Fuji S9500

Thanks for the advice Paul,i think i’ll stick with ther fuji for the moment.I would obviously like to get a DSLR at some stage but the are a few reasons that turn me off,firstly the fact that they’re quite heavy compare with my little fuji,i cycle most of the time to the airport & this extra weight is a big factor,secondly the price,i am a student at the moment & i have a good few other things to spend a round €1000 on 😀 ,although i weep everytime i see a.net or jp.net stuff :rolleyes:

I’m sure you could find something second hand in the DSLR world cheaper than that once you’re ready. By that time maybe there’ll be a few chesp-ish 350D’s knocking around eBay. It’d definately worth looking into.

As for cycling, I’ve taken my Fuji out when I’ve been on my bike, but I’d be scared as hell to carry 1500 quids worth of DSLR and lens while riding! The same goes for my basses. I’ve seen people with guitars on their backs while riding. Scarey… You go down and you have a snapped neck, and I’m not talking about the rider!

Paul

Thanks for the advice Paul,i think i’ll stick with ther fuji for the moment.I would obviously like to get a DSLR at some stage but the are a few reasons that turn me off,firstly the fact that they’re quite heavy compare with my little fuji,i cycle most of the time to the airport & this extra weight is a big factor,secondly the price,i am a student at the moment & i have a good few other things to spend a round €1000 on 😀 ,although i weep everytime i see a.net or jp.net stuff :rolleyes:

Hi Gary,

Here’s what I managed to come up with in a quick edit. First is the un-edited shot, then the edited version for easy comparison:

Not a vast improvement I have to say! I can’t imagine the S5600 is hugely different to the S5500, which I found was great for learning the basics of a camera with full manual controls, but after a year or so I just found even the best shots it produced weren’t up to the quality I wanted, hence the upgrade to a Canon 350D. These shots are about as good as I managed to get out of the Fuji (they’ve had a bit of the usual editing in Photoshop of course).

My main problem with the Fuji seems to be the same as most poeple’s who are familliar with that camera. Noise. There’s just too much of it (at least for me). You can particularly see it in the sky and under the wings of the aircraft, and I found it was even worse in poor light.

As far as going for an upgrade is concerned, I’d always learn how to get the very best out of what you have before going any further. That was a principle I discovered in music when I was a beginner bass player around 8 years ago, and the same logic has worked well as I’ve learned more about photography. If you can get to a point where the only thing limiting you is your equipment, then upgrade. Only when I was producing shots like the above two with the Fuji, when I was confident I was getting the cleanest, sharpest photographs that camera was capable of producing did I decide to upgrade. Basically when I was at a point I needed to upgrade.

The S9500 will no doubt be less noisy, but you probably wouldn’t see such a huge improvement using it. I found the 5500 to be very slow focussing and it made me miss lots of shots because it was thinking about what it wanted to do, but with a lot of practice it can produce good images. I still occasionally get soft and blurry images with my 350D, but generally only when the circumstances I’m trying to take shots under are ridiculous, or when I’m doing something wrong, so on that basis my honest advice would be to stick with the S5600 a bit longer and get to know it a little better.

If you really feel the need to upgrade, see if there’s anyone you know who has an S9500 or similar and try it out, or as I seem to be at DUB on a semi-regular basis (damn those cheap FR flights!) Check the flights in my signature and if you’re there at the same time let me know beforehand and have a go with my 350D. I’ll have my laptop and can put the shots you take onto a CD so you can get them home and edit as you see fit. You certainly won’t lose anything my having a better camera, I just think it’s best not to upgrade until you’re definately ready for it.

I hope that’s of some use. Happy shooting!

Paul

The shot attached best illustrates what i’m talking about,as for the settings i use:

“P” mode on the dial & the ISO set to 100 or 64,100 in this case.The sharpen option is set to standard.The exif data is shown below,ingore the ISO rating the ISO range limit is 1600 so i don’t know where it’s getting that from :confused:

Hope you don’t mind, but is this better?

With the S5600 you can only change the sharpness setting when you turn the camera on into “take pictures” with the dial turned to either P, A, S or M.

In any other mode, you can’t scroll down to “Page 2”, below “Set”.

I’m not sure if it sticks in “Auto” mode. I usually use S-hutter authority anyway, so that I can get some movement into propellers. But it’s not really appropriate for Jets.

Pages 58-65 of the Manual {click}

I can’t be bothered to look for the book, the online one is handier.

The shot attached best illustrates what i’m talking about,as for the settings i use:

“P” mode on the dial & the ISO set to 100 or 64,100 in this case.The sharpen option is set to standard.The exif data is shown below,ingore the ISO rating the ISO range limit is 1600 so i don’t know where it’s getting that from :confused:

Many digital cameras initially display soft focus on a computer monitor, you almost invariably need to sharpen them.

Here’s a picture I took with my S5000 – which is even lower spec than the S5600 – last year – see how after processing sharpeness is applied. I’ll post two versions before and after.

I currently have a fuji S5600 which has 5.1 mega pixles,but i’m thinking of upgrading to the S9500 which has 9 mega pixles.The S5600 produces alot of shots that are quite blurry & soft.I was wondering if going up to the S9500 would help with this problem as it has a greater pixel count?Does anyone have any experience of te S9500?

Hi Gary,

I used the S5500 for a year before upgrading to my current 350D. Could you possibly post a shot as an example of one that’s ‘soft and blurry’ along with the EXIF data for that shot? I’d just be interested to see what settings you’re using.

Cheers
Paul