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CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
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Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 12/20/2004
- Released on: 10/15/2004
Most frequently used functions are quick to access, and nearly all important buttons and controls are easy to reach while you're shooting. In the now familiar Fujifilm system, the camera's menus are split between two activation buttons, and you change settings with a four-way controller on the camera's back. The controller is slightly smaller than we'd prefer, but the menus are easy to understand and quick to navigate. Lamentably, one of the FinePix S5000's control flaws survives in the S5100: in manual mode, you use the four-way pad in conjunction with a top-mounted button to set the aperture in manual mode and to adjust exposure compensation, but the two controls are so far apart, they force even long-fingered photographers into awkward contortions.
The Fujifilm FinePix S5100's fairly advanced feature set begins with its 10X zoom lens, which covers the focal-length range from 37mm to 370mm (35mm-camera equivalent). The maximum aperture is a respectable f/2.8 at wide-angle and f/3.1 at full telephoto. A lens-adapter ring that ships with the camera lets you mount accessory wide-angle and telephoto converters as well as 55mm filters.
The camera's complete set of exposure modes includes full automatic, programmed auto with program shift, aperture priority, and shutter priority. There is also a very functional manual-exposure mode with 1/3-step control of aperture and shutter speed and a useful metering display. There are three light-metering modes--multi, average, and spot--and you can compensate your automatic exposures plus or minus 2EV or use the three-shot exposure-bracketing function. White-balance options include auto and six presets. Wisely, Fujifilm has also outfitted the FinePix S5100 with a custom white-balance function, which the S5000 lacked. The CCD's sensitivity can be set to ISO 64, ISO 100, ISO 200, or ISO 400. One useful exposure aid that is available on many competing cameras but missing on the S5100 is a live-image histogram. You can, however, view a histogram of any image during playback.
You can save 4-megapixel JPEG images at two different compression levels, but the three lower-resolution settings offer only one JPEG compression choice. The camera can also capture raw-format images, which you convert to TIFF files on your computer using an extremely rudimentary program called Raw File Converter LE (for both Windows and Mac), which Fujifilm ships with the camera. This application offers no raw-conversion adjustments, meaning you'll gain little or no advantage from shooting in this format unless you find a third-party converter that supports the FinePix S5100's raw files. As with the S5000 before it, you have to drill deep into the S5100's setup menu to select the raw-capture mode. This option should be available on the camera's standard-resolution menu. (Note also that ISO 400 is not available in raw mode.)
In its very capable movie mode, the FinePix S5100 can capture 640x480-pixel video clips with sound at 30fps in segments as long as your card's capacity will allow. It also works as a Webcam with Windows XP.
The Fujifilm FinePix S5100 improves on the performance of the S5000, which was already fairly responsive. Start-up takes a slightly sluggish 4.7 seconds, but shutter delay, including autofocus time, is about 0.7 second in good light. That's a respectable figure, and it drops to about 0.2 second if you prefocus or use the continuous-autofocus mode, which constantly adjusts the focus even when you're not pressing the shutter release. The autofocus system overall is fairly quick and decisive, and an assist lamp helps it work very well in dim conditions. As a result, shutter delay with autofocus is only 0.8 second in low light.Shot-to-shot time for JPEG pictures is about 1.1 seconds, or about 3 seconds with flash. With raw files, the pause between your first two shots is only 1.2 seconds, which is uncommon in a midrange consumer digicam and immensely welcome. Unfortunately, after the second raw frame, the buffer clogs and the interval stretches to about 4 or 5 seconds for the next shot. Nevertheless, this is one of the few midrange consumer cameras that has made its raw shooting mode even remotely usable.
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