The Fuji Finepix S700, known in Europe as the S5700, is the first of Fuji's budgets ultra-zoom cameras. For its price it brings in a respectable feature set which includes full-manual controls, 10X optical zoom and great handling.

 

Image quality is also respectable but not without its flaws. Although noise levels are low, the S700 is not as impressive as the SuperCCD-equipped Fuji cameras like the Fuji Finepix S6000fd. The main limitations of the Fuji Finepix S700 are its very slow shot-to-shot speeds (about 3s) and its poorly-accurate viewfinders (EVF & LCD). While nearly every other digital camera shows 100% coverage on its EVF and LCD, the S700 only shows 97%, thus removing one of the WYSIWYG advantages of having live-view. In a time when even DSLR cameras are starting to have this feature, this seems inexcusable.

 

In terms of competition, it is important to realize that this feature-set is rare at this price-point. The already mentioned Fuji Finepix S6000fd is clearly a superior camera but it costs nearly twice as much. The Fuji S5200 and the Olympus SP-510 are probably the most similar cameras, although both more features than the Fuji S700 and the S5200 generally produces superior results.