Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD

We’ve got another Fujifilm superzoom in our pens, and this time it’s the spankin’ new FinePix S2000HD.

The S2000HD is a sturdy little superzoom that measures 111 x 78.9 x 75.7 mm. It weighs 426-grams, and since its body is not too huge, the weight feels more than it is. Its body’s made of tough, but slightly cheap feeling textured plastic. The camera looks almost identical to the FinePix S1000fd at first glance, but on closer observation you notice the little bodily enhancements such as an extended thumb grip and many grooves on the camera’s handgrip that makes it a lot more ergonomic than its sibling.

The buttons are conveniently placed - the mode dial, face recognition, power, burst mode and shutter button are placed on top of the hand-grip. Around the shutter button is the plastic zoom toggle. The facing side of the camera has the function, preview, exposure control and menu buttons placed right beside a 2.7-inch, 230,000 pixel screen.

The camera features an electronic viewfinder, which, just like all electronic viewfinders, is completely pointless.

Overall, the S2000HD boasts of a slightly cheap looking body, but it’s sturdy and ergonomic, so we’ve got nothing complain about here.

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The S2000HD features a CCD sensor capable of taking shots of up to 10 megapixels. It features all the standard automatic modes - Natural light, Natural light w/flash, and a load of scene modes. Apart from this, it has an enhanced image stabilization mode for those extremely shaky subjects, that didn’t make too much of a difference over the standard image stabilization, but the minuscule difference it made could make or break a shot, so the mode’s a welcome bonus. It also features a Zoom mode that’s specifically designed for full zoom shots (15x), where image stabilization required is far greater. Again, the results in this mode were satisfactory.

Apart from this, the camera boasts of loads of manual modes that are easy to configure. These modes include a Programmed AE, shutter priority, full manual, and a custom mode that stores your manual settings. While the camera does not produce very high quality shots (at least high enough for print), these manual features alone make it really handy for those who wish to dabble with amateur photography.

The camera’s picture quality was average, with spot on auto-white balance, good color reproduction, but just about average picture quality.

The S2000HD passed our macro tests with ease, and focused on objects as close as 2 inches with ease.

The ISO performance on the other hand was barely average, and pictures at and beyond ISO 200 began losing detail and producing loads of artifacts. This could cause problems for those of you who wish to make use of the camera without flash, during low light shots.

In spite of this, the camera’s night mode wasn’t too bad. Images produced were not too low on detail, and were relatively low on artifacts.

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While the Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD performed pretty averagely on most fronts, its plethora of modes and features makes it an attractive buy for relatively new blood who wish to experiment with manual modes. Its price - Rs. 13,999 (street) - is quite reasonable, making it a great buy for those who aren’t looking for high quality shots. Also, its 720p video recording is a big bonus for those who don’t wish to carry a separate HD camcorder with them.