I've been waiting for this camera ever since I found out about it a month ago and flew down to the camera shop as soon as they told me it had arrived. I had read all the specs and seen the pics of the camera, and wanted to find out if it was all style and no substance, or if there really was a heart inside the beast. The shop owners opened the box for me to inspect, attached the screen protector, strap and lens cap string, and I took it for a spin before I even left the shop.
Before I say anything more, I'd better let you know my digital camera background. I've been using them ever since they first came out about 10 years ago. Sony DSC-30, Kyocera SL300 (world's first 3.3 fps limited only by size of memory card), Nikon S4, Canon 350D, Nikon s10, Nikon P90, Pentax k-x. In addition, I have always used mobile phones with camerasxcute (world's first 3 mpxl mobile phone camera), SE k810, k850, Motorola ZN5, Samsung Innov8, SE Satio. So i've used a wide range of digital cameras.
Initial feeling:
1. Camera felt lighter than I expected, even with the 4 AA batteries in place.
2. Solid plastic, yet at the same time a little hollow.
3. Great gripright side hand grip is deep and rubberised for gripping.
4. Thankfully the lens cap has a string attaching it to the shoulder strapno chance of losing it or wondering where to put the cap when you take it off.
5. Lots of buttons at the back. Going to have to refer to the manual quite a bit.
6. The "chrome" ring on the bottom right feels a bit cheap. Though I guess use of plastic helps reduce the weight.
7. It's amazing how friendly store people can be once you buy something from them. I was dripping sweathot day, so they gave me a cup of water :)
8. The screen is beautiful. I can't say it enough. It's very clear and bright, even with screen protector on.
9. The lens has an INCREDIBLE zoom range24mm to 720mm (35mm format) and feels very smooth when you manually zoom.
10. Zooming ring has good grip, but the pattern isn't attractive.
11. Shop owner told me the lens is 58mm diameterthat's good because I can use my IR and UV filters.
12. Electronic view finder is ok, but I find for "bridge" cameras they tend to be small in size. Only the dslr's have eyepieces which are a good size which is comfortable for your eye. Ignoring the size, the EVF quality is good, and you may have read about the sensor next to it, which activates the EVF when you bring your eye to it. So the 3 inch LCD screen turns off and the EVF turns on when you bring your eye to the EVF.
What about the photos?
13. Really good. I've taken about 100 photos so far, mostly at night. You have to be quite steady, even with the shake reduction function on (there are 4 options for shake reduction!!!), especially at the maximum zoom. But if you are, then the photo is very very good and sharp. Not quite as sharp as the Pentax k-x, which is known for it's low light performance, but it's pretty damn good. It's certainly good enough for me. Colours seem accurate and bright. Focusing in good light was pretty fast. Focusing in low level light was slower. In poor light it might even hunt for 2-4 seconds and flash a focusing light. It takes about 1 to 3 seconds to save a photo, so it's not high speed unless you use that function.
14. The focusing is active. That is on auto, it will focus on faces, and even if those people are moving around, you can see the focus square remain glued to their face. My friends had to move side to side pretty fast for the HS-10 to lose the lock.
There are so many fancy functions on this camera that I have really only just scratched the surface of what this baby can do. But I'm very glad to say there is substance in the HS-10. If you are in the market for a bridge camera, the HS-10 should definitely be on your shopping list.
Added 15th April 2010.
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Despite the overcast and rainy conditions which plague me whereever I go, I've taken another 120 odd photos during the periods of "only" cloudiness and intermittant sunshine.
15. The photos are 24mm and at 720mm have differing sharpness. Colour is good for both though.
At 24mm, you can see the whole photo, but you quickly see grainy outlines when you try to zoom in.
At 720mm, the photo remains surprisingly sharp when you enlarge or zoom in on the photo. Not quite the same sharpness as my Pentax k-x, but much better than I expected.
16. I've always had high zoom cameras and each time I buy up, I get surprised by how much closer I can get to a subject. This time though, I noticed something new. Usually, if I take a photo at the widest angle and then one at max zoom, you can see how much closer you can zoom in because you can usually see the surroundings around the object to compare with.
This time however, you can zoom in on something that looks like a little dot in the 24mm photo and it's so close that you literally can't tell it's a zoomed up photo because it looks like a totally different photo.
eg: I was on an overhead walkway and took a 24mm photo of the road. A traffic light was about 400 metres ahead. I zoomed in and I got a clear photo of the back of 2 cars and the licence plates. You'd think I had been standing just 5 metres away with a normal camera it was so good.
In another example, I took a 24mm pic of an outside wall of a very colourful shopping centre. It's about 6 storeys high, so ground floor shop windows look like dots. When I zoomed to 720mm through the window, I got a very clear photo of the inside of the shop, with no reference to the outside of the building wall at all.
This zoom is POWERFUL.
I have no idea what the next generation of zoom lenses will allow us to do when they go to, say 850mm, 1000mm plus!
17. f stops seems pretty good.I can take close ups of flowers and have both foreground and background nicely out of focus.
18. Do keep a steady hand. Brace yourself against a pole or solid object if you can. It really helps in taking a sharp photo. It has good image stabilisation, but it's not a miracle worker.
Thanks again all for reading :)
Update 1st May 2010
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19. I've taken a few more photos and can say the following. The daytime photos are good. Not quite as good as my Pentax kx, but good. Sharpness, colour, detail are all more than acceptable. The lens is great for portraits, and the zoom speaks for itself. The tiltable screen makes the camera much more versatile than a fixed screen camera too.
20. There are two areas that I find the camera disappointing.
The first is the time needed to save each photo2 to 3 seconds. It's pretty slow. In comparison, my Pentax kx is just take the photo and instant save. Granted, most non dslr cameras are also non instant picture saving, but it seems even slower than my Nikon s10 and Kyocera sl300r, or even my Motorola ZN5 mobile phone.
The second is photo viewing software. Firstly, it's not so easy to view multiple photos because it enlarges the picture you have the cursor on, so it covers the photos next to it. Secondly, as has already be noted by some disappointed reviewers, deleting a photo takes you right back to the end. If you've got hundreds or thousands of photos, that's a real irritant. It's true that holding down a direction on the chrome ring will very very quickly flick through the photos to get you back to where you were, but it's a real hassle.
At least on the other hand, when you connect to the computer, there is only 1 folder for the photos, unlike my nikons, which have numerous folders "100dscn", 200dscn" etc.
21. Finally, I've taken a few videos and I've found the HD vids all look smooth on the camera LCD, but very jerky, kind of frame by frame, when i play on my computer. I don't have this problem if I record in 640 x 480 (320?) format though. It's probably my computer being old, but I wonder if anyone else has this problem?
Thanks again for reading :)
Edit 19th April 2011
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I ended up selling my HS10 last year for two main reasons. Writing times were too slow, and the software for reviewing photos was poor. I meandeleting a photo and taking you to the very end again is pretty bad when you've got hundreds or thousands of photos on your card.
But the reason I'm adding a bit here is that I've been following the reviews of the Fujifilm HS20, which was released recently. It seems to have taken care of most of the problems I mentionedquicker writing speed, and viewing and deletion of photos, and added a new problem insteadoverheating of some part of the camera, which causes the camera to cease working. I can say that for all the hundreds of photos I took with the HS10, I never had overheating for a problem.
Such a pity that Fujifilm can't get such a fantastic camera right.
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