Fuji FinePix S9500 Review

Overall Rating

9Mp gives A3 pictures or allows for lots of cropping
HUGE zoom lens of 10.7:1
The complete look and feel of a good digital SLR
Big, pop-out screen AND digital colour viewfinder with one-press switching
Good on-board flash
Very fast actions: start-up, focus, recovery, transfer
Takes the pro-standard and inexpensive CompactFlash cards and micro-drive
Uses 4 AA batteries, so easy to get emergency power from the nearest shop or market anywhere in the world and make use of cheap NiMh rechargeables, not brand-specific and expensive lithium batteries
Easy-to-use manual focusing, with lens ring and magnifier in the viewfinder
Has a battery restorer function - it works to get rid of the 'memory effect' that plagues all NiCd and NiMh cells eventually, so it restores ANY NiMh AA cells to full charge capacity again and again

Weight and size - in common with all SLR's
Can't change lenses; the minimum focal length is 6.3mm (that's 28mm in 35mm equivalent)
Remote flash shoe not dedicated, so rather basic functions when the on-board flash won't do
Uses Xd cards, now outclassed and special to two brands of camera. So ignore this option and use the CF cards instead

Anticipating my SLR move to digital, I tried out several models and read the reviews in magazines and online. Everything left me dissatisfied. Either cameras were at silly prices, making the total cost of ownership over 5 years far more than sticking to film and scanning prints and negs, or resolution was too low, so that I couldn't get decent enlargements. All except the priciest cameras had one or more real drawbacks too. Typically they felt 'wrong' to handle, or used poor cards, or were slow to start up and focus, or something else gave me that nag that means you won't ever be comfortable using this camera.

Then the Canon EOS350D came along. I'm still using film SLR's: a Canon EOS30E (that wonderful eye-control focusing!) and my old EOS650 (tough and intuitive to use); the 350D compares quite well with both in use, and works quickly and has a useful resolution, but it was TOO small and light, hard to grip and lacking stability. I felt more comfortable using my old cameras or a super compact digital; the kind that slips into a breast pocket. Overall, I reasoned in October 2005, that it was not quite time to make the changeover yet.

So I decided to get the well-reviewed Fuji S7000 to do digital work as a stop-gap, despite several serious flaws that the reviewers cover well.

Then the S9500 came out, and so - with an upcoming trip including California, Las Vegas and a once-in-a-lifetime Grand Canyon visit with both plane and helicopter trips, I bought one.

At the 9Mp max resolution the two 1GB cards I got were good for 420 shots each, so I could be snap-happy and forget processing costs. No need to lens swap: my big zoom wasn't any better than the S9500's lens. No film changing in the plane either, I thought!

And so it proved - but I could hardly believe the other advantages! Five packs of 2400mAh AA batteries and a multi-voltage charger powered the camera, extra high-power flash, CD player and MP3 player AND my torch! A borrowed laptop downloaded shots safely from the cards to CD, so I could take thousands at no extra cost (I edited back home, binning about two thirds and selecting about 100 for printing, with print charges LESS than with film processing!).

And the camera did all I could ask of it. Once I got used to the button layout and the menus, it was as easy to use as my film cameras, and it performed stunningly in bad light without flash, switched on too fast for me to notice any delay and focused reliably, even in light too low for my film cameras to 'see' to focus - only my dedicated Canon flash with its infra-red light focuses better (and that uses the same AA cells!). I used film only for the few ultra-wide-angle shots I wanted and when I needed that big flash.

So how does it compare with the SLR-Ds I tried? I didn't test any of them to the limit as the professional reviewers did, but I couldn't tell any practical difference between this 9500 and SLR's costing twice as much and with smaller-zooming lenses. No doubt the SLR's were better, particularly in CCD noise and lens quality - that's what you pay the extra for. But even when editing in Photoshop, I couldn't find anything to make me think, "if this had been a 650D/Dynax, etc., I could have..." And that's where it counts.

