Digital SLR

Fujifilm's long-awaited successor to the FinePix S3 Pro is also built around a Nikon body (see illustrations below) and designed for Nikon AF lenses. However, the new S5 Pro takes Nikon's D200 magnesium alloy body as its shell, instead of the film-burning F80, which was used for the S3 Pro. The result is a camera with superior construction, a more solid feel and much better digital integration. The S5 Pro is also distinguished by Fujifilm's Super CCD SR Pro sensor, which uses double pixel technology to deliver an expanded dynamic range in shots.

This sensor is a refinement of the Super CCD SR II and has a similar diagonal layout of 12.34 million paired photodiodes: 6.17 million S-pixels, which record the main image information and 6.17 million smaller R-pixels, which collect data from bright regions in shots. Because the sensitivity of the R-pixels is lower than the S-pixels, detail that would not otherwise be recorded in the highlight areas of the subject is captured. Fujifilm claims the dynamic range of the sensor in the S5 Pro is approximately 400% wider than that of a CCD working on a single-pixel design.


The above diagram shows the contributions the S- and R-pixels make to the overall exposure and dynamic range. (Source: Fujifilm)

Coupled with the sensor is a new Real Photo Processor Pro image processor that provides two stages of noise reduction and includes dark-frame subtraction. This delivers an improved signal-to-noise ratio and allows photographers to shoot at sensitivities up to ISO 3200. Images shot with long exposure times also claim to have lower than average noise levels. An improved low-band-pass filter has been added to reduce the effects of moiré and noise but neither CCD-shift image stabilisation nor sensor dust removal is provided.  

Controls OverviewBecause it's based on the Nikon D200 body, the S5 Pro's control layout is almost identical to its Nikon 'cousin'.  The only significant differences we could find are in the buttons on the left side of the LCD, where the D20's thumbnail, protect/help and enter buttons have been replaced on the S5 Pro by display/lock, set-up and face zoom in/help buttons. The LCD on the top panel lacks a couple of items and there's no B&W indicator in the viewfinder display. But otherwise the cameras are superficially identical.

If you've never used a Nikon DSLR before - or if you're new to DSLR photography - you may find the proliferation of buttons on the camera's body disconcerting. However, once you've learned which button does what, they can improve access to frequently-used functions. A dial on the left side of the top panel covers image quality/size, white balance and ISO as well as the drive modes. Selected values are displayed on the top LCD, which can be difficult to read in some types of light. Control wheels front and rear are used to change camera settings.

Just about every adjustment a serious photographer could want is offered by both cameras. However locating them in the S5 is not particularly easy because the ordering of individual items in the menu system (which is designed by Fujifilm) is a little weird. Key functions like ISO, image quality/size and white balance are located on page 2, while less frequently-adjusted settings like dynamic range and film simulation (which are unique to the S5 Pro), colour, tone, sharpness and colour space settings dominate page 1.

When you want to format a memory card you have to press the Set-up button then open the System setting on the second page of the set-up menu to access the Format control. It may reduce the risk of formatting the card accidentally; but it also involves an awful lot of toggling! The D200's user manual is also much more informative than the S5 Pro's rather perfunctory instructions, which are difficult to read and not particularly helpful.

While they might appear to be different in the manual, many controls in S5 Pro are actually the same as those on the D200. Duplicated functions include the ISO  settings (although the S5 Pro uses numerical equivalents for all values while the D200 labels the top three settings H0.3, H0.7 and H1.0);  the flash modes, exposure metering, exposure and flash exposure compensation, AE and flash bracketing and focusing modes. The S5 Pro has more settings for fluorescent lighting in its white balance menu and substitutes Fine for Cloudy in the pre-sets list. But both cameras allow photographers to set colour temperature in Kelvin values, both provide fine-tuning facilities and both support custom white balance measurement.

The S5 Pro's AF system is clearly derived from its Nikon 'cousin' with 11 selectable focus points plus a Group Dynamic setting that ensures moving subjects remain sharp, even when they move briefly off the selected AF point. Pressing the arrow pad (multi-selector) lets you adjust the brightness of the LCD to make it easier to view in outdoor light. However, like all LCDs, reading menus is still almost impossible in direct sunlight.

