Hi John,
Thanks for your comments. Well, since you asked
I like the S2 a lot. I really liked my D100 also. I just sold it on ebay, shipped it out yesterday, and I'm already missing it. Nikon really did a good job on the build quality, it was just a pleasure to hold and use. The S2 is a little bit taller which makes it easier to hold with long/heavier lenses because there is more leverage with the palm of your hand.
I like the CF door on the S2 better. While holding the camera with one hand, I can pop the door open with my thumb and eject the card...one simple movement. I like the ISO readout on the back LCD, I've forgotten to switch back from ISO 800 to 200 on the D100 a couple of times, boy was I dissapointed in that. I really miss the blinking highlights on the S2. The image doesn't remain displayed long enough either after taking the shot.
I liked the fact that the S2 came with an AC adapter, I was also impressed that a "how to clean the ccd" brochure was the first thing I saw when I opened the box. Very refreshing after owning the D1X, where the manual says to send it in or risk voiding the warranty.
My kids have lots of electronics and I consequently, have lots of NiMH AA's. So the fact that the Fuji takes AA's is great for me. I always have some charged ones around. The jury is still out on the CR123A's. I've seen them for as cheap as $2.50...I'm just not sure how often those need to be changed yet.
There's lots of these little things between the D100 and S2 where one is nicer than the other. Really, what it comes down to though for me is "Final Output". In this category, the Fuji finally won me over. There were 4 things that really swung the pendulum to the S2. I had the D100 for 30 days and the Fuji for 1 week doing extensive shooting and printing. On screen results doesn't do much for me, so I printed a lot. Unlike in Phil's review, it's not about resolution charts and "level of detail". Both cameras do a great job there, especially printing mostly 8x10 like I do. The 4 things that made the difference for me were 1) I took a shot with flash of a pepsi bottle on one of those brown folding office depot type tables. Aperature pretty wide open...lowest ISO on each, the Pepsi bottle looked good on both, but in the shadows of the brown table in the more out of focus areas, was considerable noise in the D100 image. So much so that I retook them just to double check everything. That was just really bothersome.
The second is the flash accuracy. For whatever reason, the Fuji just seemed to do a better job on the flash. The same thing Phil experienced in his D100 and Fuji review. When I had the D1X, I was never really happy about having to carry around the SB28DX for flash. Therefore, I never really used flash much. Having an onboard flash, for the amount of flash I do, is really convenient. I'm using it more than ever now for fill flash stuff. Really great fun. So flash has become a more important part of the equation.
The 3rd thing is tone. I know they are both based on the same body, and probably uses the same metering / exposure technology, but the Fuji seems to have a little better Tone algorithm. At first I was concerned because the D100 has an "auto" vs. the Fuji that just has "STD". I was assuming that "Auto" on the D100 would be a more intelligent system based on image conditions as opposed to the Fuji that would apply a standard tone to everything. Through my testing though, the Fuji appeared to do a better job resulting in a better Out of Camera image tone. I may not be making sense here, but the images usually seemed better exposed, even though they were both using the same exposure. I could always match the Fuji's using NC3, but again, you get back to the post processing thing. I'm not opposed to post processing, I would just rather do less of it.
The 4th and last item is Color. Let me start off by saying that I'm not a fan of Fuji's super saturated whatever colors. They are a little too strong for my taste. They have 3 setting, Original, Standard, and High. I usually use Original. The others seem to strong. When you start looking at people and wondering if they have a sunburn, well then your colors are too strong
But in ORG mode the colors are very nice. But more importantly, very subtle colors seem to be rendered better on the Fuji. This was really the final straw. I didn't notice it until I took some indoor shots of an off white wall with a light peach trim. On the D100, it all looked pretty which, on the Fuji it was perfect. There wasn't anything I could to in NC3 to match it. That did it for me.
I am disspointed with the software tools for the S2. I've been using Nikon Capture for awhile and really have the hang of it. I've been using Cumulus also and have all the EXIF info nail down. It's nice to be able to go into Cumulus and see all the shots I took with a specific Lens. Batch converting and stuff with Capture is just hard to beat. Enter Fuji, no RAW to JPG conversion option. You HAVE to go to TIF first, and 16bit TIF if you want Adobe color. Wait until you start playing with 80 files that take up 70mb each...oh what fun! I'm having good luck so far with Qimage Pro though. Mike Chaney recently put in a native Fuji S2 RAW to JPG converter with Adobe color without the need for Fuji's software. Lots of benefit on that one. Oh I can't forget one of the better features of the Fuji S2. The RAW files contains a 1400x900 (something like that) JPG. That means you can preview and edit for "keepers" without having to do a convert first that is typically required with the Nikon. It will also allow decent contact or thumbnail prints without having to convert first. Anyways, that's "my" review, FWIW. If you have any more specific questions, you can email me at
[email protected].
Thanks,
Kevin R.
