Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera Review

Mar 26, 2007 - By Patrick Singleton
In the film era, shooting infrared was just a matter of buying the right film. If you wanted to be serious about it, you would also need a special-use filter. Digital photography changed that. Photographers who wanted to shoot infrared digitally could hack their cameras (or pay a pro to do it) by removing the UV and IR cutoff filter, or count on incredibly low sensitization. That was until the introduction of the Fujifilm FinePix S3 UVIR, released last year. Essentially, it's a prehacked version of the S3. Fujifilm removed the cutoff filter and replaced it with clear glass. The result is a camera that is sensitive to ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light. With the use of filters the camera can produce infrared or ultraviolet images. For this reason, the S3 UVIR will appeal to scientific and forensic photographers.
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Auto Mode
The S3 UVIR's meter is only sensitive to visible light. Though all the auto modes are available on the camera, they are useless because they don't measure all the light that affects its exposure.

Custom Image Presets
The S3 UVIR preserves the S3's film emulation modes, which are supposed to make S3 files resemble Velvia or Provia film shots. Their effect on UV and IR shots wasn't noticeable in our testing.

Drive / Burst Mode
The S3 UVIR's burst mode is variable, depending upon the dynamic range setting. With extended dynamic range, it shoots about one frame per second in JPEG. RAW was faster, but in both cases, the buffer filled up quickly, allowing for bursts of only six images in JPEG and three in RAW.

Playback Mode
The S3 UVIR offers all the playback features of the S3, showing histograms, highlight warnings, and magnifying images up to nearly 19x – plenty to check focus. The S3 UVIR also allows simple slide shows and in-camera cropping of images.

Movie Mode
The S3 UVIR offers no movie mode. The sensor can't stay active for periods long enough to make movies.

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