At five frames/second, the D200 has a faster burst speed than the 3 fps on the S5 Pro and, although both cameras offer multiple exposure facilities, only the D200 includes an interval timer for shooting time-lapse sequences. The D200 also provides three colour modes (two sRGB settings plus Adobe RGB), while the S5 Pro has only two. Furthermore, you can't create and apply custom tonal curves with the S5 Pro as you can with the D200. The S5 Pro will only work with Fujifilm's NP-150 battery so forget about swapping batteries between the two cameras. Finally, some Nikon accessories that work with the D200 can't be used with the S5 Pro.

Special Functions
Like its predecessor, the S5 Pro is distinguished by several functions that are unique to Fujifilm cameras. Carried over from the previous S3 Pro model is the ability to simulate the appearance of a range of films. Three additional variations have been added to the S3 Pro's portfolio and, for each setting, colour, tone and sharpness can be adjusted through +/-2 steps.

The Standard setting suits a wide range of subjects, including portraits and scenery. The F1 mode is ideal for studio portraiture, while the F1a slightly enhances saturation, F1b smoothes skin tones and enhances the vibrancy of blue skies. It is recommended for daylight portraiture. The F1c setting boosts sharpness and is ideal for fashion photography under low-contrast lighting, while the F2 mode provides more vibrant reproduction of natural colours, similar in appearance to Fujichrome Velvia film, and is recommended for landscape and nature photography.


The F1 setting in the Film Simulation menu provides a moderate level of saturation.


The F2 setting replicates the high saturation of Fujifilm's Velvia slide film.

The dynamic range control of the earlier model has been extended to provide seven settings. In Auto mode the camera automatically varies the dynamic range between 100% and 400% according to the brightness range detected in the subject. This setting suppresses highlight blowout and shadow black crush to produce a realistic spread of tones under all types of lighting. Photographers can also select specific dynamic range settings between 100% (Standard) and 400% (Wide). Only the S-pixels are used for the 100% (STD) setting, allowing burst speeds to be slightly faster.


The Standard dynamic range setting produces similar pictures to other DSLR cameras and highlight blowout and shadow black crush can occur with subjects that have a wide brightness range.


Setting the dynamic range to 400% allows highlight and shadow details to be recorded.

Also located on the first page of the shooting menu are adjustments for image Colour, Tone, Sharpness and Colour Space. The Colour setting is essentially a saturation control with six options: High, Medium High, Standard, Medium Low and 'Org' (which represents the lowest saturation). There's also a B&W setting for monochrome shots.

Five Tone adjustments are provided, covering Hard (high contrast), Medium Hard, Standard, Medium Soft and 'Org' (for low contrast). Sharpness adjustments include Hard, Medium Hard, Standard, Medium Soft and an Off position that turns off sharpness processing. The Colour Space setting provides the expected sRGB and Adobe RGB support. Default setting for the above controls is Standard (sRGB for colour space), which works well in most situations and provides a moderate degree of adjustment.

The new camera also offers several features that will appeal particularly to wedding and portrait photographers, such as a post-capture Face Detection function that can detects up to ten faces in a scene at the push of a button near the lower left edge of the LCD. When shots are displayed on monitor, photographers can zoom in on the faces of subjects to check focus and exposure and see whether subjects' eyes are open or closed. The same button doubles as a Help button, calling up a brief text explanation for five functions in the shooting menu when it is pressed: Film Simulation, White Balance Fine-tuning, Multiple Exposure, Live View Display and Noise Reduction.

If you're using a lens with a maximum aperture faster than f/5.6, such as the AF Nikkor 18-35mm 1:3.5-4.5D that we used for our tests, the focus indicator in the viewfinder can be used to confirm manual focus. The Live View function, which can display images either in colour or B&W, lets you magnify subjects to check focus - but only maintains the Live View for 30 seconds. During this time you can zoom in on sections of the image using the arrow pad controls. A fair amount of battery power is consumed in this mode so Fujifilm advises using the optional AC adapter instead of the battery. The system only works when manual focusing is engaged and it's accessed via the shooting menu.

School photographers can benefit from the camera's ability to insert data from a bar code reader into image metadata. This allows information such as class and student identifiers to be encoded in shots, making it easier to sort prints for delivery. Direct printing of images is supported via the PictBridge interface. The camera can also be used for tethered shooting with Windows and Macintosh PCs and supports GPS device integration. 

Software
The camera is supplied with Fujifilm's FinePix FinePix Viewer, a basic image and video viewer/organizer application and FinePix Studio software, which is essential for converting raw files into editable formats. ImageMixer VCD2 LE for FinePix is also provided for creating video CDs and CD Albums that can be played back on video CD-compliant DVD players.

