Fujifilm FinePix S602 Pro Zoom

After several years of film photography, I made a partial changeover to an Olympus C40z as my first step. That was OK, but I got the BiggaMegaPixelBug, and wanted something with better resolution. I chose the Fuji on its good reputation, their excellent Fujinon lenses, and, at the time, a very good price deal.

I've used some techie terms in this review, so I've added a mini glossary at the very end, I hope this helps....

...The Fuji is somewhat strangely classified as an effective 3.1 megapixel (3.1 million pixels, or MP) but is also capable of "recording" images at 6MP. This tends to lead to some confusion, but I solved this by simply leaving it on Fine 3MP setting. The 6MP setting is achieved by Fuji's new SuperCCD technology which sets out the photodiodes in an interwoven pattern. I have to be honest, I dont know exactly how they do this, or how it manages ... more

After several years of film photography, I made a partial changeover to an Olympus C40z as my first step. That was OK, but I got the BiggaMegaPixelBug, and wanted something with better resolution. I chose the Fuji on its good reputation, their excellent Fujinon lenses, and, at the time, a very good price deal.

I've used some techie terms in this review, so I've added a mini glossary at the very end, I hope this helps....

*** Image setting and quality :

The Fuji is somewhat strangely classified as an effective 3.1 megapixel (3.1 million pixels, or MP) but is also capable of "recording" images at 6MP. This tends to lead to some confusion, but I solved this by simply leaving it on Fine 3MP setting. The 6MP setting is achieved by Fuji's new SuperCCD technology which sets out the photodiodes in an interwoven pattern. I have to be honest, I dont know exactly how they do this, or how it manages to interpolate to 6MP, but it does....

However, I compared the various settings at "6MP" and found that, generally speaking, I was getting just as good an image at 3MP using the Fine setting than any of the lower settings at 6MP. Also, as a HIGH quality 6MP image takes about 54 seconds to save to even a 40x high speed Compact Flash (CF) card, and at 3MP FINE it only takes about 2 seconds, I felt that the difference was hardly worth the wait.

By using the lower 3MP FINE resolution setting, and a hi speed 40x 256MB compact flash card, I can shoot 204 pictures. That's easily a whole days worth. In any case, images taken at 3MP Fine can be printed out at A4 on my HP 940c printer at 2440dpi and look just like film... so - superb image quality !

*** Range of Features :

Good Grief ! There are so many things you can play with here : white balance, ISO ranges from 160 up to 1600, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, full manual control, movie mode, rapid fire shooting .... the list is VERY long and comprehensive. So far, I dont think I've found a single function that I needed to adjust to be missing from the menu !

Some of my favourite settings may be worth a brief mention though :

* Hi speed shooting - set resolution at 1MP, and you can select continuous hi speed shooting, up to 40 shots in one long burst with a time interval as little as 0.6 seconds. Great at the F1 racetrack, or for wildlife shooting.

* Last or first five continuous - set to most modes or resolutions, and you can shoot the first five or last five frames at 0.2 seconds separation. That's five frames per seond !

* Movie Mode - with a high speed CF card only, you can shoot up to 640x480 resolution at 30 frames per second, with sound, for a time limited only by the size of the CF card. This is easily as good as any digital video camera I have used ! However, Microdrives (miniature hard disk drives used as memory cards) are generally too slow to use this function successfully.

* High ISO rating - you can set the ISO rating at 1600, but this drops the resolution down to 1MP, and it remembers the 1MP setting next time the camera is used, so you do have to go back into the menu to change the resolution setting back to 3MP. This 1600 ISO is fantastic for taking shots by low light, or with very fast exposures, you know the sort of thing - stopping a humming birds wings in flight, shooting a F1 racing car as it passes by..... amazing if you are happy to sacrifice the 3MP for 1MP setting.

*** Ease of Use :

Piece of cake.... the ergonomics are so well thought out that even with gloved hands, I can change almost any of the controls without taking my eye away from the viewfinder. Easy to hold, fits the hand nicely and naturally.

