Fujifilm just announced a slew of new cameras — 19, to be precise — but only three of those can shoot in Raw. And if you want to get the best out of your photos, Raw is infinitely superior to JPG. Open a Raw image in Lightroom, Aperture, Photoshop, or your image editor of your choice, and you can make a lot of improvements without losing any data. It certainly has saved some of my pictures from the trash.
But back to these three new cameras: the $800 X-S1, the $500 FinePix HS30EXR, and the $380 FinePix F770EXR. None of them have interchangeable lenses and so aren’t SLRs, but they do have some impressive features.
The Fujifilm X-S1
As you might expect, the most expensive of the lot has the most high-end features. Those include a 2/3-inch, 12-megapixel EXR CMOS sensor and an all-glass F2.8 to F5.6 lens that ranges from 24 to 624mm, delivering wide angle, long zoom, and super macro capabilities.
You can shoot 7fps at full resolution (10fps if you shoot in JPG), and Fujifilm says that the shutter lag is only 0.01 seconds. You can also capture 1080p HD movies at 30fps. The sound is stereo.
The 3-inch LCD tilts, making it easier to compose shots at odd angles. But there’s also a viewfinder, and the X-S1 automatically switches to it when you bring the camera to the your eye.
The Fujifilm X-S1 will be available later this month for $800.
The FinePix HS30EXR
At $500, the HS30EXR is $300 less than the X-S1 lens, but some of the specs are the same. For example, the HS30EXR has a tilting 3-inch LCD, and its 24mm to 720mm lens can capture wide-angle, long-zoom, and super-macro photos. Its video capabilities are the same as X-S1.
It also has features lacking in the X-S1, such as a system that automatically controls flash levels, face detection, and three multi-bracketing functions.
However, the CMOS sensor in the HS30EXR is smaller — 1/2-inch — with higher megapixels — 16. That can mean noisier images, particularly in low light.
The FinePix HS30EXR will ship in March 2012.
The FinePix F770 EXR
The $380 Finepix F770EXR, which will be on shelves this March, has a 1/2-inch/16mp CMOS sensor. Its lens goes from 25 to 500mm. While it’s small enough to fit into a pocket, it has a 3-inch LCD. That display comes in handy when the built-in GPS shows where you are in relation to nearby places of interest.
The F770EXR can shoot as fast as 8fps at full resolution (11fps at medium resolution). If that’s too slow, try the 1080p HD movie capture.
The camera includes some interesting options, such as the “Pro Focus Mode,” which captures two to three frames in a quick burst and then combines them, defocusing the foreground and background while retaining detail in the middle ground. Similarly, “Pro Low-light Mode” combines four images captured in a quick burst and overlaps them to create one photo that Fujifilm says has “extremely low noise”.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2023
This article was first published on January 6, 2012
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