Rangefinder Magazine
December 2005

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Field Test Michael Campbell
Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro Digital Cameras

THE FEELING JUST GOT much better. I am, of course, referring to the new rubberized grip of the Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro, which is very comfortable and gives you the feeling of having a secure grip on your investment. The new camera now also has a vertical grip.

There are several other distinct improvements in the latest professional camera from Fujifilm, the FinePix S3 Pro.

The camera is very similar to the FinePix S2 Pro, so anyone already familiar with that camera will be able to start working with the FinePix S3 Pro immediately.

Compared with the S2 Pro, the S3 Pro gives a range of contrasts controlled by the setting, which can be used to accommodate a wide subject-brightness range. The image is darker by about half a stop and is also a little sharper than the S2, and, at least on several of my tests, is also slightly bluer.

Dynamic Range

The most significant improvement is the increased dynamic range (D-RNG) that the camera can capture without producing blown-out highlights. This is especially useful for outdoor photography, where the lighting is often not totally under the photographer’s control.

With the FinePix S2 Pro and other cameras I have used, a seven-step range in subject brightness is about the maximum that could be recorded. But with the FinePix S3 Pro this increases to eight, nine or (maybe) even 10 steps.

You can set the dynamic range to Auto, Wide 1 or Wide 2. In addition, there are three options to choose from under each of the headings of Color, Tone and Sharpness. This results in a great many possible combinations, so initially trying to figure out which setting to use can be rather frustrating. Another unique feature of this camera is the Film Simulation Mode, which gives the image characteristics either of negative color film (F1) or reversal color transparency film (F2).

F1 Simulation Mode stresses smooth tonal transitions in the reproduction of skin tones. It is ideal for portrait studio work where the aim is professional standard negative (i.e. pro neg film). F2 simulation mode provides vibrant reproduction of natural colors, such as blue skies, and is ideal for landscape and nature photography. The results are almost like shooting with slide film.

Color spaces need to be set on sRGB and D-RNG set to wide in order to use these modes. Color, Tone and Sharpness cannot be changed in any F simulation mode.

At the Grand Canyon the sun was shining through storm clouds, producing an extremely wide dynamic range. Top image was shot with Fuji S2 and a Tamron 28–300mm zoom lens at 1/100 at f/13. The lower shot was made with the S3 on Auto D-RNG, providing considerably more detail in the bright clouds with no blown out highlights.

When I was initially testing this camera on the beach for the first time and attempting to decide the correct setting, the model was obviously getting bored. That afternoon in sunny San Diego, CA, the lighting was great for getting a tan but dreadful for photographing portraits. Eventually I gave up and simply set it on Auto and let the camera figure it out for itself! The results were definitely better than those from the FinePix S2 Pro I took at the same time. Normally one avoids photographing in bright sunny conditions and waits until sunset or for a hazy sky, or else the photographer may feel compelled to drag along reflectors, scrims or fill lights and a bunch of assistants to cope with the situation. Even under these adverse circumstances, the images from the Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro showed good detail both in the shadows and in the highlights. The FinePix S2 Pro in the same situation produced images with highlights that were blown out to pure white. For photographers shooting outdoors under a varying range of lighting conditions, like wedding or landscape photographers, this feature alone justifies the price of the camera.

The choice of F1 or F2 film modes as opposed to the various D-RNG, Color, Tone and Sharpness settings may also cause new owners some confusion, so I suggest spending some time making your own evaluation of the various settings.

Cameras with a large dynamic range can capture subtle tonal gradations in the shadow, midtone and highlight areas of the scene. If the camera just lowers the contrast on all images, some will look flat and lifeless. The advantage of the S3 is that you can select the best contrast for the prevailing conditions and type of image. (See the illustration of the four images of the color chart—page 120—to see the range of differences.)

Auto: The camera automatically varies the dynamic range between 100 and 400 percent according to the scene being shot before taking the picture. This mode suppresses white flaring and black drop-out in scenes with high contrast, while also enabling you to achieve good levels of contrast in pictures taken indoors or in cloudy weather where a wide dynamic range is not needed.

