Fuji S3 Pro

DPReview.com just posted a hands-on preview of the new Fuji Pro S3 that I’m aware of.  Fuji has become one of the top makers of digital SLR’s (and prosumer models), and many professionals are using Fuji S2’s.  Fuji has been innovators in CCD technology, so that there DSLR’s as well as some of their prosumer models use what they call “super CCD’s.”  The individual picture elements in these are not the standard square shape but octagonal, and the extra surfaces are touted to increase the image’s accuracy.

The Fuji S3 was originally announced in February with a release date of the second half of the year.  However, Fuji hinted at releasing the camera in August, then September, and finally October, so it is nice to finally see at least a preview of this camera which means that it is hopefully very close to mass production.

The S3 is an 8 Megapixel camera (the S2 is 6MP), but this step up in resolution is not why many professionals have been eagerly awaiting this camera’s arrival.  There is a quality of digital cameras which until the S3 has not really been addressed in all the upgrades from one camera model to the next.  In the consumer/prosumer models, you see bright decals on the camera proclaiming “6 Megapixels!” or “10X Optical Zoom!”  But no matter how high the resolution (and actually if you keep cramming more onto the same size of CCD you run into increased digital noise), one of the big limitations of digitals over film is something called “Dynamic Range.”

Film can capture many fine levels between the blackest black and the whitest white – around 11 stops to be more precise.  Each stop in photography is twice as luminous or half as luminous as the last, so 11 stops means the 2 to the power of 11 or 2048 – light is 2048 times as bright as black.  Current digitals have only 6 stops at most of dynamic range, which comes out to a piddly 64 times brighter.  The S3 is the first camera to directly address this issue by another CCD design innovation that actually already exists in one of its prosumer models, but has been enhanced for the S3.  The newer CCD actually has a separate set of picture elements specifically for handling the highlights (brightest parts) of an image, with which digital normally has a hard time avoiding overexposure.  The claim is that this new technology adds a couple of stops of dynamic range, so the brightest parts can now be 256 times brighter than the darkest.

For those who aren’t big photography hobbyists or professionals, dynamic range may not seem that important.  But for those in the know, it makes a huge different because it means that one can take a much wider range of images without fear of overexposing or underexposing.  Any image with a huge amount of contrast is currently very difficult for digitals.  An event as common as a wedding will see groomsman in dark suits and the bride in a white that can turn out to be hundreds of times brighter than the dark suits.  Without complete control of lighting as in a studio, it become extremely easy to get one of those extremes off enough to where either shadow detail is lost or highlight detail is lost.

Unfortunately DPReview did not actually take any images, so that was disappointing.  I really want to see that difference in dynamic range in a photo – and it would be easier to understand to see it visually for most people.  A few other things I noticed from the preview:  The S3, while able to take continuous pictures faster than the S2, still is no match for my D70, a camera that costs only $1000 compared to the S3’s $3000 or more.  Also, the S3 still does not take a rechargeable lithium ion battery, something that many prosumer and digital SLR cameras have at least as one option.  I’ve always been partial to these over multiple AA’s, as they are easier to handle as just one piece and tend to give much longer battery life.  Other than these two items nothing really caught my eye.  There are some interface improvements, but since I’m not intimately familiar with the S2, I may not pick up on some of the new stuff that S2 owners will.

There still is no word on exactly what the price will be for the S3.  It was originally going to be $4,000, but since prices have come down in the digital SLR Market over the last year or so, it seemed likely that this price would drop to $3,500 or even $3,000.  Also no further word on when the camera will hit the streets, although the latest quoted date as far as I know is “late October.”

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