Introduction

The Fuji Finepix S9000 is a large high-end fixed lens digital camera aimed at the prosumer. It is an SLR-styled camera with complete manual controls, a mechanical lens and numerous buttons to give it a professional feel. This camera's outstanding feature set includes:

• 9 Megapixel sensor
• 10.7X Optical zoom lens
• Wide angle starting at 28 mm
• Mechanical zoom ring
• Electronic focus ring
• Large range of ISO sensitivities (80-1600)
• Shutter speeds from 1/4000s to 30s
• Complete set of manual controls
• Unlimited high-quality movie recording
• AA Batteries

Suitability - What is it good for?

The Fuji Finepix S9000 is designed for a various types of photography. However, it is not designed for portability since it is the size of a small DSLR. The S9000 feels completely sturdy and well built. Even the moveable LCD and the memory card door feel sturdier than average. Since it weighs 755 g, it feels more like a professional tool. The camera can be held securely thanks to its large rubberized grip with a horizontal indentation for the index finger and a vertical indentation for the lower fingers. On the back side of the camera, a small textured protrusion prevents the thumb from slipping to the side.

Pictures from the S9000 can be printed nicely in large size up to 17"x13" thanks to its high quality 9 megapixel Fuji SuperCCD HR sensor. The optical zoom lens starts at 28 mm, which is a moderate wide angle, and goes all the way to 300 mm which is a respectable telephoto. Near the wide-angle end, the lens can focus as close as 1 cm in super-macro mode. This makes the S9000 suitable for most photography subjects including architecture, wildlife and macro.

Since the S9000 provides ISO settings from 80 to 1600 and shutter-speeds from 1/4000th of a second to 30 seconds, it can be used for a vast range of photographic conditions and creativity. Indoor and social occasions can be captured well using the high-ISO settings, while low-light photography can be captured using the slow shutter-speeds available. Even indoor sports can be photographed using fast shutter speeds and high-ISO settings available with this camera. Other lighting conditions can be helped by using the S9000's powerful built-in flash or an external flash attached to the camera's hot-shoe or well-hidden sync-port.

Like no other current camera in its class, the Fuji S9000 is powered by inexpensive AA batteries which makes powering the camera inexpensive and versatile. Using 4 AA batteries, its battery life is above average. It is cheap to get extra batteries and, in case you ran out unexpectedly, you can always use readily-available disposable AA batteries. Storage options are also versatile with both Compact Flash and xD cards supported. Since Compact Flash cards are cheaper, faster (See out Memory Performance feature) and available in larger sizes than xD, we recommend people who don't already have memory cards of either type to buy Compact Flash cards for the Fuji S9000. However, owners of xD cards shouldn't worry as the performance of the S9000 does not seem to be affected by the performance of memory cards.

Capability - What can it do?

Beyond taking pictures in a large variety of conditions suitable for large prints, the Fuji Finepix S9000 packs some useful and interesting features. Below is a list of its most useful features, followed by explanations, when required.

• Metering modes: evaluative, spot and average.
• Focus control: single auto focus, continuous auto focus, manual focus.
• Auto focus modes: center, multi-point, area.
• Exposure compensation: +2 to -2 EV, in 1/3 stop increments.
• Flash modes: off, auto, redeye, off, slow-sync, slow-sync with redeye.
• Drive modes: single frame, first 4-frames, 3-frame bracket, final 4-frames, long period.
• Photography modes: fully automatic, program automatic, shutter priority, aperture priority, manual, anti-blur, natural light, portrait, landscape and night.
• Other: Auto exposure lock or toggle, focus check, image playback with deletion, pan, zoom, rotation and trimming.
• Multiple exposure.

Most features are pretty common for this type of camera. The first things that require explanations are the drive modes. Obviously, in single frame mode, the camera takes a single picture when the shutter is pressed down. The first 4-frames mode is the typical burst mode where the camera focuses once, takes 4 pictures. As the name suggest, it takes up to 4 frames. It does so at 1.5 FPS, and shows a brief review of each picture after its taken. Then, the 3-frame bracket is standard bracketing which produces one properly exposed frame, one underexposed and one overexposed. The increments are selectable to 1/3 EV, 2/3 EV or 1 EV. The final 4-frames drive-mode is a fantastic Fuji invention which has made it into many Fuji digital cameras and several models from other manufacturers. Basically, the camera takes pictures continuously at 1.5 FPS but only saves the last 4 frames taken. This is a very valuable feature for action shots when it is difficult to anticipate the action. Finally, the long period drive mode takes pictures at roughly 1 FPS for up to 40 images. Most photography modes and scene modes are also typical. The natural light mode is basically a flash-off mode which is locked with automatic ISO selection.

The AE-L button either locks the exposure while it is pressed or sets it until the AE-L button is pressed again. The specific operation of this button depends on an obscure menu which chooses between AE-L 1 and AE-L 2. The Focus-Check button magnifies the center of the live-preview, to facilitate manual focusing or validating the auto-focus. Unfortunately, neither the LCD nor EVF is precise enough to make this entirely accurate.

