Review: The Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd

Remember that moment in music or swimming lessons when you achieved some big-kid milestone that bumped you up to “intermediate” level? Suddenly, the yellow-belt phase of life had begun and you could start replacing frustrations and daydreams with a respectable little cache of skills. Photographers, even the most casual shooters, have a developmental arch as well, and the telltale sign that someone is ready to jump a level is the desire to actual control the image the camera is capturing…instead of just occasionally snagging a lucky snap. For those intermediate (also known in the industry as “enthusiastic amateurs,” “prosumers” or “photocrats”) photographers, there are a class of cameras I like to call coat-pocket digicams. These aren’t sliver-sized point-and-shoots or bag-hogging D-SLR’s, but substantial cameras with manual features and nice hand grips that just barely fit in the side pouch of your winter coat. Panasonic makes an excellent coat-pocket cam called the Lumix FZ18, Olympus contends with the SP 550 UZ, and Fujifilm has the most affordable of the three, the FinePix S8000fd.

The S8000fd looks like a cyclops from the front. It’s just all lens, but with very good reason. This Fuji has an astonishing 18x optical zoom, the equivalent of a 27mm (wide angle) to 486 mm (super close up) lens. To achieve this range, the lens will expand out 2 3/8 inches when fully employed, knocking your lens cap out to left field if you, like me, always forget to remove it before hitting the ON button.

Also among its impressive resume of features is a big-selling spec: 8 megapixels (printed on the front of the camera, just in case you forget to brag). The camera has some of Fuji’s trademark imaging smarts, including face-detection technology, anti-shake science, and, my favorite, the “natural light with flash” mode which takes two photos in rapid succession, firing the flash only on the second so you get to choose which one pleases you the most.

But the real draw for intermediate photogs is the ability to play with shutter speeds (how fast the little door to your digital sensor swings open) and aperture (how much light you let careen in during each shot). Aside from full-auto, the S8000fd has Programmed Auto (a photo store manager I know says, “P does not stand for professional, people!”), Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and full Manual modes. In manual and Shutter-Priority, you can play with shutter speeds from 4 seconds (great fun if you turn off all the lights and tell your kids to dance around with a flashlight) to 1/2000 second. Apertures range from f/2.8 (if you want that trippy, fuzzed-out “bokeh” background) to f/8 (when you want an entire subject in crisp focus, front-to-back). D-SLR’s will do all this to much better effect, but that’s getting into “intermediate advanced” territory, which, frankly, will cost you upwards of two grand with decent lenses. At $399, the S8000fd is a more economical place to practice getting fancy.

In terms of image quality, I’m usually a big fan of Fuji, loving their colors overall and most every shot I’ve ever fired from their F-series line (the advanced-beginner point-and-shoots), but I found that pictures from this camera go strangely soft as you bump the ISO. I’ve never complained about noise from a Fuji before, but the S8000fd disappointed me in low-light and ultra-zoom situations. It was surprising because remarkably, the quality of the VGA movie clips I shot in with this camera was terrific, even in the dead of night. The NPD group’s latest Digital Imaging Survey says that 64 percent of adults who bought cameras in 2007 now use the video function for short clips. I think FinePix S8000fd owners will happily bump that stat significantly in ‘08.