FUJIFILM FinePix S5200 / S5600 Digital Camera

I've been using this 6.3 megapixel camera for over six months now and have been enjoying it from day one. Full reviews including camera specs exist, so I'll stick to talking points that are most noteworthy based on my experience. I'm no photographer, but I've owned a number of digital cameras and take mostly family and vacation-type shots using mostly automatic or scene modes on my cameras. I currently own and use two cameras, one ultra-compact that fits in my pocket (currently a Canon SD700 IS) and this Fuji Finepix S6000fd. So I don't use any of the manual settings, although it seems like there are plenty of manual controls to make this a good camera for someone who wanted to learn those features before deciding to make the investment in a dSLR.

Ergonomics

The S6000fd feels great! This is heavy enough, and has big enough of a grip to feel like a "real" camera. It's very solid. The optical eyepiece is larger and easier to use than a small digital camera, although it could stick out a little further to be more comfortable and to prevent you from pressing your nose into the LCD display. It's also a little grainy, but then again, I don't use it much except in bright outdoor settings. The control buttons on the back are spaced apart well. The directional controller has nice raised surfaces making them easy to feel and press, rather than the super flat type found on smaller digital cameras that make you feel like you almost have you use your fingernail to avoid pressing the wrong spot. The mechanical zoom ring is great. The 2.5" LCD display is bright and beautiful.

Menu system and ease of operation

The menu system on the S6000fd is okay, although not as intuitive as what I've come to know from Canon. It might be that I've owned more Canon cameras, yet after 6 months, I still find myself sometimes having to hunt around for a setting or feature that I don't use often. Other items are not intuitive in their language. For example "Natural" mode means it takes two shots – one with and one without the flash. "Chrome" is a mode that enhances colors. There are others that I'll note in the review. It also seem strange that they did not take advantage of all four directional controls

Playback

The screen is nice and bright, as well as sharp for playback. One small item is that I like to have a button that does directly to delete mode, since this is a fairly common function during playback. On the 6000fd you must go to the menu first. Zooming and panning are not very intuitive. You zoom with one axis (see, I can't remember which) and go into pan mode with the other, in which case all four directions then pan until you press some other key (again, I can't remember which). I compare again to the Canon cameras I've owned where the zoom lever when shooting photos is also the zoom for playback. Perhaps that's not possible with the zoom being on the lens.

Movie Mode

This is the first camera I've owned that allowed optical zoom during movie mode. Nice! And the big zoom is nice too! Too bad there's no optical image stabilization to help out with the shakes when you get to the long end of the zoom though! Surely the next model of this camera will incorporate IS. It can take several seconds to find focus when you zoom in close.

Thank goodness this camera takes AVI videos rather than the dreadful proprietary Quicktime movies you find on most digital cameras that can't easily be edited with standard PC software like Windows Movie Maker. That has actually become one of my requirements when buying new digital cameras because we've become quite fond of shooting short movie clips with our digital camera rather than dragging out the camcorder.

I shoot all movies in 640 X 480 at 30 fps. They are beautiful, with very little compression artifacts noticeable. They even look decent at full screen. As with most digital cameras, the sound in movie mode is not all that great. If you listen closely, or turn the volume up during a quiet scene, you can hear a constant clicking type sound in movies taken with this camera. It's very low though, and I've only noticed it a few times during a very quiet shot when other noises are not there to overpower it.

Photos

The quality of most shots is excellent. Start-up time is very fast. I use the camera in full automatic mode most of the time. I do, occasionally find some out of focus shots. In a few scenes with very bright sun-lit scenes I've found some images to not be very sharp as well as tending to allow the image to be a bit white-washed with slightly dull color, as if shot with too bright of a flash. But those have been rare.

After shooting with default settings for awhile, I found that the colors in some shots were just a tad bid dull, probably more as a matter of preference than an actual inaccuracy of the camera though. There's a setting under the "F" menu (not exactly intuitive!) where you can choose between three modes: Standard, Chrome, and B&W. Chrome makes the colors more saturated and vibrant (also not intuitive).

The S6000fd has an interesting mode called "Natural"mode. It's activated by turning the dial to N. When shooting in this mode, the camera will take two shots when you press the shutter button. One shot will be with the flash and another without. There's about a second or two delay between the shots. This is nice for beginners when you're just not sure which way will produce the best shot.

The flash on the S6000fd seems decent, and pops up automatically. It has better range than my ultra-compact and it seems like the camera must adjust the flash level better because I don't have as many white-washed faces when using it, or as many complaints about blinding people. I also notice less red-eye with this, presumably because it does pop-up a pretty good distance above the camera (having a flash close to the lens is what causes red eye). I do wish it had a hot-shoe for an external flash though.

