Archive forNovember, 2007

S8000fd First Impressions and Filter News


I got my s8000fd on Tuesday but haven’t had the chance to try it out too much but here are my first impressions.

Operation: The zoom is really fast, the auto focus is really fast. Time to next shot is also quick except when using red eye reduction. There is also a fast auto focus option called High Speed Shooting but I didn’t really notice any difference in focus speeds. The menus are nicely organized and easy to find. The scene modes work very well and so does the face detection.

Image Quality:The image quality is also quite good. At ISOs above 400 the pictures get noisy so I’ve kept the camera at ISO Auto (400) but the noise is not that noticable on my 1280*960 laptop screen upto ISO 800. The Flash is excellent and portraits turn out nice and more professional looking even with the flash and not excessively white like I’m used to. Colors are quite accurate. I tried photographing varios different colored objects and each turned out exactly like they were in real life. I took all the photos in standard color mode and most of them indoors in low light. Am yet to try the chrome (aka more saturation) mode and clicking some outdoor pictures during the day.

Focus: Auto-Focus in macro mode is not that great sometimes in very low light and manual focus is extremely slow and kind of cumbersome to use because you have to keep the +/- button pressed while moving the zoom. it would be nice to just click a button once to switch from zoom to focus. This is a minor issue because in most cases the auto focus is excellent. Super Macro is really super and it can focus very well even in low light with the lens really close to objects!! - only you cannot zoom in or out in Super Macro. The lens is fixed at about 60mm according to the manual.

Image Stabilization: The image stabilization is also really nice. The camera grip is really good and the stabilization is only required at really long zooms. It is easy to turn on and off with a convenient button. This is my first Fuji camera and the button and menu layout is easy to follow and intuitive.

Battery Life: I put in a brand new set of fully charged AA Energizer 2500 mAH batteries in the camera and clicked about 150 pictures and the batteries are still going. So battery life is nice and I zoomed in and out a lot, used the flash often, browsed through pictures on the camera so the batteries stood up to reasonable heavy use.

Misc: Good News for people who want a filter. This Adapter Fits. I have not tried it out and dont intend to in the near future but here is proof that it works.

Pictures: Now you’ve read this and must be asking where the pictures are. They are coming soon…….. But you can hunt online and you will find tons of great pictures from this camera.

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18X Ultra Zoom Comparison + 50$ Fuji Rebate


Last week I heard about the amazing 18X optical Zoom Cameras from Fuji (S8000fd), Olympus (SP560-UZ) and Panasonic (DMC FZ-18) and ooh I want one. It took a while to figure out which one to get and I just ordered the Fuji today from my new favorite online store Buydig.com

Here’s why I chose the Fuji. The Olympus was immediately out because it only supports XD cards. I already have a bunch of SD cards which I can use. Also the Olympus and Fuji are mostly identical except for the fact that the Fuji also supports SD cards.

Selecting between the Panny and the Fuji was a tough one. The price difference was about 20$ (Buy.com for the Panny and buydig for the Fuji). I also have a 10$ off 200 coupon for buy.com and now I have to pick the better camera.

Advantages of the Panny - Leica lens with almost no distortion, Manual Focus Ring (?able advantage for me), Faster Start (not significantly), Lighter Weight (making for more flimsy build), RAW mode (not important to me), no purple fringing, SD card

Advantages of Fuji - Very little distortion (little more than panny but not noticable to my eye), Better build quality, AA batteries (big one), SD card, fantastic flash, super macro (focus from a distance of 1cm!! - a big one for me), better colors (arguable)

Disadvantages of Panny - flash not as good as Fuji, propritary battery (big one)

Disadvantages of Fuji - slight purple fringing (only noticable when viewing picture 1:1 on screen so I don’t care), may or may not be possible to use filters (again don’t care), max 4s exposure (even my old Minolta Dimage F100 has more than that)

In most other respects the cameras are very similar.

But what made Fuji the obvious choice is this secret 50$ rebate which is really hard to find.

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Restaurant Review Time

Saturday, we drove down 29S to Colleen to eat at Thai-Siam (the much praised Thai takeout place south of Lovingston) and the food was good - similar to Thai 99 but with some dishes not available at Thai 99. The place is mostly a takeout joint and the food is probably like Thai home cooking.

Yesterday, we ate at Mamma-Mia! - the Italian place at the corner of Preston and Grady. We eaten there often and I can say that they have amongst the best Italian food in Charlottesville. It’s a great quiet place to eat because it is genrally never crowded (a shame since the food is so good).

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