The Fuji S5 Pro, my most filmic camera

Neil-O wrote:

I'm a relative newcomer to this camera and I was drawn to it by the remarks made on this and other forums regarding its film like qualities. Admittedly, harsh sunlight is not an everyday problem here in Scotland... but I agree the way in which it renders highlights is unlike any other digital camera I have used. I think the Nikon D810, from what I'm told, has similar characteristics but I can't justify the cost of one of those.

The dynamic range of the D810 may be similar, but the approach is completely different. With the S5 Pro one exposes normally and the camera pulls back the highlights either SOOC or in RAW. With the D810 one exposes for the highlights and then brings up the shadows but this must be done in RAW.

Much is made of the lack of resolution and sharpness of the sensor, a product of a strong AA filter apparently, but I haven't found it wanting at all - and I have a Sigma DPM to compare it with. I don't have a huge portfolio yet but here's a couple of my attempts:

Nice shots. Thanks for adding them to the thread!

Of course the other issue that will put many modern day photographers off this camera is how sloooooow it is, but to repeat, I have a DPM...

Haha, yes, I've heard war stories about the slowness of Foveon sensors.

What is a frustration is the necessity of using Hyper Utility 3 which is absolutely essential to get the best out of the raw files - it seems at first that ACR does a reasonable job but it isn't as good as the Fuji software, just more convenient.

Sometimes I prefer the Lightroom rendition, sometimes I prefer what Hyper Utility HS-V3 gives me. One thing for sure, I find that Hyper Utility's auto-WB is much more accurate than Adobe's auto-WB for the Fuji S5 Pro.

Having said that, I've shot jpegs side by side with raw and most of the time there's little to be gained. Fuji do have some magic dust when it comes to in camera processing.

Indeed, it is so good that DPR should use a Fuji S5 Pro as their comparator camera for SOOC comparisons against all other cameras. Dare I suggest that a few more modern cameras would be embarrassed by the S5 Pro's color and auto-WB ?

Finally, why oh why didn't fuji make the s5pro battery the same as in the D200? I have a D200 and others that used the ubiquitous EN-el3 or whatever it is called, so I have a host of these batteries which are useless in the s5pro. I find like the D200 the s5 is quite power hungry so spare batteries are a must.

I know. The S5 Pro uses the D200's body. It was foolish for Fuji to chip the NP-150 batteries, as the Nikon batteries are ubiquitous.

I am actually looking forward to using this camera in the Winter where I hope it might work well on the subtleties of white on white landscapes. Though a bit of harsh sunlight would be very welcome at the moment..

Please update the thread when you do. My problem here in California is the reverse... we have harsh sunlight 90% of the year here. This makes the S5 pro my favorite CCD to carry mid-day as it is so forgiving under those circumstances. Look at this shot, I am 1/4000 at f/2.8.

Fuji S5 Pro with the Nikkor 17-55mm/2,8G and on camera fill flash

fPrime