Anyone know anything about the fuji s700 superzoom?

[episodic]

It is new - no real reviews that I can find. . .a friend of mine was asking me what I thought - and I really don't know anything about it. . .

Anyone know?

 

[episodic]

Well, she got it - I'm going to take it out tommorow to test it with her, I'll report back


First impressions

Lens a little slow 3.2 is the fast speed on the wide angle. . .
Nice size - love the grip.
Zoom mechanism does not protrude at all - 10x zoom.
Nice lens cap (won't come off unless you want it to)
Uses 4 AA batteries
Full manual controls
Tons of scene modes
Macro as close as 1cm
Can use SD cards and XD cards (fuji is answering the complaints)
Lovely screen 230,000 pixels 2.5 inch
Nice evf - works will for me - but no diopeter control
Threaded lens for 46 mm attachments
Love the power button - no way to turn it on accidently.
Exposure bracketing
Live histogram
Focus lock is super quick.
Aperture goes up to 13.6 (never seen this far in a p&s)

Things that concern me -
Battery door design - maybe I'm just crazy - but it sure seems like it takes alot to close it. . .longevity?
The s5200 had raw - this does not - !!! :|
High ISO performance - it seems this fuji does not have the 'superccd" that the 's' and 'f' series are famous for (I'm not sure about this, but I read this in several forum posts on dpreview). . .

The couple of pics I took inside in an average lit room seemed ok. . .I'll test more tommorow. . .

 

[episodic]

Well, we took it back. . .

It was really grainy inside at ISO 800, nothing like the f30/20/30 series. . . .

Outside there was purple fringing really bad imo.

Also, there was 'green' fringing on some shots that did not even have drastic changes in lighting (read flower shots outlined in green). . .

Now the shots looked ok at screen level (at like 33% of the size) - but all this was real apparent at 100%


Probably if you were printing 8x10's you'd never notice, but she was looking for something with better outside performance. Basically she wants to photograph birds as cheaply as possible and do macros. . .

She may try the panasonic fz8 next. . .