and the SX20 are great cameras and both offer things that should be incorporated into the HS10 and then again the HS10 has items that those cameras could use as well.
I am a professional photographer and have been for over 30 years, I have owned everything from a Yashica TL-Electro to a Fujifilm AX-3 to a Nikon F3…and those were my early years. Since then I have had Fuji’s lone of S Pro cameras as well as Nikon’s and Canon’s pro equipment so I know a few things about cameras and their capabilities. Ok, for my HS10 review.
First let me say I was not sure about the manual zoom lens on a digital camera but then again I was used to them since I have plenty of SLR’s. However, I must say I really like the manual zoom for still photographs but when it comes to the videos I really do not care for it. In the video mode it is just too jumpy for my taste and does not make for a smooth video. Also, believe it or not you can hear the manual zoom sounds on the video sound track but I have heard of other cameras, including the HX1, that has the same issues with their auto zoom so this is something the camera manufactures need to work on.
The next issue I have is that the camera does have problems focusing when the lens is zoomed out all the way. If you back off the lens just a little bit it seems to focus fine just not at the full zoom. Other then that I have no other complaints about the camera…yet!
The camera takes great photos, even low light without a flash or tripod and even fully zoomed. I used 4 “AA” Alkaline batteries and have taken over 400 photos and the camera is still going strong, no low battery indication as of yet. Out of all my “full zoom” photos, both inside and out, there are only about 2% that are out of focus. I have no problems with the EVF even though the size of the EVF is a bit small but it still works for me. The menus are clear and easy to understand but I find one aspect of it puzzling…If you place the camera into the silent mode, so there are no sounds audible, the flash shuts off and will not work not even manually. If you want the flash to work and not hear all the beeps and bells you have to turn the volume down on each, just a little strange for me.
I really like the fact that you can use filters on the lens, it takes a 58mm filter but if you use the 24mm setting a lot you may want to get the slim frame filter to help stop the vignette that sometimes occurs in the full wide angle setting. I do find it strange that the camera does not come with a lens hood although it does come with a lens cap but that is usually standard with most cameras. The image stabilization works great, I have tried it many times, even grossly moving the camera while taking the picture and 9 times out of 10 the photo comes out on focus. There is some noise when you get to the 800 ISO and over range but that’s to be expected, no camera is perfect.
Anyway, that’s my opinion for now, I am going on vacation next month so I will put the camera through it’s paces then so I will post again later. All in all it’s a great camera and I am very happy with the purchase, my only true regret is that the HS10 does not have an auto zoom feature.
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|A questionable purchase,
. .I had preordered the HS10 and was really anxious to try it out when I received it. I wasn’t too anxious to use the video part of the camera as I intend mainly to use still shots. So I spent much of the weekend trying out various function of the camera. I set up a series of shots where I varied the ISO from 100 to 3600 and evaluated the results. As expected, the lower ISO settings produced little noise. In fact, noise levels were quite low even at ISO 800. I think one could be comfortable with all results at ISO 400 or less but still be reasonably satisfied with ISO 800. As expected, the higher the ISO, the more the noise but even ISO 6400 produced usable results. For most situations, this camera should produce very low noise shots.
. .Unlike some of the reviewers, I like the modest weight of this camera. It helps me minimize shaking when I take pictures. I also like the tightness of the zoom. I had an expensive Nikon lens which was loose but moved in or out if the camera was held facing up or down (called lens creep). I have been using a Nikon D80 with a long zoom lens and this is a much heavier camera. This HS10 was to be used to compliment the D80 and be used in places where I did not want to take the D80. I picked the Fuji since I expected the lens system to be nearly as good as that of some DSLRs.
. .I was right in that the quality of the lens is great and the stabilization is outstanding. I was able to get sharp images of printed material on license plates on cars about 400 feet away using full zoom and hand held. This really impressed me. On top of this, I found little distortion at full zoom with little to no purple fringing. This is better than the expensive Nikon lens I had been using. Again, impressive. I am not sure this will hold under all circumstances. I will let the expert reviewers determine this.
. .I was able to figure out the menus fairly easily but did have to run back to my computer to read some information from the PDF manual. I know cost is a factor but a printed manual sure would help. The small printed material that comes with the camera is fairly trivial.
. .Now for the negatives and they are significant. In taking about 220 pictures, I used 4 sets of batteries – 2 alkaline sets and 2 rechargeable sets. This is truly not acceptable and I am going to try to find out how to either return this camera or perhaps get a software fix (if there is one). This failing alone is enough to justify returning the camera. I have read others say that they had good battery life so mine may be a fluke.
. .The second problem was with the time needed to save shots. I have been using a DSLR and was able to take RAW shots and save them with little lag time between shots. I expected the HR10 to have some lag but was not prepared for the 6-9 second delay between single shots for RAW. If you shoot burst mode, you can shoot multiple shots with no delay between shots. I did this of flying birds with great results. However, after the burst, if shooting RAW, there is over a 10 second delay as the shots are recorded. Even using JPEG produces a delay of ~5 seconds. I did not time the saving of RAW+JPEG mainly because I was frustrated by the time lag of RAW and JPEG alone.
. .I have numerous SDHC level 6 cards and all give the same results when saving either JPEG (~3 sec) or RAW (~6 sec) shots. My wife has an underwater camera that requires SDHC/6 cards and at 10 megapixels, it takes less than a second to record JPEG. To eliminate variation from cards, I used the internal memory to record some shots. Guess what? The same results. I can accept slower for RAW but JPEG should be fast. I read comments from another owner (on another site) who had the same problem with slow saving so perhaps there may have been some poor quality control with the making of this camera. I have had experience with 6 other digital cameras and this camera has a slow save.
. .I will be contacting FUJI and probably Amazon since I feel I have a truly flawed camera. For those of you considering the HS10, you might want to wait until full reviews are out and see if my camera was simply a dud or if the FUJI HS10 does indeed have some major flaws.
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