Loading the software is straightforward. However, when you have to select your country of origin. Australia is absent from the list. We can't understand why Fujifilm ignores a country with a technology-aware population of more than 20 million when countries like Austria and Vietnam are included. (Perhaps we're simply located in the unfashionable end of the Pacific Ocean.) You must re-start your PC to access the software.

FinePix Viewer provides thumbnail displays of image files. These can be sorted by year based on the date/time they were shot or recorded, either as they are downloaded to the computer or at a later time. Basic editing processes, such as cropping, adjusting e image quality, converting images to sepia or monochrome and correcting red eyes in flash shots are provided and batch processing is supported. There's also a Print Wizard and facilities for online ordering of prints.


The FinePix Viewer user interface.

The CCD-RAW Data Conversion Function in FinePix Studio lets you specify settings such as Tone, White Balance and brightness (Sensitisation) when images are converted and supports output to TIFF, JPEG or bitmap files. You can also crop, rotate and zoom in and out on images. Curve adjustments and histogram displays are also provided. However, making subtle adjustments to the white balance via the colour wheel is difficult as the controls are rather crude. The Curve graph is also rather small and difficult to control precisely. Fortunately, the sliders for the Sensitisation, and Dynamic Range adjustments provide more scope for fine tuning. The Colour and Sharpness adjustments replicate the settings on the camera with drop-down menus of pre-sets.


The main desktop for FinePix Studio showing the range of adjustments provided.

A Navigator window is provided to show the location of crops. Below it is a Pixel Information window, which displays the location and RGB data for selected areas in the displayed image. A pane below the main screen provides facilities for viewing several images simultaneously in thumbnail form and lets you swap from one shot to another. However, it takes about three seconds after loading the shot before the image appears sharp. Batch processing is supported. 

Performance
Fujifilm is to be congratulated for extracting what amounts to 12-megapixel output from a camera whose essential resolution is 6-megapixels - if you view the small and large photodiodes as a pair. We're not quite sure how this has been achieved but data from both the S-pixels and the R-pixels appears to be used separately to create image files that are the same size as you would expect from a 12.34-megapixel imager. Obviously some form of data interpolation is involved, probably as an adjunct to the colour interpolation process. And it's very impressively handled.

The dynamic range control was as effective as in the S3 Pro with the additional steps allowing a higher degree of fine-tuning. Sample images showing the Standard and 400% settings are reproduced below.

Most of the Film Simulation settings produce changes that are too subtle to reproduce in low-resolution on a website, although the F2 setting (which is supposed to replicate Velvia film), can produce excessively 'vibrant' colours with some subjects. This setting is best reserved for shots where you want the maximum colour saturation. The intermediate F1a, b and c settings do exactly what Fujifilm claims and will, therefore be useful for wedding and portrait photographers.

Imatest showed JPEG quality to be very good, with resolution right up to expectations at all focal lengths and lens apertures we tested. There was a slight decline in resolution at the widest and smallest apertures and from the centre to the edge of the frame - but not enough to influence the usability of either cluster of settings. A slightly greater decline occurred when the highest ISO settings were used - but it was less than in most other cameras. Lateral chromatic aberration was generally low, although we detected low-level coloured fringing in some outdoor shots. However, images must be enlarged to more than 100% for it to become visible.


Coloured fringing was found in some shots at 100% enlargement. See reference image below for the degree to which it affected the image as a whole.



Noise was very well controlled throughout the camera's ISO range, although some pixel errors can be seen in the sample ISO 100 and 400 shots below. The auto white balance setting had the usual problems with incandescent lighting but produced natural looking colours under fluorescent tubes. With both types of lighting, the pre-sets and manual measurement came close to rendering colours accurately and the in-camera fine-tuning enabled us to obtain very accurate results.


An enlargement of part of a long exposure at ISO 400 shows a few pixel errors but little obvious image noise.


At ISO 3200 noise was surprisingly low and well controlled and pixel errors were absent.

Flash performance was generally good and the camera delivered well-balanced exposures across a wide range of ISO settings. At ISO 100 enough light was emitted to cover an average-sized room. All the standard flash modes are provided, including front- and rear-curtain synch and red-eye reduction as well as flash output adjustment. Hot-shoe support plus an X-synch connector are provided.

The S5 Pro's shutter and AF systems were highly responsive, as you would expect of a camera derived from the Nikon D200. Regardless of whether we pre-focused shots we measured an average capture lag of less than 0.1 seconds. However, image processing times were relatively long. It took approximately two seconds to process and store a high-resolution JPEG shot and just over five seconds for a raw file.

