Fujifilm FinePix S602 3.3MP Digital Camera w/ 6x Optical Zoom
by FUJIFILM

List Price: $799.99
Our Price: $169.99
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details

• 3-megapixel sensor captures enough detail for sharp prints at 8 x 10 inches and beyond; software interpolation increases resolution to 6 megapixels
• 6x optical plus 4.4x digital (26x total) zoom lens with autofocus
• Included 16 MB Smartmedia card holds 13 images at default resolution
• Connects with Macs and PCs via USB port
• Uses 4 AA batteries (rechargeables recommended)

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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Fujifilm FinePix S602 3.3MP Digital Camera w/ 6x Optical Zoom

Customer Review: A terrific 35mm SLR Equivalent
Summary: 5 Stars

* Total exposure control

* Terrific quality for the money

* May need to rely on automatic features.

I am a huge photo geek. I'm not sure what it is about photography that gets my motor going, but I just love every aspect of it. And, yet, I'm not in the camp that believes that I must have the latest and greatest of everything in order to be a good photographer. In the end, the equipment is of little matter: it's just the light, the subject, the film media and you.

It took me a while to get on the digital bandwagon. Initially, I went halfway and purchased a film scanner to get my 35mm negatives into digital form. While this is great for existing photos or for situations where you absolutely need to shoot on film for some reason, it slows down the workflow considerably. First, the film needs to be developed. Then you need to scan each negative individually on the computer. It can take as long as an hour to scan a full roll of 36 images. And, just like working in the darkroom, any dust specs are made larger than life in the final image, which requires some time messing with PhotoShop. This is not ideal for high-capacity work.

After about six months of research, I finally decided on the Fuji FinePix S602. Fuji has a reputation for selling excellent digital cameras that produce remarkable pictures, and the S602 is no exception. I compared this to several of the Canon and Olympus prosumer models as well as several other Fuji cameras.

I was looking for a camera that would allow me to have complete manual control over exposure and aperture as well as automating everything for me for when I was feeling lazy. In addition, I wanted it to be able to produce images that could be faithfully printed to sizes up to 8 x 10, though most of my digital work would be for the web. Since I have a full lighting set up, I also wanted a hotshoe so that I could take advantage of external lighting.

Initially, I leaned toward the Fuji FinePix 2800, which has a 2.1 MegaPixel CCD and runs at almost half the price of the S602. After some soul-searching, I decided that 2.1 MP wasn't near enough for what I wanted. In addition, the 2800 is uncomfortably small for my hand, while the S602 feels like it was designed specifically with my big ol' hands in mind.

The S602 is rather bulky compared to a lot of the cameras out there (except maybe for the Minolta Dimage). I'm not entirely sure what the obsession with smaller cameras is all about. I don't want a camera that I can accidentally inhale. The S602 is about 3/4 the size of my Canon Rebel G, which I feel is a perfect size. It's fairly light and has all of the controls in an easily accessible location. At first, all of the buttons and options for this thing may seem mind-boggling. After just a little practice, though, I found the user interface to be absolutely intuitive and easy to handle.

Another feature I looked for was the ability to quickly capture images one after another. I had played with too many digital cameras that required several seconds between shots, which is frustrating when you're trying to work fast. The S602 has several rapid-fire modes, but I have found its standard shot-to-shot speed to be more than sufficient for most of my needs. I don't ever feel like I'm waiting to press the shutter.

Perhaps the one thing that pushed me the strongest in the direction of purchasing this model was the fact that it takes both Compact Flash and SmartMedia memory cards. In fact, you can use both cards at the same time, switching to one when the other has filled up. It would have been nice if Fuji had made this easier - you can only switch cards from the "setup" mode of the camera rather than through one of their shifted shortcuts - but it's not a major inconvenience.

Fuji has touted the fact that this camera can produce an effective 6.1 megapixels. Keep in mind, though, that the CCD is only capable of 3.1 megapixels, so anything above that is interpolated, which means the software analyzes the picture and inserts its best guess of what pixels would best pad the image to boost it to higher numbers. The 6.1 MP images are fairly nice and probably a bit better than I could get out of PhotoShop, but they are not as pin-sharp as they would be from a true 6.1 MP CCD. Bottom line: if you're considering buying this camera thinking it's a 6.1 MegaPixel camera, save your money for a true 6 MP camera.

While I'm mostly satisfied with this purchase, there does seem to be one major flaw with this camera. I like being able to manually focus on my subjects. I'm not sure why I distrust autofocus so much, but I'm not a big fan of using it exclusively. Both the Electronic View Finder and the screen on the back allow you to zoom into one area so that you can manually adjust the focus to a specific subject, but it seems that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it pin-sharp. Even when it looks good in the view finder, it looks blurry once I have uploaded the image to the computer. The autofocus does a pretty good job of fixing this for me, but I'd like to be able to do this manually without hassle. It may just require more practice on my part.

All in all, I'm thrilled with this camera. It does everything I could hope for and more, provides a seemingly endless number of functions to help boost the creativity of my photography and produces absolutely beautiful images that are of an extremely high quality. I would heartily recommend this camera to anyone looking for a fairly inexpensive equivalent to their 35mm SLR.

Description of Fujifilm FinePix S602 3.3MP Digital Camera w/ 6x Optical Zoom

At the heart of the FinePix S602 lies a third-generation Super CCD sensor (3.1 megapixels), capable of delivering an amazing 6 million recorded pixels, thanks to its unique honeycomb design and advanced signal processing. The new generation of Super CCD boasts even better color reproduction, lower levels of noise, and ultrahigh sensitivity (up to 1,600 ISO in 1,280 x 960 mode) for richly detailed, high-resolution images. It also features Fuji's pixel-mixing technology, which can produce digital VGA-resolution movies at 30 fps.

From delicate skin tones to bright blue skies and noise-free shadows, the new sensor and signal processing system deliver picture-perfect results in every shooting situation.

Designed for the serious photographer, the FinePix S602 also offers a range of fully automatic modes for point-and-shoot ease of use. Simply switch to Auto and let the camera do all the hard work.

Features:

• 6x aspherical zoom with 4.4x digital zoom for 26.4x total zoom
• Built-in miniature LCD through-the-lens viewfinder and 2-inch color LCD playback monitor
• Full exposure override, shutter and aperture priority with manual focus
• Optional lens mounting ring for use with 55mm filters, 1.5x telephoto lens, or 0.79x wide-angle lens
• Continuous shooting mode--5 fps at full resolution for 5 pictures or 1.8 fps for 40 pictures at 1 megapixel mode (1,280 x 960)
• Voice recording modes with 30-second picture annotations
• Digital movie mode--QVGA (320 x 240) motion JPEG at 30 fps or VGA (640 x 480) motion JPEG at 30 fps with sound
• Dual media slots support SmartMedia, CompactFlash Type II, or IBM Microdrive

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