Fujifilm FinePix S5200

Reviewed February 2006

Test Photos

STILL LIFE PHOTO

This subject is photographed in a room that has a mix of fluorescent and incandescent light, but which is not brightly lit. The camera's flash is used to add fill light. The backdrop is 1.95 m (6.5 ft) from the camera.

This wide angle image, as well as the telephoto shot shown further below, were captured using the S5200's CCD-RAW mode. The format is non-lossy and makes it possible to obtain the output of the CCD without any post-capture processing by the camera, while retaining all the shooting parameters. The image was then converted to TIFF, using the software supplied with the camera.

The flash lights the subject well, providing smooth and even light throughout the entire frame. No noise is noticeable anywhere in the image, but the sharpness is a bit softer with this wide angle shot than it is at other focal lengths of the zoom.

ZOOM PHOTO

Now we zoom in on a specific area. The intent is to test the sharpness of the image at the zoom's maximum setting, with the camera remaining at the same distance as in the preceding photo.

Zoomed in, the powerful 10X magnification of the S5200's lens — the equivalent of a 380 mm on a 35 mm camera — yields a great deal of detail and excellent colours. Sharpness is also excellent, and tiny details are clearly visible when the image is seen at full scale on a monitor, as shown in the image displayed below, which is cropped from the full-size frame.

MACRO PHOTO

The Macro mode of the S5200 allows the camera to focus on a subject that is 10 cm (3.9 inches) from the front element of the lens when it is at the wide angle end, and 90 cm (3 ft) when it is at the telephoto end.

At the wide angle end and the closest distance allowed, the camera captures a field of view that measures 7.8 cm (3.04 inches) horizontally, while at the telephoto end 8.5 cm (3.4 inches) are imaged.

BUILDING PHOTO

This image is our outdoor test. The architecture of the building, in particular the angled girders, immediately show the presence of jaggies. The shadowed entrance also provides real-life information on the quality of the exposure and reveals any noise that might be present.

The FinePix S5200 is equipped with Fujifilm's 64-segment Multi metering, a very effective metering pattern that produces excellent results. Although the building is captured under a cool winter light that tends to produce deep shadows, the image is perfectly exposed and shows a good balance between shadows and highlights.

ZOOM PHOTO

Zooming in on the entrance of the building, the shadowed entrance takes on a greater importance for the metering and can cause an overexposure of sections that are directly lit.

With the zoom set to its maximum magnification, the camera frames mostly the shadow areas of the entrance, and a tripod must be used to stabilize the camera. Although for this shot the real focal length of the camera is 63 mm, it is equivalent to a 380 mm on a 35 mm camera, and the old rule of thumb that to hand hold a shot steadily the shutter speed should be higher than the focal length — in this case at least 1/400 second — is valid.

The image the camera captures is perfectly exposed and reveals details in both highlights and shadows.

NIGHT PHOTO

As this camera is capable of long exposures, a couple of photos taken at night are included.

The FinePix S5200 is capable of capturing exposures as long as 15 seconds when it is used in the Manual mode, a much more flexible limit than the one imposed by the Night Scene mode, which only extends to 3 seconds.

In addition, the Manual mode allows selecting the white balance and setting it to match the dominant lighting source — in this case incandescent — in order to capture natural- looking colours, a function that is not available with the Night Scene mode.

At 64 ISO — the lowest sensitivity setting, which in turns limits the intrusion of noise — a 15 second exposure is sufficient for the subject presented here, and produces a bright image.

The FinePix S5200 does not appear to use a dark frame noise reduction system — the image appears immediately post-capture on the monitor — and yet the noise in the image is minimal. Image sharpness is quite good, and with a bright exposure such as this, a lot of details can be seen that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.