DPreview posts Fuji S5 pro review...

[Raist3d]

And I am not that interested in their recommendation or not. What I am interseted is in their photo samples:

Fujifilm S5 Pro Review Samples Gallery: Digital Photography Review

I think Simon did a good job at getting some high contrast situations that show the extra DR of the Fuji SR sensor in jpeg.

In particular:

http://dpreview-img.fotki.com/galler...dscf0027.1.jpg

http://dpreview-img.fotki.com/galler...s/dscf0019.jpg

http://dpreview-img.fotki.com/galler...s/dscf0079.jpg

I can't deny I like that so much

Maybe I could skip the Olympus e-3 and go for this, but it would be so much cash to spend. I can only hope Olympus DR patent is going to be implemented soon but I think the E-3 will miss that boat.

I find the DR and color of these images superb.

- Raist

[Mr. Pickles]

You have always found the Fuji's to be your favorite, so I'm not sure what you are waiting for. Get out the card, and order one.



But it didn't get a "Highly Recommended". What up?

[badpickev]

please, before you venture. let the blood letting commence. poor simon, phil got so tired of us fujista's hen picking his reviews. he now makes simon test the fuji cameras.


Its a feeding frenzy right now.

[riha]

Yeah, i must admit that i am impressed of the dynamic range, but man, those 12Mpx shots are just plain ugly in the quality.

I have been in some fuji forums to lok around and i cannot see how they can defend some of their 12 MPx images when they looks like they have been taken with an bad P&S camera. The 6 Mpx mode of the S5 creates good images, but the 12 MPx mode is an joke.

[badpickev]

what is amazing is these are the worst S5 pics i have seen. pretty much the same with their S3 review. if you actually look at the S5 pics on photobucket and such as well as dp from the regular posters you will see what the fuss is about.

a side note, we at dp have figured out that acr is one of the worse ways to convert a fuji raw file. yet, dp will only use acr. there are other things to point out, but ill leave it.

my comment on the pics, my S3 with my 50 1.8 at f8 is so sharp, i do not use sharpening. i can not explain how the S5 got so fuzzy.

[Gary Mayo]

This review came late because it was not the first review written about the S5 by him. That review went into the circular file because of the business dealings with Amazon and other reasons. Six months (or longer)to write a review? Must be some review! I will skip reading it as I no longer paddle an ore on that boat. Lets just say he has some ores out of the watter. lol Writing real first hand reviews takes longer than rewriting and re-posting photographs from the net, especially if you are not used to doing it that way.

As this is my first posting here, may I say hello from the merry state of Nebraska.

I am a budding photographer as well as an artist and inventor. My equipment tends to be on the pro level side with a S5, a D200 as my weak points in the chain of professional lenses. I find some focusing issues with both my cameras that I think goes with the territory of this body style. Had an S3. Sold it. Miss it. Not enough to purchase another one, but at times it is tempting.

Kev invited me over so I am just saying hi. HI! Kev is a good man, keep him around!

[clint60]

The Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro Digital SLR Camera is a good value digital SLR camera with an impressive feature set. It is reputed to take excellent quality pictures and has a very good skin-toned reproduction which makes it ideal for portraits and high-contrast compositions. You can visit this site SmartRatings.com - Reviews & Ratings for Fuji FinePix S5 Pro Digital Camera where a compilation of expert reviews about the camera can be found. Hope this helps.

[lazycatstudios]

Originally Posted by Raist3d

And I am not that interested in their recommendation or not. What I am interseted is in their photo samples...
...I find the DR and color of these images superb.

- Raist

Wen I was choosing DSLR having decent collection of Nikon lenses limited me to Nikon or Fuji, the samples (from revue) convinced me to buy Fuji S3Pro. A bit awkward, slow, so what? Images are superb, that's all what I need from camera. The runner up D80, what a pleasure to play with, images, hmm... to digital for my taste.
Nikon D80 was Highly Recommended
Fuji Finepix S3 Pro was Above Average

There is a storm in the glass of water over revue on dpreview, OK you spend close to $2K on camera and now somebody have make justification of it for you?
Enjoy camera, share some images and knowledge of using it with your friends!

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pickles

You have always found the Fuji's to be your favorite, so I'm not sure what you are waiting for. Get out the card, and order one.



But it didn't get a "Highly Recommended". What up?

Actually I like Olympus a lot too. Let's say what I like as an ideal would be a Fuji Film SR sensor with a 4/3rds mount. Now we are talking, with some of the Oly options like weather sealing and anti-dust.

As for dpreview final conclusion- though seems like dpreview is finally starting to pay attention again to what happens in photography, they still have a long way to go, imho, and I don't look at their final conclusion as an end all be all.

- Raist

PS: On buying the S5- remember it's a full lens system change. It's not that easy, and I like the Zuikos tons.

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by badpickev

please, before you venture. let the blood letting commence. poor simon, phil got so tired of us fujista's hen picking his reviews. he now makes simon test the fuji cameras.


Its a feeding frenzy right now.

LOL - I was wondering how long until that though came up. To be frank, I think this is all a promotion within dpreview.. Phil gets the Amazon deal, Simon takes more responsibilities- and new guys come in.. remember they were hiring.

I really think Simon did a pretty good job with the S5 review, overall.

