Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd

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Features

The S8000fd includes most of the features you'd expect to find in a megazoom. The two biggest omissions are a hotshoe and RAW capture. As mentioned above, the S8000fd includes sensor-shift image stabilization in contrast to the DMC-FZ18's optical image stabilization. While sensor-shift IS has a reputation of being inferior to optical IS, we got impressive results from the S8000fd.

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In our field tests, we were able to capture a sharp image shooting at 1/150 second and the lens zoomed all the way to its 486mm limit. Without image stabilization, we would have had to shoot at 1/500 second to get those results. Fuji also includes an ISO-boost mode that it also refer to as an IS mode. However, as always, higher ISOs bring with them more noise and less sharpness.

As has become the trend, the S8000fd includes face detection, but this camera uses Fuji's original algorithms rather than the newer system incorporated into its little sister, the FinePix F50fd.

Still, it does a good job of finding faces in your shots and tends to lose track of the faces if it can't find both eyes, while the newer version can find faces even if they are in profile. Once the camera finds the faces, it uses them to help determine focus and exposure so the camera won't make a mistake and focus on something in the background instead of Grandma's lovely smile.

Control freaks will appreciate the S8000fd's manual exposure controls, which give you up to 10 choices for apertures spanning F2.8 through F8 and 40 shutter speeds ranging from 4 seconds to 1/2,000 second. The interface for those controls could be better, though. Rather than including any thumb or finger wheels, you have to press the exposure compensation button and then use the control pad to set aperture and/or shutter speed.

One, or even better two, wheels would make the process a lot smoother of an experience. Still, it's nice to see manual exposure controls with this many choices, since some only include two or three choices for apertures.

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