DPReview reviews the Fuji S5 Pro

[Rudi]

... and the Fuji only gets a "Recommended" rating... rolleyes;

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/FujifilmS5Pro/

[Kevin]

I only read the first page and the last. For all the advances the camera's made I was surprised it didn't get rated any higher. Oh well.

[MichiganMan]

Personally, I think the DPR "rating" is about as up and down as a roller coaster. how can you have two classes? Recommended and Highly Recommended?


Mediocre continuous shooting performance (frame rate and number of frames per burst)How many times has this been used as a "con"?


Expensive compared to direct competitors such as the D200Most new competitive models are priced more than the ones that have been out for a year, and have already dropped in price. Right?

Some S5 Pro features (including Wi-Fi compatibility) removedThat is the best one yet. Maybe just trying to make the "con" list longer? I mean, this IS the review of the S5 Pro, so...

Anyway, the pictures are what matters, and this camera put out some good looking ones.

[Kevin]

I got to use an S2 for quite a while before I bought my D2X. I was extremely happy with the results. ISO1600 was very clean considering. I wasn't heavily into birding then like I am now but for portraiture and some event stuff it was great. The skin tones from it were very nice.

[stilllearning]

I have seen 3 other ratings below Recommended:
Above Average
Average
Below Average.

I was also surprised that it wasn't the higher rating. I re-read the review. What may have influenced the rating could have been they were looking at it like it was a true 12mp. That can't be it because they were comparing it mostly against a 10mp and 8 mp camera. The noise was pretty well controlled but the images were very soft. Maybe. Looked at it like a 6mp camera with the price being extremely higher then other 6mp cameras. That's probably it.
I think the Fuji Camera users have a winner on their hands and shouldn't read too much into the conclusion of the test. Three great points (Probably more).
1. Great improvement in the camera body.
2. Improvement in resolution
3. Noise improvement over S3

Anyway that's my take.

[Rudi]

I think the camera is priced well, and I think it performs well. I do NOT think it performs well enough to make an all-round shooter choose it over the Nikon D200! And, for someone like me, who already owns a 5D, it certainly is not enough to make me buy a camera and lenses just for the portraits - not even close! I think herein lies the problem for Fuji... :)

[stilllearning]

I think the camera is priced well, and I think it performs well. I do NOT think it performs well enough to make an all-round shooter choose it over the Nikon D200! And, for someone like me, who already owns a 5D, it certainly is not enough to make me buy a camera and lenses just for the portraits - not even close! I think herein lies the problem for Fuji... :)

I don't see where it has anything to offer to the Canon user, but I think it would still compliment the D200 and Nikon glass if one was shooting Jpegs instead of Raw. It is interesting how some of the test pictures in the review don't match in quality with what I've seen shown by users on DPReview. The pictures I've seen are much better then what DPReview has shown. Maybe ACR isn't the best raw converter for Fuji or maybe DPReview had a poor copy of the S5?