High Zoom camera to compliment F31fd

Hi all

Just bought myself a new F31fd and am really impressed by the ISO 800/1600 shots.

One thing I miss though is having a long zoom so in the future I'd like to consider buying something with similar high ISO performance as the F31fd but with a long zoom (minimum 10x) for concerts and sporting events.

Would I really need to get a DSLR for this type of requirement?

Bearing in mind I'm more of a Point & Shoot guy would something cheaper with a fixed lens do a reasonable job? In particular would a Fuji model (like the S9600) do a similar job as the F31fd does in terms of reducing noise?

Thanks all

Keith

The S6000 is what you're looking for as it has the exact same sensor with almost identical noise performance as the F31. The S9600 with 9mp is about a stop worse with noise performance but has some additional features and a better Electronic Viewfinder than the S6000. The S6000 has a 10.7x zoom but more importantly starts at 28mm wide angle which is way better than the F31. If you're going to pick one up do it quick because the newly announced cameras are coming out soon and don't look to be nearly as good with noise and high ISO. Also the new superzoom doesn't even use a SuperCCD sensor which does not look good. I'd get one soon before they're all out of stock and/or the price shoots through the roof.

Most of the superzooms have higher noise than the Fuji F series cameras. Look at the Panasonic's for example - they have very nice Leica lenses but their sensor and processing are not that great - the Panasonic Venus engine tends to be heavy-handed in processing images at ISO400 or higher, resulting in smudging of fine detail. You can overcome this to some extent by shooting in RAW with those cams, but if you do that you will see plenty of noise in images of ISO 400 or higher - much worse than with a modern DSLR.

If you can live with its quirks, the new Olympus 5050 is a bit better than the Panasonics for high ISO noise.

The new Canon S5 IS is a nice cam but it doesn't offer RAW shooting and its high ISO images are not great either.

The new Sony H9 suffers from over-aggressive noise reduction and JPEG artefacts caused by variable JPEG compression routines smearing detail apparently at random. The older Sony H5 superzoom was better in my opinion - I should know as I have an H5 and tried out an H9 recently. The H5 is a nice cam - very sharp Zeiss lens, image stabilisation, and useable up to ISO400 and ISO800 at a pinch, but NOT as clean at high ISO as the Fuji F series and no way as good as a decent DSLR at high ISOs.

Bottom line - there is currently no superzoom bridge camera around that has great high ISO performance, and none that compete with a good DSLR. You may be better getting a low-end DSLR with a superzoom lens. Currently Sony A100s are going quite cheap now - they have in-body image stabilisation. You can couple this with Tamron's superzoom lenses for a pretty powerful superzoom set up, albeit at a higher cost than an all in one superzoom solution...

Keith, I second Fan's comments about the S6000fd. My private joke has been that my daughter always borrows my latest Fxx camera whenever I really need it, forcing me to pull out my trusty old Nikon Coolpix 995 (an up-to-ISO 800 4.1MP beauty in its day). Well, "daughter-person" had my F30 along on an international student volunteer program (manatees and sea turtle conservation, in her case) in Costa Rica and Panama while my son took "her" F10 to Boy Scout summer camp. He was smart enough to leave the F10 in its waterproof housing, while she didn't. Friday before last comes the text message from the daughter: F30 broken in fall ... just as my husband and I are preparing to go up to family night at the BS camp. And guess what battery charger (the 995) I can't find.

That was the last straw: I ordered the S6000fd--as my new backup and "outdoor" camera--on Sunday (from JustFuji.com, which I located through the buy button at FujifilmUSA, after finding that B&H Photovideo was out of stock) and ordered an F31fd on Tuesday as my primary camera (again from JustFuji.com, after finding that B&H Photovideo had run out of stock) that I carry around in my purse.

