This is my 2nd digital camera, and it replaced my Olympus 4000, which was excellent, but I wanted more zoom, an electronic viewfinder, and longer shutter times. The 5100 has certainly delivered, with a couply of relatively small compromises. The Olympus 4000 menus and controls are a tough act to follow. However, it seems that Olympus and Fuji share some technology, icons, and ideas.The physical handling of the 5100 is excellent, with a very secure-feeling, molded grip for your right hand. I found all the control buttons well-placed and easy to manipulate.
When you sort through all the cameras out there, looking for 10x optical zoom, extended grip, and the ability to use AA batteries, the list quickly narrows! I use sets of 2500 mAh nickel-metal AA batteries, and an inexpensive charger.
Another great feature is the included lens tube adapter, lens cap, and cap-keeper. Just screw on a 55mm UV or skylight filter, and you can completely enclose and protect the lens assembly. At the fully wide position, you will see a small amount of vignetting (shadowing) at the corners if you have more than one filter screwed on.
I found the electronic viewfinder to be more helpful than an optical viewfinder, and still visible outdoors in sunlight. You can also read and manipulate the settings without taking your eye from the viewfinder.
I purchased a couple of 512 MB XD cards with the camera. You will really need the extra memory when you take movies. Movie mode, at a full 30 frames/sec, was surprisingly good, even if you can't change the zoom or focus once you start a movie. Startup, and writing pics and movies to the XD card is nice and fast.
The self-timer includes an extra 2-second setting, which is useful for activating the shutter without shaking the camera, such as for long exposures or telephoto shots on a tripod.
The adjustable white balance works quite well. The slickest way to make the most of this feature and to set exposures in manual, is to use a photographic gray card. The one I bought was 8x10 inches. I cut out a smaller rectangle, about 4x6 inches, that fits in my photo bag. One side is pure white, and the other is a special shade of gray. To set the white balance, place the card with the white side toward you, in the same light as the subject, zoom in on it, and activate the manual white balance function in the menu. This assures you of near perfect color no matter what the lighting is.
The manual exposure mode of the camera allows you to set the shutter and aperture quickly, and there is an exposure meter in the display that shows you how your settings compare with the automatic metering. The slick way to set exposure is to use the gray side of the gray card, place it in the same light as the subject, zoom in on it, and set your shutter and aperture until the exposure meter is centered. Once, done, you can just concentrate on zooming and framing to compose your shots, as long as the lighting is the same.
I tested the S5100 with a remote flash unit and a slave trigger adapter, which allow you to create professional, portrait-type lighting quite easily. Unlike my previous digital, the S5100's flash synch and metering seems to be compatible with this technique. You set your external flash to automatic, which is calibrated for a specific ISO film speed and aperture. It's easy to use the aperture priority mode in the S5100 to match these settings. Then using an inexpensive slave trigger device that clips onto the hot shoe of the external flash unit, you can place the external flash/trigger assembly on a mini tripod off to the side and up high, perhaps on a bookshelf, aimed at your subject. The S5100's pop-up flash illuminates the subject from the front, and the slave trigger fires the external flash at the same time, providing the main light from above and to the side.
The power saving function of the S5100 worked just fine as set from the factory. It blanks the LCD/viewfinder after 2 minutes, to save power, and will shut the camera off if you don't press any buttons after that.
A neat feature that is not apparent in the specifications is the ability to record a 30 second (or less) voice memo with each picture. You can record these any time after the pic is taken and stored on the card. When you play back a pic, you can hit a button to play back the corresponding voice memo, which is stored as a separate audio file. You can also hit another button to display all the technical exposure information for each pic, which is automatically stored in each pic file.
So far, I have just a couple of complaints. When playing back pics or movies to a TV using the included video cable, I have yet to find a way to rotate images taken in portrait orientation. Turning your head sideways to watch is not very comfortable! If you know a way to do this, please post it here! As mentioned in other reviews, the manual focus mode doesn't have a distance meter to help you: you have to carefully study the display while adjusting to judge the best focus. This is particularly hard to do in low light.
The controls are fairly intuitive, I'm the kind of person who jumps right in with a gadget instead of pouring over the instruction manual first, and there were very few things that I couldn't figure out how to do just by working with the camera itself.
The video and sound quality is absolutely amazing. If you get a 512mb xd card, you can record movies with sound well over seven minutes long at a 640x480 display, and much longer if you cut the display size.
What I really love about this product is the ability to continuously shoot. Basically, you set the camera to continuous shoot and press the button, the camera will keep taking shots (just under 2 per second) for up to 40 exposures, perfect for my line of work.
Also, it's extremely lightweight. At just under 12 oz, the batteries are the heaviest part of the camera (4 AA).
The flash works perfectly, providing ample illumination even at full 10x zoom.
You can take video while zoomed in, something else my stylus cant do. I love being able to zoom in on something far away (again, sporting events) and capture the movement. My old camera would only record videos with the zoom pulled all the way back.
Now for the Cons:
-It's a hog for memory on your computer. A full length video of over 7 minutes comes near half a gig of memory on my laptop (i know, obvious, a 512 mb card = half a gig no matter what media you put on it, so this is something every camera will do). Just making sure that people are aware that if they're planning on making a series of longer movies or taking a giant amount of pictures, as with any camera, it would be a good idea to invest in a burner.
-You're going to need add ons. The price of this camera alone is amazingly fair for what it can do. I would highly recommend buying a larger xd memory card to accompany it though. Depending on your needs, anywhere between 128 and 512 megs should be fine. You just cant utilize everything this camera is capable of doing with only 16 megs of space. Also, I'd consider picking up the case and possibly a battery recharger so you don't end up spending a chunk of money every so often on one time use batteries, but that's up to you.
