Fuji FinePix S5600

The Fuji Finepix S5600 really demonstrates the megapixel myth: I bought mine second-hand for £70 and although it's only 5MP it easily out-performs my friend's 8MP Canon compact, which is far from bottom-of-the-range and cost very much more. It also looks the part with its SLR-style body. So, if you want to move beyond automatic pre-sets to learn more about photography and obtain results better than compact point-and-shoots then the S5600 is a very good choice for those on a budget.

Overall, I've found that the Finepix S5600 takes beautiful portraits and can produce very nice macro shots. However, shots taken at medium and long range are not as sharp as they could be and at times the standard colour setting produces results that appear a little drab, although a chrome setting is provided and produces very vivid colours. The sharpness issue is easily corrected: by loading images into The Gimp and adding a slight sharpening filter I've managed to produce some striking landscape shots. This is just the digital equivalent of retouching negatives so I don't count this as cheating. In fact, learning how to Photoshop your pictures should be considered part and parcel of learning more about photography in the digital age.

The S5600 has an ISO range from 64 to 1600. I've found that pictures taken at ISO400 are still very acceptable, although noise levels at ISO levels 800 and 1600 mean that you should reserve these settings for occasions when it's better to have even a noisy picture than no picture at all. The bottom line here is that you'd need to spend several hundred pounds on a DSLR to obtain noise-free images at these ISO levels, so I don't see this as a problem or flaw. Similarly, the 10x zoom is very useful and although some purple fringing appears at full zoom (under certain lighting conditions) the resulting images are by no means spoiled. The camera's lens housing is threaded to permit the fitting of after-market lenses, so you can extend the S5600's abilities without spending hundreds more for a camera with 20x zoom and a super-macro feature.

Finally, to reiterate, don't let the measly 5MP put you off. Image quality is not determined by megapixels alone and some of my landscape shots looked so good I framed 8x10 prints and gave them out to friends and family as Christmas presents!

The Fuji FinePix S5600 would be ideal for the first time camera buyer , not to complicated for novice or beginner ..easy to follow manual ...very nice camera at the budget end of the spectrum with excellent image quality on par with several top of the range models.

I have found this camera very easy to use and the prints to be of a very high quality, even for a beginner like myself. The auto setting on this camera is great for someone like myself but when there is something I don't like I can change it to my own settings.

The more I use the S5600 camera the more I enjoy it's results.

This is my second Fujifilm camera and I am more than happy with it. It feels very good and snug in the hand and is very straightforward to use. I like the option of the viewfinder although the screen is good and has a brightness control. The resulting pictures are of high quality and indoor use has been particularly good. The zoom is quite exceptional and transforms nature photography. There are also a number of other features that would normally come only on a camera costing considerably more.

The manual is reasonably straightforward to follow though the camera itself is easy enough to use straight from the box. The more specialised features will be absorbed as you go on.

Overall, I would say this camera would appeal to someone with some basic experience of a point-and-shoot digital who would now like to take a few steps further into the field of photography.

I was surprised to read moans about the card and the batteries. A 512mb card gives me 818 shots at 2 megapixels and, without advertising any particular supplier, these cards can readily be bought on the Internet for very little money. The same applies to a couple of sets of rechargeable batteries and a charger. You might also want a carry bag - I paid £12 for mine on ebay. No big deal and personally I think a decent sized card, rechargeable and a bag make a very small but essential additional investment to get the best out of this really cracking camera.

Highly recommended.

The Fuji Finepix S5600 camera is very easy to use & gives good quality pictures in auto mode.

For those who wish to play about with the various settings can improve on the quality.

Auto focus very good in digital zoom which on lesser models was poor.

The camera itself is a SLR type look-alike with a long lens which has a thread so that you could add another lens.

The xD picture card is only manufactured by Fuji & Olympus so finding a low cost one is hard.

For the price, this camera has to be up there for those on a budget who also require a good quality picture.

I seem to keep coming across nasty reviews for the Fuji Finepix S5600 digital camera. I don't know why. It's a good camera!

I have a lot of pictures I've taken with this camera, as well as an on-going review at...

www.intellectual-idiot.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-s5600-review.html

I found my Fuji Finepix S5600 Zoom Digital Camera eating batteries at a ridiculous rate. I spent a fortune om the highest performance batteries I could get as advised by a camera shop. Still no luck....