Finepix Hs10 Exposed
Fujifilm FinePix HS10 Review
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 FinePix 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 Fujifilm FinePix HS10 does not have an auto zoom feature.
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by: David Parker