In Conclusion:
I would highly recommend one of the finepix cameras, and though I didn't pick it out as it was a gift, and I had no previous loyalty to fuji, I'm a believer now. The s5100 appears to be middle of the road for their non pro series of finepix, you can go higher or lower based on your needs, but this camera really can do it all.
It's excellent for a wide field of consumers. Those who are brand new to digital photography will find it easy to learn, the centering and automatic tools will make taking snapshots a breeze. The more experienced users will enjoy the bevy of advanced features it offers. The video makers will enjoy the quality of the images they record.
Great camera, moreso when compared with others in its price range. A wonderful gift.
Buy Fujifilm Finepix S5100 4MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom Now
I have had this camera for a couple of months now and overall am very pleased with it. It is easy to use and a pleasure to use. It has excellent battery life when used with good NiCad's AA rechargeable batteries (no proprietary battery). It is not a full sized SLR though it looks like one and it is not a pocket sized digital camera but the size fits nicely in between the two. It has a good grip and feel to it.Pluses include: Fairly compact. 10X Zoom is great and moves fast. Good range flash. Auto focus works well except when in macro mode. Outside images look very good most of the time. Low light shooting is excellent as is the red eye reduction. Movie mode is also excellent 30fps 640 X 480and works well in low light. --though you cannot move zoom. Microphone pics up audio well. Movie mode rivals that of standard DV movie camcorder though you need large memory card of at least 256mb. Menu system is also excellent and easy to navigate. Sharp but small 1.5 inch LCD screen.
Minuses include: Macro mode does not work well no matter what the setting, cannot use zoom during movie mode, comes with only 16mb XD memory card, software not great but if you have imaging software on your computer and Windows XP you do not need to install the Fuji software. There is no manual focus ring control you have to use buttons on back of camera. You can an only select between 1, 2 or 4 megapixels modes but can switch between them easily. Small but sharp and clear 1.5 inch LCD screen.
Overall I would recommend the Fuji s5100 for beginners to intermediate photographers. It has good auto (no need to touch) mode and good manual controls for intermediate and advanced users. It is not too big nor too small and fits in the hand nicely. The Fuji s5100 is easy to use, takes good pictures and movies and has a great and easy to use menu system. No proprietary battery system just plain old AA's. If you use rechargeables they last a long time.
Read Best Reviews of Fujifilm Finepix S5100 4MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom Here
I've read many reviews of the S5100 and have found that many of the pros have addressed the pros/cons of this camera ad nauseam. So I will simply add info that you won't find in most websites:* Use a low ISO setting for reduced noise in the picture. I found the lowest setting, 64 ISO, gives me the least noise in my photos (indoors and outdoors).
* You don't need a 256MB or 512MB xD card unless you're going to be outside away from a PC for extended durations. I bought a 128MB card becauase it was inexpensive and holds 66 high quality pics (4MP in FINE mode, 6:1 compression) which is about 3 rolls of film. If I was going to take lots of photos for a week out in some excursion, I'd probably buy a few of the 512MB cards. If you want to just mess around and take snaps for your blog, website, or a school newspaper or project, the 128MB comes at a great price and offers decent storage size.
* Definitely get NiMH rechargeable batteries with the highest capacity. For a recharger, I recommend the Maha Powerex. I'm using Energizer AA 2.5 AH NiMH batteries and they've lasted at least a week.
* Remember to use the MACRO (Flower) feature for taking very close pics. If I can get the detail off of the center electrode from a Motorcraft spark plug, so can you.
* Definitely get a filter!!
The lens adapter that comes with the S5100 takes a standard 55mm filter. I recommend Hoya Multi-Coated filters as they appear almost invisible to the naked eye. I thought the store sold me a metal ring until I saw a reflection of the glass. Remember those Lenscrafters Invisibles commercials? The coatings on each side of the glass allows for 97%-99% light transmission with minimal reflectivity. That is why they appear almost invisible!
The Fuji lens cap will NOT work with a 55mm filter, so you will need a 55mm snap-in lens cap along with a Sima Cap Keeper II.
The filter protects your camera lens from damage. If you crack the filter it is only a few bux to replace compared to a new camera lens.
* Get a camera bag. The Fuji holster is a piece of garbage worth only about 1/4 the asking price. Get a decent mini zoom SLR camera bag.
Overall, the S5100 is NOT a Canon Rebel Digital SLR, but it worked just like my Minolta 35mm film SLR.
You get 10x optical zoom, and up to 36x digital+optical zoom in the 0.03MP mode. At 36x you can actually pick out the details from your subject.
The 640x480 VGA video looks spectacular. VGA mode is about 80MB/min while the 320x240 mode is 40MB/min.
What remains to be the seen is the durability of the S5100 in a mid to long term fielding.
Want Fujifilm Finepix S5100 4MP Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom Discount?
I'm an avid SLR fan and this is my first digital camera. I love it's SLR like shape without being all that big. I've been playing with the camera taking video, black and white pix and of course lots of color shots. My daughter plays soccer so I've been taking action shots and they come out great. The video is crisp and clear. I love that I can play the video and pics through my VCR to my TV and also play with them on my computer.The only negative is that the flash doesn't automatically pop-up when it's needed, you get an icon displayed on the LCD or optical viewer telling you the light is too low. I love the optical viewer's adjustments so I can see without my glasses. The LCD is small but good enough to give you a rough idea of how the pictures turned out. Viewing them on a computer or TV is the best way to see the true picture quality. The software that comes with the camera is marginal, I have other photo software that works better in editing and viewing the pictures. Also, since this camera uses AA batteries you will never be stuck with a dead battery and no way to recharge it. I did purchace the 256mb XD card and rechargeable batteries for this camera, shop around, prices really vary!!
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