Received the S6000fd on Wednesday and tried it out on Friday at my organization's annual Family Day held on a military facility (meaning I can't show you any of the pictures) across the Potomac from National Airport. The S6000fd performed exactly as I had hoped: beautiful F30 quality, with a 10.7 zoom and an electronic viewfinder to use on those incredibly bright, hot, hazy August days in DC which are the bane of LCD-viewer cameras. The thing that I immediately liked about the S6000fd that I wasn't expecting, was that all the buttons that could be brushed against by my right thumb on the small housing of the Fxx cameras were moved out my thumb's range: no more fat thumbs. Later, looking on my PC at one of the pictures taken during a volley ball game, I noticed that the ball was suspended in mid-air, with its "MacGregor V600" label completely in focus, while the ball server was in mid-stride and a jet was roaring up from National Airport behind her. Going to "full view" on the PC, the "A (wings) A" on the jet's tail is clearly visible through that day's haze. That was a "wow" feeling! And the "Top 3" shots of the dunk tank were hilarious (our office's dunk-ee participated in full snorkel regalia).

I'm my organization's volunteer photographer, and the F30's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) "natural light" abilities had made co-workers who had been terribly camera shy no longer avoid the camera (they often didn't even realize I'd photographed them at luncheons or other events until someone commented that their picture was up in our photo directory). I'd bought an 8.3x zoom Nikon 4800 P&S for my husband two years ago and had wished FujiFilm would develop something that would marry a similar zoom lense and electronic viewfinder with the "WYSIWYG" SuperCCD they use in the F3xs. The S6000fd is exactly that--and the only way I'll be able to tell in the future which camera shot a particular picture is whether it's an outdoor shot (S6000fd) or an indoor shot (F31fd, with S6000fd subbing when we have higher ups visiting and want our camera to appear more professional).

The S6000fd is also about 2/3 the cost of the S9100, and I question whether the capabilities of the S9100 are worth that much extra cost.

Thanks for your comments guys - its much appreciated.

I did a little reading on the forums this morning after posting that and saw that the S6000 (S6500 here in UK) was the closest thing at the moment to an F31fd with longer zoom.

Its only £150 ($300) here in the UK, which is £30 more expensive than the F31fd and about the same price as the F40fd. No doubt this low price is due to the recent S8000fd announcement.

As with the F31fd it seems that the S6000 is one to snap up now before they get taken off the shelves everywhere.

My only concern about the S6000 is over hand-held shots at the long end of the zoom. Would I be right in expecting camera shake issues/blur, even at the higher ISO's?

That's pretty much my analysis of the superzoom situation, but what you haven't discussed are the new models that are coming up. Of course, until they're here and have been tested (I rely on dpreview to provide the best, most thorough, most balanced assessments) they remain a question mark. But there are two, possibly three new ones that are of interest. I'm not a great fan of Panasonic (the ones I've tried have been great on paper but disappointing in practice), but the FZ18 offers an awful lot (18x zoom, 28mm, optical IS), and, if you're prepared to shoot RAW, the results may be just good enough. The Fuji S8000fd unfortunately does not use the Super-CCD sensor, but does go to 27mm and has at least sensor-shift image stabilization. It remains to be seen whether Fuji manage to extract better performance from the conventional 8MP CCD sensor then their competition. The third camera is pure conjecture at this point: a replacement for the S6000fd, to include IS and the Super-CCD sensor. No such camera has been announced, and it would likely be February if it appeared. Right now, the S6000fd, although lacking the proper image stabilization that's so important with long focal lengths, looks mightly attractive.

Bob

Concerning the long end of the zoom: having had a camera prior to the 6500 which did have an OIS I found it quite a step backwards. I guess you get used o things like that pretty rapidly. If I wouldn't have known it might not have been the case.

When there is enough light it is ofcourse easy to take sharp pictures. When the light decreases you have to increase the ISO, obviously. In the beginning I was pretty shocked to see that the noiselevel was actually much higher than I anticipated. After setting sharpness to "soft" things were much better. I now sharpen at will using post processing, this gives much better results than letting the camera handle this aspect. Up to ISO400 I find it pretty acceptable, above that also the Fuji sensor gets a bit noisy but it's still easily good enough for 5x7 prints.

Here are some example shots, if you would be interested in seeing these:

Sunlight

full wide



(fullsize:





full tele



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Shadowy:

Wide (for reference):



(full:





ISO100



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ISO400



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ISO800



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These new cameras all look very marketable but none are expected to have the same level of performance at high ISO's as the F31fd/F40fd and S6000 - which is the real clincher for me.