Product Reviews

Fujifilm has produced a range of good SLR-styled ultra-zoom cameras over the past few years, and the FinePix S8000fd is its best yet. It's the first to include optical image stabilisation to counteract blur from camera shake. The competition has offered this feature for some time, and its arrival here is timely because of the huge 18x zoom range. Only two other cameras match this feat: the Olympus SP-560 UZ and Panasonic's DMC-FZ18. The S8000fd's lens is exactly the same as that used on Olympus's camera, but everything else about the camera is recognisably Fujifilm.

We were impressed by the effectiveness of the image stabilisation, which helped us achieve blur-free photos in 70 per cent of our test shots, which were taken with a 1/25s shutter speed and 100mm focal length. Unsurprisingly, it was considerably less effective at the full 486mm zoom position, where even the tiniest shakes are heavily magnified, so the full zoom is only really useful outdoors in bright light or with a tripod.

Now that Fujifilm cameras include an SDHC as well as a slower xD card slot, we have been looking forward to a boost in their performance, but this has yet to materialise. The leisurely 3s startup time is forgivable because of the lens size, but the 2.5s wait between subsequent shots is disappointing. The main culprit is the autofocus, which takes at least a second to lock on to its subject and up to 3s in dim lighting. The continuous mode ambled along at 0.5fps at maximum quality, although 4- and 2-megapixel modes capture up to 15 shots at 2fps and 15fps respectively.

The controls are a little disappointing in that they resemble

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those of a compact camera more than an SLR. There are dedicated buttons for the pop-up flash, optical image stabilisation and face detection, but it feels like the latter two exist more to advertise these features' existence, as they're not likely to require regular switching on and off. A dedicated ISO button would have been far more useful. Even so, the camera is reasonably quick to use.

A responsive exposure value (EV) readout helps with choosing settings in manual mode, and pressing the exposure compensation button turns the four-way pad into aperture and shutter speed controls. Manual focus is available, too. However, rather than use digital magnification to help fine-tune settings, a marker on the screen changes colour when the autofocus sensor detects sharp focus as you adjust. This is useful when you're setting up a shot on a tripod and want to set focus and leave it there, but less useful when shooting tricky subjects that confuse the autofocus sensor.

Image quality in our tests was far from poor, but compared to the magnificent photos taken with Panasonic's DMC-FZ18, details weren't quite as sharp. This was particularly noticeable in dark areas of photos, where images suffered from noise, even in reasonably well-lit conditions.

Towards the edges of photos we could see chromatic aberrations - this is where the red, green and blue components of the image don't line up perfectly. This resulted in a halo of discoloration around highly contrasted areas of colour. Still, none of these problems was visible when viewed on a monitor or printed out at normal sizes.

Indoors, Fujifilm's powerful noise-reduction processing virtually eliminated noise at ISO 400 without sacrificing much detail, while pictures at ISO 800 were clean, but lacking in detail.

Costing around £60 less than the excellent Lumix DMC-FZ18, the FinePix S8000fd is an extremely attractive proposition. You'll need to spend a further £20 on batteries and a charger, though. With this in mind, it's worth paying the premium for the DMC-FZ18's superior image quality, performance and controls. The FinePix S8000fd isn't far behind in any of these respects, though, and it's a camera we'd be happy to own.