Fujifilm Finepix S5500
Review Date: March 17th 2005
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 4M Fine image quality setting, which gives an average image size of around 2Mb.
Noise
There are 4 ISO settings available on the Fujifilm Finepix S5500 which you can select at any time. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
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ISO 64 (100% crop) |
ISO 100 (100% crop) |
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ISO 200 (100% crop) |
ISO 400 (100% crop) |
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The noise levels look excellent at ISO 64, with some noise starting to appear at ISO 100. Noise is clearly apparent at ISO 200 but it is by no means unusable. At ISO 400 the noise level is such that I would only use this setting as a last resort.
Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images at the default Sharpness setting of Normal are definitely on the soft side, with post-processing bringing out quite a lot of extra detail.
Original 100% Crop |
Sharpened 100% Crop |
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File Quality
The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 has 5 different file quality/size settings available with 4M Fine being the best option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.
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4M Fine (1,880Kb) |
4M Normal (908Kb) |
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2M (602Kb) |
1M (456Kb) |
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0.3M (125Kb) |
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Chromatic Aberrations
The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 dealt well with chromatic aberrations. They were only apparent in very high-contrast situations, such as the roof structure and bright white sky in the examples below. When they did appear, chromatic aberrations were visible as a light purple fringing that wasn't too obvious. This was an equal perfomance to the 3 megapixel Fujifilm Finepix S5000.
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Example 1 |
Example 2 |
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Macro
The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 offers a single Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 10cms away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.
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Macro Shot (click to view full-sized image) |
100% Crop |
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Flash
The flash options on the Fujifilm Finepix S5500 are Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Forced Flash and Suppressed Flash (with more options available in Manual mode). These shots of a white wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
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Flash Off - Wide Angle (39mm) |
Auto Flash - Wide Angle (39mm) |
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Flash Off - Telephoto (234mm) |
Auto Flash - Telephoto (234mm) |
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And here are some shots of yours truly. The flash underexposed the scene by about 1/3 stop of exposure. As you can see, neither the Flash On or Redeye settings caused any apparent red-eye.
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Flash On |
Flash On (100% Crop) |
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Flash - Red-Eye Reduction |
Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100% Crop) |
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Night Shot
The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds which is great if you're interested in night photography. The following example was taken using a shutter speed of 15 seconds with an aperture of f/8.0 at ISO 64. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.
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Night Shot (click to view full-sized image) |
100% Crop |
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Overall Image Quality
The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 produced an above average set of test images. The 4 megapixel photos were soft out of the camera at the default setting of Normal and benefit from further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop. Alternatively you can select the Hard sharpening setting on the camera. Noise is well controlled at the slower settings of ISO 64 and 100, but starts to become apparent at ISO 200 and by ISO 400 is very obvious. The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 dealt well with chromatic aberrations, which only appeared in the form of some visible but not too intrusive purple fringing in high-contrast scenes. Macro performance was average, allowing you get as close as 10 cms away from your subject. The built-in flash had a tendency to underexpose slightly indoors, but there was no trace of red-eye. The Fujifilm Finepix S5500 has a lot of potential for night-shots because of the 15 second maximum shutter speed and full manual exposure settings. Overall a good performance in terms of image quality from the Fujifilm Finepix S5500.
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PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Fujifilm Finepix S5500 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.