Wide 1: Takes pictures with the dynamic range set to 230 percent regardless of the scene being taken.

Wide 2: Takes pictures with the dynamic range set to 400 percent regardless of the scene being taken.

There are a large number of combinations with all the possible settings, and working out what is going on is not made much easier by analyzing the histogram. I am just a simple country lad and tend to use the Auto Mode most often. However, even with my first bungling attempts I have seen significant dynamic range improvement over the S2 that are very usable and can be seen in images. Still, it is going to take me a while before I feel that I am really maximizing the benefits from the dynamic range settings.

Improvements Over the S2

There are several other changes I was really happy to see in the S3. One major improvement for me is the fact that the camera runs on four AAs. With the FinePix S3 Pro, it is no longer necessary to carry extra Li-Ion batteries, which are not only expensive but also less readily available in stores than AA batteries.

The image on the left was made with the S3; the image on the right was made with the S2. Both cameras were set on daylight using studio flash. I used the daylight setting rather than doing a custom white balance and found that the S3 gave a rather blue, lower contrast image when set on the F1 film-emulation setting. The image was sharper than the S2 image, but you really have to zoom in to see the difference. Feedback is less than instant—the writing/processing of the image takes a lot longer with the S3 than with the S2, and it took much longer to bring the image up on the 17- inch monitor I have tethered to the camera.

Although it may seem like a contradiction, I highly recommend using rechargeable batteries and only resorting to alkaline AAs in an emergency. Although alkaline batteries can be used if necessary, they do not seem to last as long as they did in the FinePix S2 Pro. Much of this battery life depends on how you shoot and how often you review the images in the camera. (I find I am less likely to view the images in the FinePix S3 Pro camera, as it is slow). Another factor affecting battery life is the use of micro drives, which use more power than CompactFlash Cards and exhaust the batteries sooner.

Cable Release: You may now use a Nikon electronic cable release. For certain types of portrait work, such as photographing young children, or long exposure times using a telephoto lens, such as astrophotography (e.g. photographing the moon with a 500mm or longer lens), I find this very useful.

Live Image: Live Image is another new feature, but unfortunately it seems rather limited in usefulness. The color LCD on the back can display a monochrome preview of the image on a TV monitor before you take the shot (called Live Image in the menus). I don’t find this to be a plus since you can’t take a picture while it’s active, as you can in the excellent Fujifilm FinePix S20 Pro camera, which I have used for producing a self portrait when I need one. It does allow you zoom in, which is nice for checking focus, I suppose. The regular viewfinder is quite adequate for determining composition and focus under most normal circumstances, although the image is a bit smaller and darker than the Nikon N80’s, on which this camera is based. I did find it useful when I had the camera mounted on a Meade ETX90EC telescope to photograph the moon.

D-3D Flash: Flash sync works to 1/180 second. Flash metering uses five TTL sensors and can be balanced, slow-synced, and synchronized with the rear curtain. The flash system is now D-TTL, which requires an SB-28DX, SB-50DX, SB-80DX, SB-600, or SB- 800 Speedlight, and which always performs a pre-flash. The camera then instantaneously monitors the reflections from each part of the image using the sensors in its five-zone TTL autoflash control. This information is further enhanced using the information on subject distance provided by the lens and the camera then determines the flash brightness that will perfectly balance the subject and the background light.

Viewfinder: The viewfinder shows about 94 percent of the full frame, which means you’re not seeing around 50 to 75 pixels worth of information at every edge. Shutter speed, aperture, exposure mode, metering method, focus indicator, exposure compensation, and flash ready are all visible in the viewfinder. Unfortunately, a frame counter is not present. The viewfinder is still a bit small but a little better than the FinePix S2 Pro. The camera information appears quite far from the image area, and wearing glasses, I must choose either to see the whole image but not the data, or else move my eye and look at the data but lose the top third of the image. In the FinePix S2 Pro this seemed to be less of a problem.

