Most digital cameras today are high on megapixels and low on optical zoom and the ones that do have higher zoom, are way too expensive. Here?s where Fujifilm has come into the picture with its focus on bringing better features at comparatively lesser prices. The Fujifilm FinePix S1800 is a perfect example of this very focus.
First you see it and you will feel that it is a DSLR, but the moment you look at it carefully, you realise that it is a prosumer that just resembles a DSLR. Sporting a sober matt black finish, we first got comfortable with the thought of holding the camera with its snug grip on the right. You feel like you have become a pro photographer when you hold it like a DSLR, peek through the electric viewfinder, but only, here you zoom with the zoom rocker instead of the lens ring.
The top features the shutter button and the zoom rocker up ahead, the red-eye removal button and burst mode buttons right behind it. The power slider, LED indicator and mode dial are close to the back of the device. There is even more with the multiplicity of controls at the back that has the 2.3-inch screen with the electronic viewfinder above it .
The EVF/LCD display button, playback button, photo mode button, selector button and the display/back button and the exposure compensation button are at the bottom. The number of shortcut buttons are to make capturing images easy, rather in the S1800?s case it requires the user to go through a learning curve to get used to the controls. On the bottom side is the battery chamber that holds four AA Alkaline batteries and the SD/SDHC card alongside the tripod mount.
The device starts up quite quickly. The mode dial provides some clarity on this, with the 12 modes present there. The SR Auto mode and Auto mode and SP (natural light) mode do not require any major changes to be made. The P,S,A,M and C modes have a lot to experiment with. The burst mode takes 20 images at the ultra-high speed mode in a smaller size. It has interesting settings where one can do things like continuous shooting while the shutter is held down, continuous shooting last three shots, bracketing with 3 exposure levels and continuous shooting at full resolution. The F-mode button takes you to the settings in terms of ISO, image quality, image size and Finepix colour.
The images taken are clear during daylight but the colour reproduction is just about average as brighter colours miss the zing when clicked. Images taken at full zoom during the day or with flash while indoors or outdoors come out quite clear. The flash is very strong . The video mode has three resolutions: 1280 HD, 640 and 320 and they can be taken in NTFS and PAL formats. What it allows is zooming while recording. Recording in the low resolution is great. However, there is a problem with the high res recording that seems to stop after recording for 10 seconds.
Face detection and red eye removal work effectively and one can just keep the modes switched on at all times if required. The Panorama mode is very impressive with the three images that are stitched together easily with great results. What we didn?t like was that the camera is slow. It takes its own time in processing and saving the images onto the memory card. Overall, if you are looking for a super zoom at an affordable price for just clicking images, Finepix S1800 is a good option. It takes great images and at its price it gives you an 18x zoom with full manual controls.
? CyberMedia www.LD2.in
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