Fujifilm s3 pro

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mxfun

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Sean Logie
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Seen this on eBay, I'm a big fan off the Fujifilm cameras.
Anyone have any experience with this camera, I'd like to hear them ,good or bad.
And how would you rate it against today's DSLRs
Finally, I'm I right in thinking that the Fuji is a Nikon mount?.

Cheers
 
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Yep they use Nikon mounts.

Not used one myself but knew someone who did, nice for protraits, whites (weddings dresses etc) and produced a nice image.

However I think that in order to get the best out of the RAW files you will needs Fuji's own software as I do not think (could be wrong) that other RAW converts support the Fuji ones.

Go hunt on DPReview as I would imagine a review plus pro's and con's and some sample images.
 
Daryl said:
S5's are better. Great colour. Good for studio and school work.

General weddings. but now more togs are getting into low light work it won't cope too well with that.
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There's always a better model of this or that, I'm just after a low budget camera, had DSLRs before just not wanting to get back into it in a big way again, hence the questions about the s3 pro .

Thanks
 
I had one a few years ago. Basically it's a Nikon consumer DSLR with Fuji software.The later S5 Pro used a Nikon D200 body, which was a vast improvement.

Even by the standards of the day, the buffer was totally inadequate, which means that you can only take a very small number of shots before it stops - this may or may not be important to you, depending on your style of photography.

BTW, it doesn't need the Fuji software, which personally I could never get on with. The Photoshop ACR will do the job.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I had one a few years ago. Basically it's a Nikon consumer DSLR with Fuji software.
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I was always under the impression the Fuji S3 (and the other S models) utilised a unique Fuji sensor, and whilst they were built into a Nikon chassis the internals were Fuji, not Nikon.
 
I'm a Fuji S3 user, about to jump to an S5.

The S3 is built into a modified Nikon F80 film camera which has an inbuilt grip much like a Canon 1D. The back protrudes a long way out past the original outline of the F80 as well so it's a very chunky camera and heavy, but it's so comfortable in the hand and stable too (I can hand hold it at lower speeds than any other camera I've ever handled including ones with stabilisation!)

The sensor and associated gubbins are entirely Fuji, there is nothing Nikon about it apart from the bodywork.

The sensor is a twin 6MP Super CCD SR unit, which when shooting raw gives you unparalleled dynamic range in highlights. Using ACR I've successfully managed to pull back over 4 stops from blown highlights, though the further they are pushed the more likely they are to take on some wacky colour - mine go shocking pink!

In action this is a painfully slow camera to use - forget it for anything where you are going to fire off more than 3 shots at a time. It runs at approx 1fps to fastish CF cards, and will take another 30seconds to a minute to recover before you can shoot anything else. This performance gets worse with XD cards, and gets worse as batteries lose charge.

Speaking of batteries it takes 4 AAs which must be rechargeable - it will not switch on if alkaline are fitted.

If you want outstanding colours, excellent highlight detail and don't need to be pixel peeping or machine gunning the shutter you will love this camera.

If you need very high ISO, machine gun shutter or the utmost in fine details and sharpness forget it.

I personally love mine, but the size of the thing means I can't fit as much gear in my bag as I want to take with me, so I'm going to shift to an S5 which is the same body as a D200 (but with the same Fuji innards as the S3)
 
Some samples:

Olympic Torch @ Blaenau by R. Alan Jones, on Flickr

This was shot in the Mid day sun in incredibly harsh shadows. The whole sky area and aprts of Elin's face were blown by 3 stops, all recovered fine in RAW. The high saturation means you get very blue shadows, but skin tones remain very good.


Classic Festiniog by R. Alan Jones, on Flickr

Far from a great image - but consider this is iso 1600 and f2.8 again in mid day sun! The resulting image was entirely white, there was no image until pulled back as much as silkypix would allow. The PP effect was added to hide the weird colour warps that ensued. ACR might be able to pull back a more usable normal image as it allows further recovery, I will have to try.


Quarry Power Cavalcade by R. Alan Jones, on Flickr

The colour reproduction is very impressive, even in the worst of lighting conditions. This is iso 1600 and dark, overcast flat light, though you wouldn't think so.

I fully agree with Thom Hogan that you treat this camera as if it were loaded with negative film and overexpose on purpose.
 
i would go for S5 PRO. superb camera (just sold mine recently for £330). big difference between S3 and S5. great dynamic range (but slow FPS, i think 1-1.5 FPS for full dynamic range).
 
I'm not about to buy one, but thanks Alan for a great couple of posts. Very interesting stuff.
Some of the older CCD sensor do seem to have a lot of highlight headroom which isn't translated down into their Jpegs. Surprising and most useful, now that RAW processing programmes have come on leaps and bounds.
 
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