Fujifilm FinePix S2 Pro 6.2MP Camera Helpful Info

I’ve had an S2 for three years or so (just replaced it with an S3), and I’ve found that the battery life is VERY dependent upon use of the rear-panel color LCD display.

I spent three weeks in the UK in 2004 with the S2 and no charger, so I made a major effort not to play with the color display. I went nearly all three weeks and took 1800 pictures on three sets of NiMH batteries (I finally put a set of alkalines in two days before the end of the trip).

The Lithium cell life depends mostly on flash usage. I usually got four to six months on a set. If one dies in the field, you can use the camera without them. Only the flash doesn’t work.

I am a photographer and i have the Fujifilm Finepix S2 and i LOVE IT!!!
If you are looking for a good (easy to use camera) then this is the one to buy! It does GREAT black and whites. Color is ok on it…..you just have to work with it. But over all GREAT CAMERA!

I bought this camera because my old one broke and I needed a new one. This one was one of the cheaper ones that I found with good reviews. I only gave it a 4 because the pictures come out real bright, guess I miss my old camera, but it does the jobs, its better than spending another 300$!

Please note that this camera does not zoom in movie mode while recording even though the Fuji website says it does and shows pictures of it doing so. I have contacted Fuji to confirm this and advise them to fix their site – as I bought this for this reason to replace a J10 which works fine – still no zoom in movie mode – it is not a good thing.

I unpacked this awesome little camera a few hours ago, and have been putting it through some paces. Overall, I’m impressed.

I’ll start with the good. The portability is top-notch. To give perspective, its about a 1/3″ shorter and twice as thick as my classic iPod, and roughly the same, dainty weight. The screen, while beautiful, will absorb fingerprints, so a cleansing cloth is a must if you’re nitpicky. There are a grand total of eleven buttons on the camera, all of them about as ergonomically pleasing as you can get with a rectangle.

Now on still shots, it’s been my experience that Fuji products tend to jack up the ISO on Auto mode. The J38 is no different. This will result in some noise, in any camera, but unless you go looking for it, there’s no real glaring problem here. The pictures will look fine if you feel like having them printed out, and don’t go over them with a magnifying lens. The Scene Recognition Auto – a setting that decides what the shot should be taken as – is good in theory but so far has been iffy indoors. I’ve gotten a few unwanted flashes with my pictures that I considered well lit.

Luckily, for all those snobs who want the finest Finepix, the manual mode is pretty deep, considering the point-and-shoot type of camera this is. You can change the ISO (100 will produce excellent photos in decent light), the exp. compensation, and the White Balance, along with turning the face recognition on or off. The results of tinkering will usually be obvious from the screen, so this will help ease newbies into exploring the camera’s true capabilities. (A note: the macro mode is adequate but not mindblowing, and there is no super-macro mode)

Oh yeah, the screen. You’re stuck with it, because there’s no viewfinder to be found on this model, but for me that’s a moot point. This type of camera is the kind you hold out in front of you and snap a picture. But the screen’s only real drawback is the speed as which it “draws” your picture to be. There’s just a hint of lag, nothing bad at all, but it will go blurry with fast movement, and at the moment I’m not sure if this affects the focus. I doubt it would.

Video is more than I was expecting. The quality is a smidge above your average professional Youtube video, and stays in pretty good focus as you move. I have a feeling really fast movement might become a blur, but so far it’s been on the ball with recording. Oh, while the zoom doesn’t work while recording (bummer), the built-in microphone seemed to pick up things rather well. I fussed with the buttons while recording, and the clicks and taps on the camera body were picked up a little too good: keep a firm, unmoving grip and you should be good to go.

Internal memory is severely lacking. Like, three 12MP pictures and it’s full. Be sure to pick up a decent SD card, and you won’t have any problems. My 2-gig card can hold over six hundred pictures, or over thirty minutes of footage, and the higher memory SDs are pretty cheap.

I’m totally happy with my purchase. For 100 dollars, I got a camera that needs considerably less of a babying through than my others. That said, it will take a degree of time for a newbie to get the best pictures out of the camera, so an optimistic outlook is needed. For those who are in a hurry to snap something good, or the semi-veteran who doesn’t feel like lugging around his bigger camera, this is a great point-and-shoot with some (eventually) foolproof features.