Photokina - Fujifilm S5 Pro launched

[Ian]

Another well kept secret prior to Photokina was the Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro. Now branded on the camera 'Fujifilm' rather than 'FinePix' the S5 Pro is the best quality camera body from Fujifilm to date as it shares the same casing, controls, exposure and AF system as the Nikon D200.

However, whereas the D200 (and a lot of other cameras now) has a ten megapixel sensor, the resolution of the S5 Pro's SuperCCD SR sensor remains the same as its predecessor, the S3 Pro, introduced two years ago with the same six megapixel resolution sensor. Admittedly, this is a very special six megapixels and there are actually 12 million photosites (each pixel is measured for low/medium and high level light intensity) on the sensor, but on paper it's the same as it was two years ago. Fujifilm does say it has been redesigned, but we're not sure how that pans out.

Undoubtedly, it will be very interesting to see how the S5 Pro compares in terms of image quality with the Nikon D200.

Another un-answered question is how quick you can shoot with the S5 Pro as this is not quoted in the official specifications as far as I can see. The Nikon D200 has a very nifty continuous shooting rate of 5fps, ideal for exposure bracketing and action photography.

The S5 Pro does have a neat and, I believe unique, feature in a DSLR: automatic face detection. This lets you conveniently zoom in on faces to check for focus and problems like closed eyes or red-eye.

Ian

[mario46]

The new recently released Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro Digital SLR Camera is reputed to excel in portraits, produce excellent quality pictures and has a very good skin-toned reproduction compared to any digital SLR camera in the market right now. It is often mentioned alongside Nikon D200 because of the similarities in build, appearance and some of the functionalities, but aside from that the mechanisms inside are very much different from one another. In order to have a thorough understanding about the product, one is advised to visit this site (http://www.smartratings.com/review/p...l_cameras/1028) where a compilation of expert reviews about the camera are aggregated. Hope this helps.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by mario46

The new recently released Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro Digital SLR Camera is reputed to excel in portraits, produce excellent quality pictures and has a very good skin-toned reproduction compared to any digital SLR camera in the market right now. It is often mentioned alongside Nikon D200 because of the similarities in build, appearance and some of the functionalities, but aside from that the mechanisms inside are very much different from one another. In order to have a thorough understanding about the product, one is advised to visit this site (http://www.smartratings.com/review/p...l_cameras/1028) where a compilation of expert reviews about the camera are aggregated. Hope this helps.

No it doesn't quite frankly. I'm not especially impressed with the ratings given by this site. Many of the sites it uses to arrive at a rating do not appear to have given any rating and sometimes the percentage figure shown is arrived at from the review of one site only. As for the S5 Pro, the first reviewer was DCMag which the site uses a 100% figure from. Yet when you look at the ratings from DCMag it gives star ratings out of 5 and awards it a final score of 5 stars. When you add up the stars awarded however there are 23 out a possible 25 which is in fact 92%

This is not helpful and shows that a more uniform method of camera ratings is needed.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by mario46

The new recently released Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro Digital SLR Camera is reputed to excel in portraits, produce excellent quality pictures and has a very good skin-toned reproduction compared to any digital SLR camera in the market right now. It is often mentioned alongside Nikon D200 because of the similarities in build, appearance and some of the functionalities, but aside from that the mechanisms inside are very much different from one another. In order to have a thorough understanding about the product, one is advised to visit this site (http://www.smartratings.com/review/p...l_cameras/1028) where a compilation of expert reviews about the camera are aggregated. Hope this helps.

The problem with review ratings is that they are often very different in mechanism and can be interpreted in wilfly different ways. Magazines I have written for have included ratings out of 5, 6, 10, 20 and 100. I challenge any reviewer to consistently apply a particular rating across these different rating styles. Two or more reviewers may also have the same opinion and feel for a camera and yet they may come up with surprisingly different number ratings.

If you average multiple ratings for a given product over various categories, there is often no weighting for such categories so poor technical ratings could be obscured by high ratings for, say, styling and/or ease of use. A camera that looks good and is easy to use is useless if the pictures are rubbish.

I favour a traffic light system, with red for unacceptable, yellow/amber for average and green for excellent, with a couple of intermediate shades either side of average.

But as some of our affiliates and many readers demand a star rating and a percentage rating, we reluctantly provide our estimations of these as well.

Ian