I won't now buy a digital SLR this year, or next, or probably until we get 24x36mm CCD's at 20Mp and under £500 for the body. And then I expect to buy Canon, just to use those lenses I'm keeping while I use my old film cameras to fill the few gaps this fixed-lens 9500 can't cover. Why aren't I selling them? Have you looked at what non-digital SLR's are now fetching on eBay? I wept!

Meanwhile, I can thoroughly recommend the Fuji S9500 as the perfect compromise between price and usability. It covers almost everything my semi-professional use can invent for it, that a full digital SLR could do. But I do wish it had my Canon EOS30E's eye control focusing!

Members' Comments ondavidinnotts's Review

• deanbed on 8th Feb 2007

  I noticed you said you got 400+ shots from a 1Gb memory card. At the highest fine setting I only get about 204 per 1Gb.
  
  I was wondering, perhaps you haven't got it set to its high finest setting; hence, giving you 410 shots per Gb, so you maybe can get even more out of this camera.

• davidinnotts on 9th Feb 2007

  Hi, deanbed.
  
  I use the next-to-best (N) 9MP setting, which I find in Photoshop to be nearly indistinguishable from either the best (F) or the RAW mode. This gives me 457 shots per clean 1Gb CF card, according to the counter. In practice, that's just about right - there may be a few more or less, depending on the JPEG compression for each shot. The (F) mode gives about 225 shots and the RAW mode (no compression) that's so hard to handle and download, exactly 55. Now that 1Gb cards are under a tenner, RAW might just be OK, but, to be honest, the (N) quality is better than I need anyway.
  
  I DID find that in poor light the (F) setting gave a small improvement in noise and visible JPEG artefact's, but not a lot. That's the small trade-off for getting twice the compression, trice the shots. I'm well pleased!
  
  I noticed that Fujifilm have just introduced the 9600 replacement, and it's not much different. So a second-hand or much reduced 9500 may be a better buy than the new one (see www.fujifilm.co.uk/digital/cameras/s9600/).

• deanbed on 11th Feb 2007

  Thanks for that. I have never tried any other setting. I have just purchased a 4Gb faster card to get more shots and start shooting more RAW. I agree that there's not much extra on the 9600. It's meant to be sharper, but you nearly always sharpen images later, even on the best digital SLR.
  Thanks
  Dean

• Dogmad on 30th Sep 2007

  Good well written review, I agree with what you say about there being hardly any discernible difference between the S9500 and some dSLR's.
  
  I think dSLR owners would like us to think that their equipment is much better because it costs so much more.

• davidinnotts on 1st Oct 2007

  Thanks, Dogmad.
  
  The better DSLRs DO give better quality, for two reasons: the capture device and processing might work better (they ought to at the price!) and/or the lens is better, giving a sharper image, less flare, etc.
  
  Most DSLRs have better lenses than the Finepix; all the better Finepix seem to use the same, good-quality lens. But the pricey lenses from Canon, Nikon, etc. are visibly superior. Whether the cheap bundled lenses with the likes of the EOS400 are enough better to make a lot of difference is another matter, though.
  
  The Finepix automatic picture enhancement DOES have an effect on quality in more extreme conditions such a back lighting and poor light, though it isn't a lot. Quality goes down on all capture units in these conditions, and I think the question for each person is how tolerant you are towards the different kinds of degradation. For me, high-compression JPEG blockiness is the worst and hardest to correct digitally and grain on negatives (ie, non-digital pictures) is the kindest and easiest to handle.
  
  I did say in a previous review of the EOS30 that I'd stick to that camera for best work, with its wonderful eye-guided focussing, until an affordable digital replacement came along. I haven't seen one yet, and I'm still looking! I really want an EOS30D+ with 20MP full-frame collector, eye-control and the usual goodies available now, at about £500 for the body. Then I can get full use from the pile of Canon lenses I have waiting! No-one's made it yet, though.