Compared to the Nikon D100 (contd.)

Outdoor scene comparison (S2 Pro at 6.1 mp) - RAW

The following shot is of Tower Bridge, London. I had to shoot the D100 first and then walk backwards a step or two before taking the S2 Pro shot to compensate in a slight difference between the D100's 1.5x multiplier and the S2 Pro's 1.5x. Crops magnified 200%.

• Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro: Color/Tone/Sharpness: Standard, White balance: Sunny,
  Manual Exposure, Auto Focus, Nikkor 50 mm F1.4 lens, 6.1 mp/Fine JPEG
   
• Nikon D100: Sharpening: Auto, Tone: Auto, Color Mode: I, White balance: Sunny,
  Manual Exposure, Auto Focus, Nikkor 50 mm F1.4 lens, Large/Fine JPEG

Images shot originally as RAW. Nikon NEF converted in Nikon Capture 3 using default (camera) settings. Fujifilm RAF converted using RAW File Converter EX using default (camera) settings. Crops taken from resulting TIFF files. For downloading purposes the output TIFF's were saved as JPEG's from Photoshop (Quality 10).

Note that this comparison was made at the S2 Pro resolution of 6.1 mp. This is to enable a fair comparison to the D100, to make the crops easier to compare and also because I believe the S2 Pro's 6.1 mp resolution will be the most commonly used. You can download a 12 mp version of this scene from a link at the bottom of this page. Note also that the S2 Pro was set to ISO 200 for fair comparison to the D100.

Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro (RAW)	Nikon D100 (RAW)
ISO 200, F8, 1/350 sec	ISO 200, F8, 1/350 sec
1,439 KB JPEG	1,451 KB JPEG

As we observed in the D100 review image sharpness is much better for Nikon RAW (NEF) files converted to TIFF/JPEG. Now things are much closer, indeed there's really very little to choose between these two cameras in RAW mode apart from slightly different handling of the green foliage in one of the crops. It is also worth downloading the 12 mp JPEG below which was created from the S2 Pro RAW file.

You may also download:

• Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro Outdoor, 12 mp (2,552 KB) - originally RAW