Fuji S2, S3 or S5 PRO?? Assistance Needed!

Well I know this thread is 7 years old now, much water has passed under the bridge. I wonder how the op got on with his s5.

Over the last two years I’ve acquired all three of these camera, starting with the s5 and working backwards to s3 then s2.

no doubt s2 and s3 feel like old cameras, plasticky, small viewfinder, retro aa battery tray, slow card speed weird electronics with three screens! Yet I love them. Especially like the s3 with its battery grip and no CR123A batteries!

However the s5 feels like a grown up camera. Better viewfinder, solid construction (which is a bit too heavy), better controls, generally modern design. Image wise I think it is possibly better than the s2 and s3. My dislike is I prefer the aa batteries of s3. So I got the matching battery grip for the s5 which can take aa batteries, though this makes it even heavier.

I think the s5 has better electronics than s3 , images show better colour graduation, more refined transitions. Most important for me is that s5 meters with Nikon manual lenses allowing use of the superb 105mm f2.5 ais and others, this alone is worth it over the s2 and s3. I enjoy tinkering with all 3 cameras.

now it is very important to get the Fuji raw processing software hs-v3, because after trialling all the main alternatives, including capture one which is suppose to be partnered with Fuji, I can confirm that none of the others get close to correctly processing the images. It’s like the images gains an extra 30% resolution when processed via the Fuji software. This is a disappointing result because the Fuji software is awful to use. Luckily it will batch process to tiff, so you don’t have to spend too long using it.

the secret with these cameras is to only use the best lens, usually primes, and to play to the cameras strengths, landscape and portrait. Probably more portraits, where the low pixel count is actually an advantage. The high dr is also good for landscapes, but not where you want laser sharp micro contrast.

Fuji now touts its x series , which are good, but these s cam dslrs still have a lot to offer decades after they stopped production.

i can’t be alone in realising this as recently the value of these cameras has started to rise with the s3 and s5 now costing more than an xpro1 in some cases.