- Raist

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by badpickev

what is amazing is these are the worst S5 pics i have seen. pretty much the same with their S3 review. if you actually look at the S5 pics on photobucket and such as well as dp from the regular posters you will see what the fuss is about.

a side note, we at dp have figured out that acr is one of the worse ways to convert a fuji raw file. yet, dp will only use acr. there are other things to point out, but ill leave it.

my comment on the pics, my S3 with my 50 1.8 at f8 is so sharp, i do not use sharpening. i can not explain how the S5 got so fuzzy.

Well I beg to differ as far as showing dynamic range. I mean, they are not award winning photographs, no, but I think Simon did a good job of picking some situations where it would have been clearly difficult for other cameras to do something.

I will say this- I agree with the 12 megapixel mode. I remember in the S3 days how many tried to say this and that and even when they posted their samples they completely ignored the super CCD artifacts, interpolations, jaggies and what nots. Fuji may as well call it a "super 6 megapixel mode" or even a "8 megapixel mode" and do the downsampling internally themselves like they decided to do in the P&S line (F30/F31, etc.).

I don't know how many tout the image quality yet completey ignore those artifacts at the 12 megapixel mode. On the other hand I will say, the 6 megapixel mode looks quite fine.

- Raist

[JDArt]

There are enough stated downsides to this camera - soft images, disappointing white balance - that I wonder why anyone would consider it over a Nikon.

[badpickev]

what i find amazing is that so far in the real world. i have not seen those problems. there are a few people that complain about wb. but over all not that many.

as for the soft issue. further testing is showing that the stamp color could have been a contributing factor. simon is saying that the NR is getting confused by it. I know my S3 does not take pics like that. so i dont know how far i believe the review.

the end line, the review and the review pics condemn this to a POS camera. the members in the forum tell a completely different story.

the real bottom line is the fuji is a niche camera. it does what it was designed for real well. people that buy a fuji generally know its uses. those of us that chose to use the fuji outside its design point, have to put up with it. i am a mid day shooter in florida. i have to have the DR and fuji color saturation.

but F2 mode at night is magic.

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by JDArt

There are enough stated downsides to this camera - soft images, disappointing white balance - that I wonder why anyone would consider it over a Nikon.

The tonal range, dynamic range and film options. The jpegs out of this camera in my opinion are far richer than the D200's. There are downsides, but these particular pro's is what will push me to get it over the D200.

When I was at Samy's and I was about to buy the e-410- on my pre-visit to check it out (not to buy) I asked to test the S5 again. I thought about it, perhaps that was as close as I was to get it. The representative asked me "if you are getting that, why not the D200? It's better" (same thing you say). I basically answered "because the colors and dynamic range of this camera out class the D200's and to me those areas are important if I was going to buy at this range."

I highly recommend if you get the chance to use one and test high contrast real life situations.... it's quite different.

The thing that held me back a bit was the obvious consideration of the amount of cash to spend in a system switch, the incredibly horrible broken interface for zooming in around your picture but ironically I thought that as a plus, to make me stop chimping a bit (but god that interface is horrible horrible)... and of course that the EP-1 is around the corner.

If the EP-1 implements the high dynamic range Olympus patent, my desire for the Fuji is virtually gone. But I don't think they are implementing that patent this round (in fact if Olympus does that it may be in my eyes and for my needs "the perfect camera" which means the universe will collapse in a singularity and cease to exist, as that is currently impossible to happen without destroying several natural laws. I think the D200 was as close to that happening when it came out, and maybe now the e-510).


In the end it came to the fact that I don't want to spend $2,500-$3,00) USD for a 2nd system. I thought that if I got the S5 that would "be my EP-1" purchase, but I tried to go around this one.. think the great lenses I already have and ended up with "no." Maybe a used S3 at a lower price may be the ticked- don't know.

Though I will say I am very happy with my e-410.

- Raist

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by badpickev

what i find amazing is that so far in the real world. i have not seen those problems. there are a few people that complain about wb. but over all not that many.

as for the soft issue. further testing is showing that the stamp color could have been a contributing factor. simon is saying that the NR is getting confused by it. I know my S3 does not take pics like that. so i dont know how far i believe the review.

the end line, the review and the review pics condemn this to a POS camera. the members in the forum tell a completely different story.

the real bottom line is the fuji is a niche camera. it does what it was designed for real well. people that buy a fuji generally know its uses. those of us that chose to use the fuji outside its design point, have to put up with it. i am a mid day shooter in florida. i have to have the DR and fuji color saturation.

but F2 mode at night is magic.

I still don't understand why the dpreview pictures doomed the camera. I thought as far as showing the colors, tonal range and DR they did a a good (excellent?) job.

As for the softness I did notice the S5 seems softer than the S3, which makes sense, since it also deal with the moire pattern issues of the S3 that are easily seen in human hair and other areas, so that's the price to be paid for that. It doesn't bother me as I still see a good 6 megapixel resolution (maybe as high as 8 dependin on the subject, as Super CCD detail samping usually is variable depending on subject).

I also don't think that the review condemned the camera to be a POS. I thought the conclusion was pretty fair and balanced. The resolution and 12 megapixel picture quality issues are all pretty real, there's nothing made up about them.

If someone needs high resolution landscape shots (and usually real landscape photography requires that), has to look elsewhere. I think that's sensible.

Those who do weddings, that's probably the best match, I also think that's sensible.

I think it comes to matching characteristic with needs, the S5 is not for everyone, but it fits in a lot of places too.

Just my 2 cents.

- Raist

[badpickev]

use S3's are going below a grand now at keh