Continuous shooting times were somewhat slower than the camera's specifications, with JPEG shots recorded at 0.6 second intervals and raw files marginally slower. The buffer filled after 23 raw files or 29 Fine JPEGs at top resolution and then took just over a minute to clear. 

Conclusion
With its sturdier body, better digital integration and improved imaging technology, the FinePix S5 Pro is a much more promising upgrade than its predecessor. It represents a particularly good choice for wedding and portrait photographers (including school photographers), who can take advantage of the dynamic range extensions, film simulation modes and face recognition inclusions. Other photographers may also find some of these features advantageous.

However, if you're buying this camera as an adjunct to a stable of Nikon equipment, make sure you check that key items such as lenses, flash units, grips and other accessories are compatible with the S5 Pro. According to the user manual, you can use non-CPU lenses as long as you can specify lens data (focal length and maximum aperture) in the Setup menu to access CPU lens functions. Most focal lengths and maximum apertures are covered by the in-camera lists.

The supplied software bundle is adequate but not of a standard that you would expect for a camera of the calibre of the S5 Pro. (Aside from FinePix Studio, the other applications are more suited to point-and-shoot cameras.) When we went to press, few of the popular third-party raw file processors offered S5 Pro compatibility. However, that should change with the next iteration of most products. 

Footnote: On 20 March, 2007 Fujifilm released a Firmware upgrade for the FinePix S5 Pro at http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital/download/s5pro/fupd.html. According to the website, the firmware update Ver.1.04 addresses the following issues:
1. Better white balance when setting FLASH-mode for the WHITE BALANCE.
2. Better white balance when setting AUTO-mode for the WHITE BALANCE and using Nikon non-CPU lenses. (Users must set the maximum aperture according to the FinePix S5 Pro Owner's Manual, p.121-p.124.)

IMATEST GRAPHS

Four DSLR Cameras Compared

Image sensor: 23.0mmx 15.5mm Super CCD SR Pro with 6.17 million R-photosites and 6.17 million S-photosites
Lens mount: Nikon F mount (with AF coupling and AF contacts)
Focal length crop factor: 1.5x
Image formats: JPEG (Exif 2.21); CCD-RAW (14-bit), CCD-RAW+JPEG
Image Sizes: L: 4,256 x 2,848; M:3,024 x 2,016;/ S:2,304 x 1,536 pixels
Shutter speed range: 30 sec. to 1/8000 sec. plus Bulb.
Self-timer: 20, 10, 5 or 2 second delay
Image Stabilisation: lens-based only
Dust removal: n.a.
Exposure Compensation: +/- 5EV in 1/3, ½ & 1EV steps
Focus system: TTL phase detection AF with 11 selectable areas (7 for wide AF)
Focus modes: Single-area AF, Dynamic AF, Group Dynamic AF and Dynamic AF with closest subject priority
Exposure metering/control: Three-mode TTL metering: 3D Color Matrix Metering II (metering performed by 1,005-segment RGB sensor) , Centre-weighted, Spot; P, A, S and M shooting modes
Colour space options: sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998)
Custom functions: 6 film simulation modes; 6 dynamic range adjustments
ISO range: Auto, ISO 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500, 3200
White balance: Auto, incandescent, fluorescent (x5), Fine weather, flash, shade; colour temperature adjustment (Kelvin); pre-set custom (x5)
Flash: Manual pop-up with button release. GN.12(ISO 100, m); TTL flash control by 1,005-pixel RGB sensor; X-synch at 1/250 sec.
Sequence shooting: Up to 3 fps with Dynamic Range set to Standard (100%); up to 1.5 fps with Dynamic Range set to Wide. Buffer capacity varies with file size (24 RAW frames; 29 Fine JPEG; 20 RAW+JPEG)
Storage Media: CompactFlash Type I/II and Microdrive
Viewfinder: Fixed-eyelevel pentaprism, built-in diopter adjustment, Frame coverage: Approx. 95%, Magnification: Approx. x 0.94
LCD monitor: 2.5-inch low temperature polysilicon TFT colour LCD (approx. 230,000 pixels)
PC interface: USB 2.0 (High-Speed)
Power supply: Rechargeable Li-ion battery (included) or AC Power Adapter AC-135VN (Optional)
Dimensions (wxhxd): 147 x 113 x 74 mm (body only)
Weight: 830 grams (body only)