Fujifilm Finepix HS10

Since January 2010, we've been using the entry level DSLR from Canon - the Canon EOS 1000D and indeed it is one hell of a good camera (at least for entry level category). Light weight, great handling and great image quality, worth every penny you spent for it.

And now to welcome the hot summer time, we decided to choose Fujifilm HS10 as the new official camera for Shewsbury Land.

It's a though competition between the 3 candidates in our previous posting and after taking into account our policy to test and giving chances to different brands (though honestly Sony wont be in our list for camera candidates), we decided to skip the magnificent Panasonic FZ35 and go for Fujifilm HS10 instead.

So this is a Fujifilm Finepix HS10 review from Shewsbury Land.

Nonetheless, please take note that I am not a professional photographer and all the opinion I gave here is based on my little knowledge and experience which is not that great at all.

If you want to read a better review and opinion from the professional, you can visit Photography Blog or any other sites that offered camera review from the experts.

So let's have a look at the camera now;

The box...




Out of the box...




Baby Tsukasa is so keen to introduce the camera to you....




One the main features of this camera, the Fujinon Lens with 30x zoom [24mm (f/2.8) to 720mm (f/5.6)]





Isometric view...




With the flash unit exposed...




Side view of the camera...




The zoom operation for the lens is similar to those DSLR zoom lens - manual zoom using the zoom ring, so you can get more quicker and precise zoom capability.... I like this.




One of the other things I like about this camera is that Fujifilm made that "zoom guide" there so u can basically see the focal length that you are using at any given time....




That is the "Manual Focus" ring... I usually prefer to just use the "Auto Focus" so I don't think I will really use this "Manual Focus" ring...




This is the rear panel view...





By the way on the side here, you can find the USB and TV cable output...



Another thing that I like about this camera is the many buttons available for easy access... when I was using Panasonic FZ28 last year I have to go into the main menu to adjust this and that but with this Fujifilm HS10, most of the important buttons are out there for easy access...





Most of the times I prefer to use the "Manual Mode" but there are few other photography options available and of course not to forget the important "all automatic mode" for the beginners - in HS10 they call it as "SR AUTO".

One thing to note that the "Adv." or Advance Mode on this camera is basically where you can access all those special features or gimmick that Fujifilm boasted a lot on this model - the fun "Motion Capture" and "Motion Remover" and last but not least my favorite the "Pro Low-Light Mode" which is the most useful and practical of all for low light photography.

From my several test so far, using the "Pro Low-Light Mode" prove to be more effective than the "SR AUTO" mode when shooting indoor (inside my living room) where the only source of light is the not so bright Fluorescent lights.





The external flash hot shoe - apparently not many out there compatible for this model, at the moment one that I know compatible for this camera is the Metz 36 C2 Hot Shoe Flash Gun.







Perhaps 1 of the main annoyance that I have for this camera is the battery issue. Fujifilm prefer the AA size batteries.

The AA size Alkaline batteries supplied with this camera in the sales package is made by Panasonic, the type is the LR6 Industrial Alkaline.

Ever since I unboxing this camera, I've been using it for about 4 hours continuously taking over 100 pictures and reviewing on the LCD frequently and now 10 hours later when I upload this review the battery seems to be still in good condition - I haven't see any "low battery warning" yet.

Nonetheless, I have also bought the GP Plus rechargeable AA size Ni-MH Battery for future use. The thing I hate with this kind of battery is that it took long time to recharge them, mine will took about 6 hours to charge all 4 pieces at the same time.... 6 hours... that's damn long...

Canon 1000d and Panasonic FZ28 using those rechargeable Lithium Battery only need 2 to 3 hours maximum to recharge and they lasted very long.




The HS10 on my left hand...




Side by side with my lovely Nintendo DS Lite...






Last but not least the tilting 3 inch LCD screen....





Some photography samples;

The 30x zoom power...

At 24mm Wide angle - The mosque...



At maximum zoom - Telephoto 720mm - The mosque's tallest tower...



At 24mm Wide angle - Those apartment buildings...



At maximum zoom - Telephoto 720mm - The 2nd building from the right of the above photo...



At 24mm Wide angle - That pink apartment building, somewhere on the center of this photo...



At maximum zoom - Telephoto 720mm - Some where on the not so lower floor...



At 24mm Wide angle - look at the first bridge from here...



At maximum zoom - Telephoto 720mm - The "boat operator" is having a break under that bridge checking some SMS on his mobile phone....



At 24mm Wide angle - look at the far end of the road...



At maximum zoom - Telephoto 720mm - The boat terminal....



The fun gimmick features - Motion Tracker;












It's quite fun and for someone like me who doesn't know much about using Adobe Photoshop, this can be useful to create such effects if needed next time...

However, if the speed is too fast, it would be difficult for the camera to perform this Motion Tracker thingy.... I try to capture this bird flying at full speed (the concerned area marked with red circle)




And this is the final result that I get....




Another gimmick features which I so look forward to see it but at the end was disappointed with it - The Motion Remover...

The concerned area is marked with red circle on the photo below;




In this photo below you can see that there is still some "left over" of the car...



After doing several testing with it my conclusion is that the moving subject must be moving at a very fast speed for the camera to be able to really "remove" them from the finished photo.

So I personally think that to achieve this image taken from Fujifilm's website is almost impossible because there is no way for human to be able to move faster than a car speeding at 40 km/h and if you happen to visit those tourist attraction like big statue or landmarks, I don't think the other tourist/people will be so helpful to move super fast so that you can have a clean shot for your photo right?




For sure the "Pro Low-Light Mode" is certainly the most important and the most useful features for me and thankfully it works very well and I think I will use this a lot for low light situation

On this photo below, the light on my living room is not that great (fluorescent) and usually I have to use Manual Mode and high ISO to get similar result and on top of that I have to actually playing around with several Shutter Speed and Aperture combination before I can get the best shot... it is not impossible but take some time...

