Comments on: Fujifilm FinePix S200EXR Review

By: HansN

HansN — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:00:29 +0000

I would say, never buy a camera for the release-price. And in particular Fuji cameras. I have my second now and purchased them both for far less than the official price after a couple of weeks/months after release. The s200exr for € 348 (=$ 470) and one will have it probably for even less if you're looking now.
In comparision with an entry level dslr you should realize that you at least have to buy an extra 70-300 (stabilized!)telezoom. Or leave the 18-55 in the store and buy a 18-270 mm with the body to be able to do the same as with the s200exr.
In both cases the weight you're carrying much more than with this s200. And without having more photographic possibilities. And in that case the costs will raise to a 600/700 E (=810-950 USD). And with that you also got the obligation to clean your sensor now and then!

Believe me, six/seven out of 10 users of a dslr can change their camera for this s200, due to their photographic needs. They absolutely won't notice the differences in use and they won't be aware of any quality differences. I can judge about that having been a slr-user my self for years.

A lot of those users put the image size to 5mp to spare room on the card and never make prints bigger than 4" x 6" if they make prints at all! And some of them cannot stop talking about their equipement in stead of working with it.

So this s200exr is a marvelous users-camera and even the video is sufficient for the purpose of digicam users (youtube). If you want to make movies you belong to an other brand of hobbyists.

I can recommend this camera without hesitation for all serious amateurs and for pros that want to have a very usefull sidekick for their pro-equipement.

Happy photographing!

By: National Photographer

National Photographer — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:54:40 +0000

I was thinking of buying this camera as a intermediate between my SLR cameras and My daughter P&S camera but having read the reviews from the net and looked at the images from the camera I have decided not to buy one.
There are a few iassue that the average none pro user may find, like victors post above Pro focuse mode, its some sort of DOF that badly goes wrong (dof is the blurred back and sharpe subject)
I also noticed that there was a lack or detail or what I would call image quality aside from many saying it had good image quality, its far from that. I Think (in my professional opinion) that the images may be a little soft due to the lens quality.
Its a cheap camera in comparison to the fact it costs less than 50% of a decent lens. It is this low quality lens that is really off putting for me as its all about the image quality (and dynamic range) to produce realistic images (as claimed) near or better than DSLR Images (as claimed) which this camera doesnt offer by a long shot.

To compair shots from my Fuji S3 pro with Sigma 55mm EX F2.8 lens against this camera.
If I save the image twice on med/low quality then crop it and save it again and then zoom in 140% and save it again, I still get better image quality.
Where I can see a slight improvement in this camera is where there is a Higher ISO, BUT with the soft images, this can be exspected. Also it is better than the S9500 which I thought was shockingly bad image quality.

By: Victor

Victor — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:09:20 +0000

In general good camera, but I am very diappoined by Pro Focus mode. In most cases it cannot create effect and when it can, the edges of subject have development defects and some parts of background suddenly sharp with smashed edges. If you need small depth of field, don't rely on it, buy DSLR

By: Souvik Paul

Souvik Paul — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:10:48 +0000

Excellent cam, it is an entry level DSLR killer. Superb manual zoom lens, nice and deep grip with good midlow light performance but slightly expensive.