The choice of large liquid crystal display (LCD) or a smaller version for the electronic viewfinder (EVF) is very useful. Using the EVF makes composition much easier, and being much smaller, takes up a lot less batttery power than the large LCD. It also keeps the camera body a lot cooler (again, important for astronomy )

Battery life is quite simply, astonishing. I use AA sized NiMH (Nickel Metal-Hydride) cells, rated at 2340mAH, and a set will last whole day - yep, all 204 shots.... !! For use indoors I prefer to use the optional AC-5VH power supply. This means I can save my batteries, keep the camera on it's tripod all day, and just wait for the wild birds to visit my feeders and get caught on camera....

Being the "Pro" version, it is slightly different to the standard model - the most relevant feature for me is the addition of a remote shutter release cable. I now have a 3m cable release so I dont need to be near the camera to snap a shot. Quite useful if the garden is full of skittish birds, or if I dont want to cause any vibrations in the telescope when Im taking astro shots. The other Pro function is the PC synch socket, but I have to confess, I've never used this feature.

I use the camera for astronomy (see my Star Travel 102mm telescope review for more), and one of the only problems I face on a regular basis, is poor autofocus ability in low light levels. However, the scope is fitted with a focussing aid, so I have even managed to get around that problem.

*** Durability & Size :

Quite rugged, has a nice chunky feel, but without feeling too heavy. Size is perfect to fit in the average sized hand. I don't think many folk will find using this camera difficult or uncomfortable.

*** Manual & Software :

Good manual, but it does need reading carefully, as some settings are not as obvious as you might have thought, esp the reduced resolution when increasing the ISO rating - watch out for that one..... The supplied software is OK, but nothing stunning. I generally use Paint Shop Pro for my editing, or Photoshop if I need to be *really* clever.

*** The rest :

It's so versatile : It's a digital camera at up to 6MP, movie camera at 640x480, 30fps with sound, and you can also use it as a webcam for internet chat. The Macro and Super Macro modes mean you can *literally* take photos of an ant on a pinhead, and really see the details... Focusses down to less than 1cm.

Presets for portrait, landscape, night time, sports and monochrome shooting.

The specification is too big to reproduce in full here, but is shown in detail on Fuji's own site. Well worth checking out if you are seriously considering this camera.

Overall Opinion :

Im very pleased with this camera. Once I had sorted out some of the minor issues, like the slow write speed to microdrives (so upgrade to a hi speed CF card) and poor low light focus (so focus manually), I have taken some very nice photographs, several of which have won competitions online and locally.

One final tip though : buy a lens adaptor tube and fit a UV filter permanently. This acts as a great protector for the protruding lens barrel, and also protects the lens itself from dust ingress and any possible scratching.

(Want to see my images ? Google g8ina for my home pages.)

Price paid : £420, but now available for much less since the introduction of the newer S7000 series.

Glossary :
* MP : MegaPixel, or 1 million pixels. A pixel is one dot of light data, so an image of 1000 x 1000 pixels is classed as 1 mega pixel (1,000,000 pixels). 3MP is 3 million, 6MP is 6 million.

* CF Cards : Compact Flash, a form of memory card, which slots into the side of the camera. Capacities range from 16MB (megabytes) up to 1GB (1 thousand million bytes). The more commonly used 256MB CF card will hold 200 or so images at 3MP. You can also get high speed versions of these memory cards, which means that the image data is written to the card more quickly, reducing the time between shots.

* DPI : Dots per inch, a term used in printing. the higher the better. My HP 940 can print at 2440 DPI, which make the print look like a real photo.

* ISO rating : a cross over from the old days of film, a rating of the light sensitivity of the film or camera. Standard ranges are 160, 200 or 400, but for higher sensitivity, 800 and 1600 are included. These are very fast settings!

* EVF : "Electronics View Finder" - the viewfinder, the one you hold you eye up to. In this instance it is not just a sight thru a glass lens as in most other non digital cameras, but it is a small display screen with data included, speed, aperture, ISO rating, number of shots left, battery state etc. Quite a lot of data is presented, very useful.

* LCD - Liquid Crystal Display - the big display on the back of the camera. Shows all the same data as the EVF.

* Battery mAH - "Milli Ampere Hour" - effectively, how long a battery will last. The higher the number (up to 2340mAH - currently the biggest) the longer it will last.

Phew ! 

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