But with the "Pro Low-Light Mode" it is basically an automatic settings and in just a few moments I can quickly get a good photo produced by the camera easily... save me some time...




And below are some additional photos which is taken using "Manual Mode" on this HS10...

The "bokeh" is still possible...




Slow shutter speed and big aperture for indoor... This is also using "Macro mode" in addition to the manual setting by me...







Well I guess that's about it for now... I will try to do more testing and play around with this camera to get the best out of it...

There are plenty of other cameras out there now using this BSI (Back-side-illuminated) CMOS sensor made by Sony. The BSI part promises to produce lower image noise than traditional designs by allowing more light to be captured. The CMOS part allows faster output and fast continuous drive and features which require multiple images taken close together.

Fujifilm already have the superior low-light formula in using CCD technology but (unfortunately) they did not use this technology in the HS10, most likely in favor of high-speed benefits offered by the new CMOS sensor.

Sometimes I do wonder, what difference it could make if in case Fujifilm use their "Super CCD EXR" sensor into this HS10. They use it on their exciting Fujifilm S200EXR though and that model receive lot's of positive comments from many experts/professional reviewer.

The most successful features on this camera and as I pointed above, as the most important and practical one (for me personally) is the "Pro Low-Light Mode" where it will combined 4 exposures to create a full-resolution image while simulating using a high-ISO. At the end you will get a nice photo (from the low light situation) produced by the processor of the camera. Though the end result may not guarantee to make everybody satisfied with it but so far, I'm quite happy.

The "Motion Remover" and "Motion Tracker" is just for fun and not really something that a serious photographer would want anyway - nice to have but not important. The "Motion Tracker" is still reasonably good and useful maybe but the "Motion Remover" is not that great at all.

Overall, Fujifilm HS10 is a fun camera to use - specially for holiday trip or group sex orgy (hahahaha - joking)...

Image quality in my personal opinion is quite good - not great like Panasonic FZ35 - but it's good enough. I hope that Fujifilm can release more "Firmware Updated" to make it better.

This hybrid or bridge super zoom compact camera feels and in fact operates like a DSLR camera but obviously it is not DSLR camera. It is not fair to compare the image quality even with those entry level model (of DSLR camera) like Canon EOS 1000D - even with the standard lens kit, surely the Canon 1000D will kick this HS10 right on the ass, no contest what so ever in terms of image quality.

However, HS10 can surely offer you long zoom and good "Pro Low-Light Mode" and as a bonus, a very good "Super Macro" mode as well. If you like to capture the photos of wildlife animal and insects, HS10 can be a very useful camera because you can always rely on the long zoom. Even if you taking photos of city scenery or a day out at the park or maybe watching sports event in the stadium or just want to use the long zoom for stalking or looking at those sexy mini-skirt from far away - HS10 wont disappoint you. This is a very convenient travel companion.

My main complains are only the following:

1) The battery type, I wish that Fujifilm would choose rechargeable lithium ion battery type instead of those AA size battery.

There are pros and cons and lots of arguments between the 2 sections of these battery types, surely nothing is perfect though, but if I can make the choice, surely I go for rechargeable lithium battery simply because they are much faster to be recharged.


2) EVF is too small

My second biggest concern is the lousy tiny EVF - instead of providing those "eye sensor" features, it would be better if Fujifilm make bigger EVF with greater resolution so that we can clearly see if the camera have focused correctly or not.

There are times when I miss focused my subject and only found out about it after reviewing the photo thru the LCD screen.

And that's all the complain I have for this model.

As for the HD video features, well, I'm not really into video thing and thus I don't bother to do any testing on it. It's nice to have and maybe someday I will use it but so far I don't really have any intention to produce any video. I'm sure many other review out there, especially those reviewed by the experts/professional reviewer and websites can provide the video samples from HS10.

My final thought is that most of us would want a camera with good image quality. The full external features and add-on are just secondary. If the camera advertise itself with plenty of "great features" but fell slightly short on the image quality section (if compared to the other camera within the same class) surely we will ask - why? Some will go as far as labeling this camera as "pretender".

This HS10 is not a terrible camera by any standard but I personally believe that with such price tag, Fujifilm can at least do something a little bit better for the image quality. As it is now, it's not terrible but you would surely wished for a little bit of 'extra boost" - not much, just a little. In my opinion, the image quality is good but not great.

Panasonic FZ35/38 and Canon SX20 IS is the camera on the same league and both of them are certainly the front runners in this class. Their overall image quality grade are above the HS10, though the margin is not so big but it's enough to beat HS10.

After all, Fujifilm have been around in the camera and photography market for quite long time now if compared to Panasonic so I expected that they could produce something better.

Then again, regardless of my opinion in this review, you have to see what is the most important factor or elements in your photography needs.

Read the spec and decide if you need it, simple as that, don't make things more complicated for you. Not everybody love the simple light compact digicam and similarly, not everybody need the heavy and complicated camera that can do wonders.

Maybe you can also see our previous post - Monkey V2 or the Iguana, this is when the long zoom is very useful.


You can also see my review for additional Macro lens and cheap Full-Manual external flash used with this camera below;

1) Fujifilm HS10 + Raynox DCR-250 Macro Lens
2) Macro Photography
3) YongNuo Speed Lite YN-460 External Flash


Last but not least, Fujifilm Finepix HS10 grab The Best Superzoom Camera Award in the recent TIPA 2010 Awards ceremony. I wonder if they vote for it simply because of the many features boasted on this model...

You can see the full list of the TIPA 2010 award winners in here and Canon G11 is another winner in that prestigious event.




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