Face Detection

Yes, it really works. While it does detect multiple faces in group photos, it doesn't always get all, or even the majority of them if there are more than two or three. In fact, it surprises me sometimes that it will miss one that might even be a little closer and/or more directly facing the camera. But overall, it does a good job. And besides, if there are several faces close together, the focus and exposure should be about the same. I shoot a lot of "people shots," and since I shoot mostly in automatic mode, FD is a great feature for me to help with getting proper focus and exposure on my subjects.
I experimented for a couple of days with a Canon A560 (not a comparable camera though, as it's not a "bridge" camera) and it seems that Canon's face detection might be a little better, although I did not have as many opportunities to try it as I have this S6000fd that I've owned for months. I do have a review of the A560 though at http://www.epinions.com/content_367233306244. (alexanderaku, please see the comments in that review for my response as I've been unable to reach you via e-mail – I'll remove this comment after a few days). The A560 seemed to detect more faces in a group.

The most striking example I've seen of FD really doing its job is with a back-lit subject. We have a large picture window in our living room, so I often end up taking shots with the window in the background. I get very good exposure of the faces with this camera, even with subjects directly in front of the window. In the past, they were often too dark with other cameras that would read the extra light from the window and set exposure for that, rather than the subject. I've also had some nice shots a couple of times at birthday parties when someone was blowing out candles in the dark.

A fun little feature is to press the FD button during playback and if a photo has faces that were detected you'll get a zoomed in shot on each face in the photo, one each time you press the button.

High ISO

High ISO is useful when shooting indoor shots for which you cannot use the flash or when you're too far away for it to be effective. I've used this with this camera when shooting photos of people on stage, in a choir, and other similar situations where I could not get within flash range. The good part is that I was able to get shots that I simply would not be able to get at all with other cameras. The bad news is that you have to be willing to live with a LOT of noise in the photos in most of the photos. They look quite grainy and would not make the best print in the world, but at least it's a memory or moment that was captured and you can smile about later, even if it's not the best quality. One thing that might improve this is to shoot in manual mode and set the ISO and shutter speed manually. I have a feeling that in automatic mode, high ISO might just be jumping too far to the high end. But that's not the type of shooting I do, so I can only comment from the standpoint of someone who leaves it mostly in automatic. For me, I'm at least pleased to get shots I was missing before.

The interesting thing with this camera is that you can't actually set the mode to "high ISO" when in automatic mode. But by disabling the flash, it will force the camera to do so. I prefer Canon's method (once again) where there's a button for "high ISO." They use the up directional control for this. It would have been easy for Fuji to do this as well as assign some other common or useful function to the directional controller because there is nothing assigned to the up or down button at all during shooting mode.

The other thing to note here is that if you're doing this in auto mode, you can still end up with a pretty slow shutter speed, so you still have to hold the camera very still if you don't have a tripod. Without the high ISO mode though, a longer shutter would almost require a tripod as well as a non-moving subject. In the end though, I'll probably still want a camera that allows me to add a high-power flash at some point in the future to be able to shoot these scenes properly.

Because there's a trade-off with High ISO of getting a good bit of noise, if you're at a range where the flash just might be enough to prevent you from having to shoot at higher ISO, you might find the "Natural" mode to be useful here (see above) .

Zoom

I love the zoom on this camera. There are a number of 12X "mega zoom" cameras available, but I can say that 10X is fantastic, and I typically even turn off digital zoom to be sure I'm always using optical for best quality. The feel and control of the manual zoom ring is very nice compared to a zoom button. You have very fine-grained control, making for a smooth zoom even when at the long end of the zoom and shooting a move.

Other Comments:
- xD cards are fine, but not the most popular, so far fewer "multi-card readers" like those now built into laptops read them. Mine didn't and I had to buy an adapter. Not a huge deal, but now one more adapter to keep up with. I'd prefer an SD card.
- As noted in "cons" this camera has no hotshoe for an external flash. The 9000 series does, but it doesn't have face detection (I think due to older processor).
- There's no in-camera red-eye removal like we're starting to see with some manufacturers in their newer models. It seems this would go well and be a companion feature to face detection.
- 4-AA batteries plus charger makes for big, bulky travel. I'd prefer a nice lithium-ion battery with a compact wall charger (no cord) – easier to deal with too. I admit that you don't buy this camera for its compact size, but still… On the good side, rechargeable NiMh batteries do seem to last a long time. I've never tested how many shots on a single charge, as I charge often, but I've rarely run a set down and been disappointed or had the impression "hey, I just charged these!"