Manual Control Options
The Fujifilm FinePix S3 allows full manual control of shutter speed and aperture, as well as ISO, color saturation, contrast, dynamic range, sharpening, and focus. The settings are not as fine and precise as many users would like. Aperture and shutter speed vary in half-stop increments rather than third-stops; saturation, contrast and sharpening settings are essentially limited to “high,” “low,” and “unchanged,” and ISO varies in full stops. The exposure-related settings are an inherent limitation of the components that Fuji buys, rather than what it manufactures. The image quality settings can be tweaked much more finely in RAW files via Hyper-Utility2 software.
Focus
Auto Focus (6.5)
The camera has five autofocus sensor sites: one in the center of the frame, and others above, below, to the left and to the right of center. The sites all fall within the middle half of the frame. I handled the S3 side by side with an S2 and a Nikon D2H, swapping lenses between the three bodies. The S3’s autofocus mechanism seems identical to the S2’s. Their performance is like the Nikon D70, and significantly inferior to the D2H. The D2H focuses faster, focuses in low light better, has more sensor sites (which are spread further across the frame), and is much more competent at handling moving subjects. In very low light, and light that is both dim and flat, the S2 and S3 can simply fail to focus at all, repeatedly racking the lens from infinity to the close-focus limit of the lens. Though it’s possible to defeat the focusing systems on high-end cameras, many of them work in much dimmer light than the FinePix S3.
It makes sense that the D2H, a $3500 camera designed for sports and photojournalism, performs better than a D70, a $900 camera designed for committed hobbyists. But does it make sense that the $900 D70 has better autofocus capability than the $2500 S3? At wedding receptions, superior autofocus performance would come in handy, which a D70 or S2 can’t offer either. This places S3 users at a disadvantage when the camera is pitted against higher-priced models in this regard. When compared with the autofocus of prosumer-level cameras (which Fuji has tried to distance the S3 from), the camera performs comparably. Then again, while low light focusing capabilities are critical to the target market of the S3, many portrait and wedding photographers are not primarily concerned with focus speed. It’s a tradeoff.
Manual Focus (8.5)
Autofocus can be turned off on the S3, so that the camera does not actuate autofocus lenses. Manual focus with the S3 is comparable to other SLRs: the focusing screen is bright and clear, and focus “snaps in” pretty well. Many older, non-autofocus Nikon AI-mount lenses fit on the S3 body as well. No matter what lens is mounted, the autofocus indicator lights up visibly when focus has been achieved.
Metering (8.5)
Because the FinePix S3 includes Nikon-made components for exposure control and metering, the camera offers standard Nikon fare in metering configurations: spot, center-weighted, and matrix. In this area, Fujifilm chose well in going with Nikon – the Nikon components yield accurate exposures and are straightforward to use.
In spot mode, the metered area is about two percent of the frame. The metered area is usually centered on the active autofocus area. The exception is Closest-subject Dynamic AF mode. In that case, the meter reads only from the center of the frame, while the autofocus system moves around.
Center-weighted metering simply takes an average of the frame, with a heavy bias for the center 12 mm.
Matrix metering is a Nikon-based technology. It computes an exposure based on readings from 10 areas on the frame, and is less likely to be fooled by difficult lighting conditions, such as backlighting, than center-weighted metering. The matrix system can take subject distance into account when D- or G-type Nikon-mount lenses are in use.
The S3 meter does not function with old, non-autofocus Nikkor lenses. Not all of these lenses even fit on the camera. If you want to use the ones that mount on the S3, you’ll need to use a handheld meter, or shoot by trial and error.
Exposure (7.5)
The Nikon N80 legacy haunts the Fuji S3 in this category. The S3 allows only half-stop shifts in shutter speed and aperture, which has long been a sore point for Fuji users. Many other cameras offer one-third stop increments, and the Canon 20D offers a choice between half- and third-stop intervals. Fuji marketing sniffs that third-stop intervals are “…more important to low dynamic range CCD based cameras,” but that seems to be a backhanded acknowledgment of the camera’s shortcoming.
Notably, Fuji’s software for converting camera RAW files to TIFFs allows for one-sixth-stop increments in exposure compensation. But of course, that’s only a way to change the digital file, not a way to get it right in the first place.
The FinePix S3 offers aperture priority automation (you choose the aperture, it chooses the shutter speed); shutter priority (you choose the shutter speed, the camera chooses the aperture) and program (the camera chooses both aperture and shutter speed).
White Balance (7.5)
The S3 offers eight white balance settings: Daylight, Tungsten, three types of fluorescent, Cloudy/Shade, two custom settings, and an Automatic option. Users can set custom settings via the “Set Up” menu. It involves making an exposure of a white card. The FinePix S3 does not offer fine-tuning of white balance as is available on the prosumer-level Canon 20D and the Nikon D70, as well as many professional level DSLRs. The feature would allow the user to tweak the white balance in small increments directly within the camera, and it can be very useful. There are a other settings that were excluded from the S3 that would have been useful as well: typically, the Daylight setting is a little cool for electronic flash, so a specific flash white balance preset would be nice, along with separating the “cloudy” and “shade” options.
ISO (8.0)
The Fuji S3 offers ISO settings from 100 to 1600; except for a 160 setting, they are in full-stop increments. The S3’s performance at 1600 is excellent. The colors are still saturated, and it produces less noise than many competing prosumer and professional level cameras. A 3200 option would have been a nice inclusion, aiding in low light situations and overall flexibility. With the camera’s impressive image quality at ISO 1600, the 3200 rating would undoubtedly be inferior to it, but would likely be the best 3200 available.
Shutter Speed (8.0)
The S3 shutter offers exposures from 30 seconds to 1/4000 of a second, plus a Bulb setting. (“Bulb” leaves the shutter open as long as the shutter release is pressed.) The maximum flash sync speed is 1/180.
Many S3 shooters may feel limited by the rather slow flash sync -- the Nikon D70s offers sync to 1/500. Many other cameras offer a 1/8000 of a second shutter speed as well.
I don’t think many users will miss the 1/8000 setting, but fast flash sync is crucial for good fill flash. In bright sunlight, or in other kinds of contrasting light, many subjects, and particularly people, look better with a bit of extra light to brighten (or “fill” in) the shadows. You set the camera to the proper exposure for the sunlit part, and then adjust the flash to slightly underexpose the shadows. When it’s done right, it’s both natural and flattering. The problem is, in bright sunlight, the correct exposure for the bright parts usually calls for a fast shutter speed and a pretty small aperture. At slower shutter speeds, the aperture setting needed gets too small to be practical to use with portable flashes.
Aperture (7.5)
The Fuji S3 is marketed as a body only, so it doesn’t have an aperture. The camera only has an effect on aperture via its half-stop increments in controlling aperture, and the fact that it won’t control the aperture on non-autofocus lenses.
