Fujifilm FinePix S9000

Reviewed November 2005

Image Quality

The first thing one notices about the S9000 is that it has an excellent ergonomic design. Its shape imparts the S9000 with a stable feel when it is held, and its controls are well-placed and comfortable to access. Similarly, the flexibility of the EVF, where menus can be displayed, and the use of a virtual dial to replicate the movements of the Mode dial all contribute to making the camera one of the most pleasant to work with. Moreover, the design also offers a high resolution image for the EVF with a diopter correction, and a 1.8-inch monitor that can move up or down.

On the optical side, the S9000 also offers appealing characteristics. It is equipped with a manually adjusted 10.7X zoom that starts at the equivalent of a 28mm and extends to a 300mm — labelled as such directly on the lens barrel — and a zoom ring that is both precise and fluid.

At its widest angle the zoom is quite well corrected for barrelling — although some remains, as can be seen in the image above — but can easily reveal perspective distortion because of the wide field of view it captures. And at the 300mm end, pincushion distortion is negligible.

On the other hand, wide angle images reveal some softness in the corners and a light chromatic aberration can become visible on the borders of very high contrast areas.

The wide focal length range offered by the zoom means that the camera is well-suited to capture a broad range of subjects. But the fact that there is no optical stabilization also means that attention must be paid to the shutter speed at telephoto focal lengths — unless the camera is mounted on a tripod — to prevent camera shake from blurring the photo.

The S9000 is equipped with a capture mode called Natural Light that allows the camera to automatically adjust the sensitivity from 80 to 800 ISO, and which is intended to capture images without the flash so as to preserve the atmosphere produced by the ambient light. The results are surprisingly good.

Indeed, noise is absent from images captured at 80 ISO, and remains quite discreet up to 400 ISO. Visible at 800 ISO, it becomes omnipresent at 1600 ISO limiting the value of that sensitivity level.

Another characteristic of the S9000 that needs to be mentioned is the camera's excellent colour rendition. Whatever the light source, colours are accurate and pleasantly saturated, an indication that the Auto white balance setting is reliable. And, in addition, the S9000 offers not one but two custom white balance settings, making it possible to dedicate one of these to a lighting environment that is used regularly.

The default metering pattern of the S9000 is a multi-segment pattern that evaluates 256 segments in the frame about to be captured, compares the readings against a database of common compositions, and then works out the best parameters for the image. While the metering is generally reliable, we did note a slight bias towards the darker parts of the frame, occasionally causing highlights to be a tad overexposed. Nevertheless, it is also worth noting that it is rare that the exposure the Multi metering produces necessitates the use of either the centre-weighted pattern, or of the spot meter.

Still, one regret we have in this area, is that the camera does not offer the possibility of linking the metering to the focus point, a method that is usually effective to ensure that the subject is correctly exposed when it is off-centre.

Focusing is another strong point of the S9000. The auto focus uses an external passive phase difference AF sensor that is fast and effective. The system is assisted by an illuminator that drapes a complex pattern over the subject to allow the camera to calculate the focus, and which is effective up to 3.5m (11.5 ft) at the wide angle setting of the zoom, and 2m (6.6 ft) at the maximum telephoto.

The FinePix S9000 is also equipped with a proprietary RAW image format that avoids all processing or loss through compression. Regrettably the software included with the camera, RAW File Converter LE, takes no advantage of the flexibility of the RAW format and only serves to convert the image to TIFF format. On the other hand, Photoshop CS2 users that have the newest RAW conversion Plug-in will be able to take full advantage from the S9000's RAW format.

The alternative to the RAW format is JPEG, and in this area the S9000 shortchanges the user. Only at the highest resolution is a choice of compression offered, and even then, the Fine image quality compresses images to 1/6 their uncompressed file size, a ratio that is more commonly expected with average image quality levels. Still, the images the S9000 are free of artefacts and normally quite detailed. Nevertheless, in view of the camera's other capabilities, additional compression options should have been included.

The S9000 is also well suited to flash photography. Using the built-in flash of the S9000, it is possible to take well-lit photos in a room 4 to 5 meters long (13 to 16 ft) and, should more lighting power be necessary, any number of third party flash units can be used manually with its hotshoe.

The Fujifilm FinePix S9000, as are a few other cameras, is designed as an alternative to either the standard compact camera design or the digital SLR. Its long zoom, high resolution EVF, complete range of shooting modes and 9-megapixel image resolution provide the user with a flexibility that is close to that of a digital SLR, while retaining the all-in-one advantage of a compact camera.