Fujifilm FinePix S7000

I have been using this camera archaeology pictures. i tend to only use the 12 mp Fine quality as this give super quality. Photo sizes in this setting are 6-7megabytes, but I usualy put them through MGI photosuite which reduces the jpeg size to under 1 mb.

So what is included in the box?
• 16mb xD-Picture Card
• 4 AA Batteries
• Lens Cap and Holder
• A/V Cable
• USB Cable
• CD Rom
• Manual
• Shoulder strap

Picture Quality
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12MegaPixels Fine
12 mp normal
6mp
3mp
1mp

The camera records 6mp, but can turn them into 12mp pictures.Memory Formats
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The camera has two slots for memory. The first is for the xD card, and a second for the Microdrive format, but also can take compactFlash memory.

The difference between microdrive and Compactflash is that the MD is just like a mini harddisk, whereas the CF is a digital card. MD's are cheaper, but take longer to load/save and I have been told easily damaged. The CF are slightly more expensive, quicker and safer and do not consume as much battery, apparently.

The xD card is a rather newer format, designed jointly by fuji and cannon. They are the most expensive of the three formats but are the quickest, and in theory the total memory on one card, I think I read somewhere was going on to 10GB, compared with the maximum for CF of 3GB, these are rough rememberances.

The Camera comes with a 16MB xD card. In my opinion this is pointless. As in best quality you will only get 2 pictures on it. A 64mb card or higher should have been included.

I have been using this with 1GB CF card which holds around 220 Picture on 12mp fine.

Battery
The batteries included were not special long life or any of that type, just ordinary batteries. They lasted not more than 3-4 hours. I found it best to use rechargeable batteries. I used higher power batteries that last for over one day, so i suggest you buy recharble batteries with this camera, as with all digital cameras.

Setting Up
The first thing to do on turning on the camera is to set the time and date. Useful for knowing when a picture was taken.

It also has a multitude of languages, English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese. english is the default language and it is very easy to set up

Taking Pictures
Can be taken viewing from the back LCD or through the eyepiece which looks onto a small LCD, keeping that normal camera option for people who like that. I find it easier to use the larger LCD screen on the back, and this vibrant colours. A problem to note is that bright sunlight reduces the visablity on the screen and at times you can not see anything on it. This makes it useful to have the eyepiece as well.

The camera has series of picture taking options. The easiest to use is Auto Mode.
This is just basic point and shoot, all shutter speeds and everything is automatically detected. This can be used if you want to use the camera straight away. This option, I think, is fool proof. even I can use it.

SP Mode- this provides four options for specific scenes
Portrait- for taking portrait photos .
Landscape,
Sports, which prioritises fast shutter speeds
Night Scene, basically the opposite of the sports mode and prioritises for slow shutter speeds, upto 3 seconds.

Programmed Auto, this allows you to control any of the settings apart from shutter speed and aperture

Shutter Priority, you can control the speed of the shutter, from 1/10000 of a second upto three seconds.

Aperture Priority- lets you control the aperture from F2.8 up to F8

Manual Mode- this gives you complete control over all of the settings. Aperture options remain the same F2.8 - F8, but the shutter speed changes from 1/10000 up to 15 seconds

Flash
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In any of the options you can use the flash. This folds down above the lens and pops up at the push of a button. There is space to add a detachable flash.
As with all digital cameras now, it has a red eye reduction option, but how many of these truely work? I have not found one that fully works yet, but then agin it only takes 3-4 clicks on the computer to get rid of it before printing.

Focus
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A switch on the side of the camera gives you three focusing options. Manual Focus, Single Auto Focus, and Continuous Auto Focus.

With manual focus you focus the camera using the ring around the lenses.
Single auto focus focuses the camera when you push the shutter button down half way.
Continuous auto focus keeps focusing the centre point as the camera moves, and is useful for capturing a moving object

Continuous Shooting mode
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This allows you to take 5 continuous frames, or upto 40 continuous frames with the last 5 recorded, or finally long period continuous shooting that records unto 40 continuous frames.

Macro Mode
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The camera has two macro modes, macro and super macro.
Macro has a focal range of 10-cm-80cm, whereas super macro enables a photo to be taken as close as 1cm away. This is extremly usefull for taking detailed pictures of artefacts, but it does cause round object, that are not flat to the camera to blur.

Zoom
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The camera has a maximum zoom of 6x on 12mp setting, down to 3.2x on the 1mp setting. On the lower quality pictures a line marks where the optical zoom ends and digital zoom takes over, on the zoom display bar. if using the lower quality settings I tend not to go into digital zoom as this reduces the quality of the picture.

Video Recording
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the camera can record videos with sound. These are very high quality and they take up huge amounts of memory.

Viewing and Playback
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viewing and playing back of pictures and video are easy. You just turn the dial to the view mode. Here you can view pictures individually or as small groups of nine. In this part you can select to lock and protect certain photos that you do not want deleted, and there is no chance of them being accidentally erased. Using a CF pictures can take about .5-1.5 seconds to change depending on their size. for me this is not a problem for me, but some people will demand instant change, which i suggest is the advantage of the xd Card.

It also enables you to attach a voice memo to photos, so there is no need to remember what a photo was of or where. How much memeory this uses i am not sure as I have not used it to a great extent.

Cd Rom
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The contains the driver for connecting the camera to the PC although with Windows XP this is not necessary as it automatically sets the camera up as a detachable disk drive, so you just need to go into my computer. It is needed if you want use the camera as a webcam.

It also contains the fuji finepixviewer software for downloading the pictures, I tend to just use the method above, but it does have the advantage of being able to create photo albums quickly.

Printing of the Pictures produces a high standard of photo.

Other things of interest
All (I think its all) digital camera light censor chips detect Infra-red light and other light we cannot see. Therefore inside the cameras they are fitted IR filters, as the IR light distorts the colours. Not all IR light is filtered out and this can be checked using the TV remote test, pushing the buttons in front of the lens. Buying a filter to block out normal light it possible to take IR photo using long exposures, more of which you can read about on the internet.

I have also found that it enhances some colours, recently i was taking a photo of remains of a church wall painting. Too the naked eye it was visible, but looking at it through the camera revealed a few other sections that were visible.