Fujifilm FinePix HS10

Resolution (10.40)

Often, ultrazoom cameras offer long zoom ranges at the cost of image quality, and the long lens of the HS10 involves some compromises in the quality of the images it captures. In particular, images at both the wide and telephoto ends of the range are unpleasantly soft, with substantial chromatic aberration to boot.

As you can see from the crops below, the image has significant softness at the edges for both the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range, with some visible chromatic aberration at the wide end that shows as a slight colored fringe. More on how we test resolution.

Distortion (15.0)

Despite having a very long zoom range, the HF10 lens has very low distortion, with just a touch of pincushion distortion at the telephoto end of zoom range. This was barely noticeable, though, and we were impressed with the lack of distortion in the images.

Distortion Examples
Wide (4.2mm): 0.05% Barrel Distortion
Mid (24.9mm): 0.04% Barrel Distortion
Tele (126.0mm): 0.36% Pincushion Distortion

Sharpness (8.75)

We were less impressed with the sharpness of the images that the HS10 took. At both the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom range, the images were soft. The center of the image was acceptably sharp, but the edges were extremely soft, as you can see from the samples below. The camera is capable of capturing sharp images, though; we found that the images in the middle of the zoom range were pretty sharp all across the frame. Basically, if you are looking for sharp images, avoid using the widest and longest zoom settings unless you have no other choice.

Chromatic Aberration (7.63)

We also saw significant amounts of chromatic aberration, which shows as a slight color fringe to some objects that is caused by the lens refracting colors of light differently. This was most evident at the widest and mid points of the zoom range, but there was still some aberration at the telephoto end.

Quality & Size Options (12.83)

The HS10 provides plenty of options for image compression and size, with two options for quality (Fine and Normal) and 9 size options. These are divided into three sizes (large, medium and small) and three aspect ratios (4:3, 3:2 and 16:9). Images can also be saved in RAW format, which captures the raw data from the image sensor. This makes it easier to process images after capture.

Image Stabilization (2.73)

The HS10 includes a number of image stabilization modes that use both optical and electronic stabilization methods, moving and element of the lens and boosting the shutter speed respectively to compensate for camera shake. We tested the optical system and found it to be reasonably effective: the overall sharpness of images with the system running in its continuous mode was higher with the system on than off. It is far from perfect, though; we found that with the system enabled, a lot of our images still came out blurry, especially at the longer zoom settings. Below is a crop from our tests that shows part of our test chart with a sharp, angled line with the IS system off and in the Continuous mode. More on how we test image stabilization.

Stabilization Comparisons
Fujifilm HS10	Sony DSC-HX1	Nikon P100	Panasonic DMC-FZ35
Stabilization Off
Stabilization On