The multiple-exposure feature is unique to Fuji S-series digital cameras except for some film cameras. Multiple exposure allows pictures to be taken on top of each other. This is just like taking a series of pictures without advancing the film. The main difference is that, since this is the digital era, we can undo the last exposure. Fuji implemented a simple system where each time a picture is taken, the resulting multiple-exposure is previewed. The preview screen allows the photographer to either accept the last shot or discard it. This makes multiple exposures much easier than with traditional film cameras since the result can be undone and redone until it is satisfactory. Of course in the digital era, we can produce the same effect using imaging software such as Photoshop. Undeniably though, the result will be different as a result of the difference in work flow. With in-camera multiple exposure, we can reshoot on location until satisfied. With a software, the pictures have to be correct in advance unless you are willing to return on location.

Usability - How easy is it to use?

While the basic camera operation of the S9000 is strait forward, in use its ergonomics can be a pain to use and even frustrating at times. Note that we saved the best for last and this is not the last part of the review!

The S9000 is turned on by a rotating switch surrounding the shutter release. Like all switches on this camera, it feels solid and has nice well-defined positions with audible clicks. The power switch has 3 positions: off, playback and photography. Since there is no other way to pan, zoom and delete images without entering playback mode, the camera must be switched mode quite often. Switching to playback mode takes about 4 seconds, which is way too slow. This seriously affects one of the joys of having a digital camera, which is to review pictures on the spot.

One of the pleasures of a few digital cameras is a mechanical optical zoom lens. Fuji has equipped the S9000 with a large zoom ring which is easy to grab and turns very smoothly. Having a mechanical zoom ring means that zooming from 28 mm to 300 mm can be done in a quarter second and there are no zoom steps to interfere with precise framing. There is also an electronic focus ring which also turns very smoothly. Since it is not linked mechanically, it feels kind of loose. It also does not seem sensitive enough (although this is subjective).

The shutter release is pretty standard with a slight halfway point. The photography mode and control dial both feel quite good with indentations to facilitate gripping. There are a few functions which get their own buttons which must be pressed either alone or while rotating the control dial. These buttons are: exposure compensation, flash mode, drive mode, auto-exposure lock, EVF/LCD switch, focus check, display, info, macro mode, spot focus, custom white balance and flash release. It is great to see so many important features get their own buttons. The only important functions missing their own buttons are white balance and ISO sensitivity. The auto-exposure lock button is a bit too far to be comfortable. The INFO button toggles the amount of information displayed, while the display button changes what is displayed. Having these two features separate spares the user some button presses which would be otherwise necessary. The spot focus is also a welcome button not often seen on digital cameras. In manual focus mode, the spot focus button lets the camera establish focus at the center of the image, basically setting a starting point from which to adjust focus manually. There are also 2 rotating switches, one for the metering and one for the focus mode. While good to have, the metering switch is a bit small and hard to grip because its very close to the EVF. The flash release switch is a hardware switch which releases the built-in flash. Flash modes settings are only applied when the built-in flash is up.

The Finepix S9000 has essentially 2 menu buttons, one labeled F and one labeled MENU/OK. The F button summons the quick access menu which allows changing 3 options: image resolution, ISO sensitivity and color mode. Fuji needs to learn that, of these 3 options, only ISO is frequently changed. This would be a good place for actually important settings which don't have external buttons like white-balance. Well, at least there is a button for custom white balance! At least this menu is fairly simple to use. We unfortunately don't have the same opinion of the other menu system. The menu which appears when you press the MENU button is very similar to the highly criticized menu on the Fuji Finepix F10. Consequently, it has the same shortcomings. That menu is full of small icons and text only appears when an option is highlighted. This implies that if you don't know which icon corresponds to what, you have to search through items one by one. This menu must be used to change white-balance and focus modes which requires too many clicks.

The self timer options (either 2 second or 10 second) must also be selected using the full menu. Not only does this require too many clicks, but it resets each time. Common practice, based on work flow, would be to reset the 10 second timer each time but not the 2 second timer. A nice feature of the timer is that it displays a countdown. Another missing feature that only Konica-Minolta seems to offer is the auto-switching between the LCD and the EVF based on a proximity sensor. Its not essential, but one gets used to it very fast. Speaking of the LCD and EVF, they are both easily visible in low-light and in bright sunlight. The active display can be brightened by pressing the DISP button simultaneously with the exposure compensation button, thus improving visibility in extreme lighting conditions.

Hang on, we are almost over with our ergonomic complaints about this camera! Many of these problems are not unique to this camera, but Fuji is behind other manufacturers in this respect and it would make the camera much more enjoyable if these problems were solved. The pan and zoom feature for reviewing images is quite weird. The 4-way controller is used to for both panning and zooming in a way that is just puzzling: the up and down arrows are used for zooming and all the arrows are used for panning. So, how does the S9000 known the difference between zooming in and panning up? As soon as you pan either left or right, the vertical arrows will serve panning, the DISP/BACK button will be used to make them back into zooming mode. If the DISP/BACK button is pressed while the vertical arrows are used for zooming (and horizontal arrows are used for panning), then pan and zoom is aborted.

There are plenty of other minor things to complain about. For one, there are many settings which are not available at certain times. The Auto ISO and the long-period continuous drive mode options are not available in Program (P), Shutter-Priority (S), Aperture Priority (A) and Manual (M) mode. The full range of shutter speeds and apertures are only available in manual mode. We know that Olympus has also limited shutter-speeds in semiautomatic modes, but this is the first time we saw apertures being limited. Another minor annoyance was the camera strap eyelet being too close to the memory card door which caused the strap to get in the way of closing the compartment door. Finally, the Finepix S9000's manual, which luckily comes in printed format, has way too much fine print.

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