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Question

Fuji S4000 or Nikon P500 - please share feedback

Jul 30, 2011 10:35AM PDT

My hubby and I are looking for a camera for my trip to Ireland (I posted a question earlier and good great feedback).
He found these two cameras and is interested in feedback by anyone who has either of these - the good, the bad and the ugly about each one.
Many thanks for your help!!!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
For reference. Your last question at link.
Jul 30, 2011 10:38AM PDT
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Thank you.
Jul 30, 2011 10:55AM PDT

Thanks - I should have posted the link to my last question Happy

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Fujifilm S4000 - Nikon P500
Jul 30, 2011 11:28AM PDT
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Reviews/requirements
Jul 30, 2011 12:12PM PDT

Many of the reviews I'm reading for the Nikon P500 indicates that blurry pictures are common w/ this camera.
I'm not looking for a camera with a lot of bells and whistles, such as GPS, videos, voice recording. I'm looking for a camera that will take high quality outdoor panoramic/landscape/tourist location photos and then take indoor photos in such locales with lower lighting as cathedrals/churches, pubs, and other indoor shots. Stabilization is a must since this will be a travel camera and I don't want to deal with a tripod.
I also want zoom capability to allow close ups of the fine details in the buildings - and goofy shots of my friends while on this trip.
All comments/suggestions/thoughts are appreciated.

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Blurry Pictures
Jul 31, 2011 12:36AM PDT

The most likely cause for blurry pictures is the 36X zoom.

Many people do not realize that you MUST use a tripod when you are using such a long zoom.

Most people can hold a camera steady enough for zooms up to about 10X zoom.
Image stabilization helps a lot.
But --- zooms beyond 10X require a tripod to get a clear photo.

Something to try:
Use a camera with a large zoom capability.
Set it to maximum zoom and pick out a target in the distance to photograph.
Use the LCD or viewfinder and just watch that target as you hand-hold the camera.
The target will be dancing around like a bug on a hot rock.
That movement you see is cause by you.
You are not holding the camera steady and in the case of 36X zoom you are multiplying your movement by 36.
No image stabilization in the world can cure that movement.

Regarding taking pictures in low light.
Currently there is no long lens camera that does well in low light.
There is only about 6 Non-DSLR cameras that do better than average in low light.
None of them have a zoom much more than 4X.

In other words, you are looking for a camera that does not exist.
You need to lower your expectations.

..

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I'd recommend the Fuji S400, but with some caviats ...
Jul 31, 2011 7:41AM PDT

I don't have a definitive answer, since I only have the Fuji S4000. However - here's some thoughts on the camera:

I was initially very concerned about the lack of physical aperture. In the 4000 the aperture is actually ND filters to control the light depending on shutter speed. But if you go into the physics of this, the small sensor (1/2.3", CCD) and small format mean that diffraction will start affecting the image quality, even at wide physical apertures. So the Fuji ND solution is actually very good, and I think should be adopted by other manufactuers of small format cameras (in fact I think it is). It ensures a permanently wide aperture and so negates the diffraction problem. This means there's a Depth of Field question: Being such a small format, DOF is pretty deep anyway, and ceases to become a problem at reasonable distances and especially wide focal lengths.

Otherwise, I've seen the camera criticised for ...
- Image quality - nothing that I've had trouble with with the following caviat: There is some issues with the "painted effect" of enlarged portions of the image. I think this is due the jpeg codec and compression processing to avoid the usual graininess you usually get with enlarged jpeg. It's different: whether its preferable to normal jpeg images when zoomed-in - that's up to you. I'm not totally sold, but at normal size, it's a very good sharp image.
- Time between shots - well at 14Mpix that's about 5MB of info to write to memory, probably other cameras do this quicker, but the 4000 isn't bad; However, there are some silly processing events which may prolong the writing to disk, eg face recognition and blink detection. If you turn these off I think the time between shots is rducedlow light noise - could be a small sensor issue, but I've not seen this as a major issue yet.

Usability is basicaly good, once you set your mind to the aperture restrictions.

The zoom range and resulting image quality is actually excellent.

I like that it uses replaceable AA batteries and seems to be good on battery usage on my rechargeables. You have the option to select either the view finder or thee LCD screen.

It has gimmicks like "mark for upload" which I think is a bit of a waste of space, ditto the red-eye and face recognition stuff.

Currently I'm reasonably pleased. It's definitely not pocket sized, but it feels nice to hold. I really need a bit more time to assess the overall image quality, but first glances are good.

So - if you want to avoid the downfalls of theis camera, go for a bigger format and sensor size. otherwise it makes the best of the compromise.

Jerry

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Thanks
Jul 31, 2011 11:01AM PDT

Jerry,