comments on Fuji Finepix S7000

Hi:

I've finally decided to buy a digital camera. (quite the switch from
pinhole to digital :) )

One of the cameras I'm considering is a Fuji Finepix S7000. Its in the
same price range and has similar features to the Canon Powershot G5, Nikon
Coolpix 5400, Olympus C5060, except that the Fuji is a 6 megapixel camera,
while the others are 5 megapixel.

However one review I read was very critical of the image quality of the
camera, and none of the camera shops I went to have print outs to compare
image quality of each camera.

From;
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/fuji/finepix_s7000-review/index.shtml

- quote -

The Fuji FinePix S7000 is a camera with a lot of potential that was
ultimately a let down in the image quality department. In what seems to be
a trend lately on their cameras, Fuji is processing and compressing their
images to death, causing higher than average noise and other digital junk.
I can live with a little "grain" in images, but when it starts eating away
at details, it's too much.

The best way to get good images out of the S7000 is to shoot in CCD-RAW
mode with the sharpening set to "soft". But then you'll have to
post-process all your images, which is something that I (personally) don't
want to do. Also, as each RAW image takes up 13MB, you'll quickly burn
through the average memory card. Shooting at the 6M setting is advisable
in most situations, as the 12M modes are just too noisy to be useful,
except for when you know you're making large prints. If Fuji could just
get the noise under control (firmware upgrade?) they'd have a much more
compelling product, as color and exposure were both very good.

- end of quote -

Fuji presents a lot of hype about their "Super CCD technology".

http://www.fujifilm.com/JSP/fuji/epartners/digitalS7000Overview.jsp?

This seems to be a ccd that uses pairs diodes - one to record shadow and
mid-tones, and another to record highlights. This is supposed to give
this camera the ability to capture a higher range. But if it doesn't work
well I can see how it could mess up image quality

Has anyone used one of these cameras? Is this criticism valid?

Thanks,

Gord
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Gordon J. Holtslander Dept. of Biology
holtsg@duke.usask.ca 112 Science Place
http://duke.usask.ca/~holtsg University of Saskatchewan
Tel (306) 966-4433 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Fax (306) 966-4461 Canada S7N 5E2
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Received on Thu Jul 15 23:42:13 2004