Great camera for enthusiasts on a budget. (Fujifilm Finepix S1000fd)

Member Name: Coombsy1987

Product:	Fujifilm Finepix S1000fd
Date:	03/09/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superzoom capabilities. Flexible shooting modes.

Disadvantages: Software issues.

Right then this is my 1st review so lets hope I make it a good one eh.

Well, I have owned a fujifilm s1000fd now for around 5-6 months and must have used it in pretty much every scenario imaginable. The first thing you notice when getting this camera out of the box is just how small it is. Now don't let this fool you into thinking its got to be very basic. It is far from it in fact, every square milimeter of this thing must be packed with every imaginable piece of technology because it has more features per square inch than the best gadgets from james bond.

There are numerous settings to play around with on the main dial including: Automatic, Program, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, Full Manual, Video and two pre programable scene modes for setting up for night shooting or high speed sports shooting or even specific settings for snow or bright light amongst others. Now all of these work fantastically well for there particular area of use however for the budding semi pro the manual mode is great for achiving that D-SLR style flexibilty. Allowing full control (almost) over the shutter speed and aperture settings of each shot as well as the light level adjustments always available.

Other great features and possibly the main ones (depending on how it is to be used) are the superzoom capabilities and high speed shooting modes which increase this little cameras flexibilty range 10 fold. The camera has a fantastic 10x optical zoom which is amazing from such a small lense and a further high quality 5.7x digital zoom for those "far-out" shots.

Now I do have one niggle with this camera and from what I can gather it is not just my camera that does this but others of the same model too: In cases of particularly extreme sunlight (even if in front of the subject) the software seems unable to process all of the light captured and just defaults to a black image. This can be very fustrating if for example trying to take pictures whilst at the beach as the sand seems to reflect the sun and compound the problem more-so.

Summary: Fantastic camera all round and would have 5 stars if a software update fixed the problem.

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