Setting the S3 camera on F2 film-simulation mode with aperture-priority autoexposure in dull overcast weather delivered terrific skin tones and with a large lens aperture to blur the background, produced a nice way to capture candid portraits of children. S3 at ISO 800 with a 70–300mm Tamron lens handheld at the 300mm setting; exposure was 1/500 at f/5.6.

On the color LCD on the back of the camera, you will get 100 percent of the image. Probably of most use is the color LCD’s ability to display the histogram of any picture, supposedly allowing you to adjust exposure to get every scrap of dynamic range out of the sensor. You can also zoom in on your image’s pixels to check focus.

Sensor: The Super CCD SR II sensor the FinePix S3 Pro uses is currently unique to the FinePix S3 Pro. It consists of two 3024x2016 arrays, one with large and another with small photo sites; the normal large-sized photo sites doing the main image capture, with a second set of smaller ones helping with expanding dynamic range by holding highlight detail better. The small photo sites are not sensitive enough to capture any significant shadow detail.

Image Format: You can set the camera to produce either JPEG or RAF (RAW) files. The JPEG options work very well but as you’d expect, but you lose a little of the detail in the compression. In addition, files are converted to 8-bit, losing some of the FinePix S3 Pro’s tonal range in the process. I find the JPEG file works well for general portrait work. Being able to shoot JPEGs with such dynamic range without having to do post work in RAW is a tremendous workflow advantage. And we all know time = money.

The RAF format retains the full 14-bit data the FinePix S3 Pro is capable of acquiring. It doesn’t perform any compression, so the files turn out to be approximately 25 MB in size when the expanded dynamic range is used. In the U.S. the camera comes with Hyper-Utility software, Fujifilm’s converter, and you can also convert the files in Photoshop.

Auto Rotation: One very handy improvement is that vertical files are rotated 90 degrees automatically when you open the folder in Adobe Photoshop CS Browser. However, not all are always detected, and some still must be rotated manually (an available firmware update addresses this problem).

Weight: The camera weighs 28.7 ounces without a lens or the batteries, so it’s a lot lighter than the D1 and D2 bodies. It’s only two ounces heavier than the FinePix S2 Pro, but feels more substantial and is much easier to hold.

Image Noise: Overall, noise handling on the FinePix S3 Pro is excellent and an improvement over the already good S2 Pro.

Although this is hardly a typical subject, the GretagMacbeth color chart reveals a lot about the color reproduction of a photographic system. The S2 has always done a great job with all the colors in the chart and the S3 reproduced them well also with the added control of the D-RANGE setting. I found the best rendition was when I used the F2 film mode where the colors really popped. Left side set on Film 1 mode; on right side set F2 film mode.

Autofocus: The autofocus seems faster than on the FinePix S2 Pro. Fujifilm uses a slightly different autofocus sensor pad (four way button on the camera back) than the N80 and the S2 Pro. It’s nowhere near as stiff as the pad some of the Nikon bodies use, and the location is not handicapped by nearby bumps or controls. Unlike the FinePix S2 Pro’s concave pad, the FinePix S3 Pro’s is a smaller concave area within a raised button, which makes it easier to push to one side or another with your thumb.

The camera is a significant upgrade in terms of image quality, especially in terms of extended dynamic range. The resolution and color are excellent. The body feels more solid and is more comfortable to hold. Use of AA batteries only is a definite plus. Autofocus is fast and effective.

The negative factors (apart from the price) are that reviewing images has become much slower. Write speed also seems slow. TTL flash is now D-TTL and many of the flash units that worked with the S2 will not work on the S3. Shutter speed is in 1/2-stop intervals. The histogram is rather small and unclear.

The Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro is undoubtedly the best digital camera I’ve ever used. There are a few things I would like changed or added, such as a mirror up feature, the ability to take a photograph from the Live Image Mode, and a true 100 percent viewfinder (like my old F5). However, overall I consider it to be the best value on the market for the sort of work I do (mostly portraiture and commercial). It is worth the time spent testing the various settings on the camera to learn how to get the maximum quality under the types of conditions in which you normally work. Having everything set on Standard will give very usable results, but finetuning the controls will give you the exceptional image quality this camera is capable of producing.