Fujifilm Finepix HS10 Summary

It's all about the lens, really. 30X optical zoom going from ultra-wide to beyond super-telephoto with a mechanical link and stabilization. The Fuji Finepix HS10 presents the most versatile zoom ever and this lens performs really well. There is corner softness near the ultra-wide end but that's it for the lens.

This is a good choice for a relatively light-weight vacation camera with a full complement of manual controls and a large number of buttons to access them efficiently. Now there has to be a compromise somewhere and for this digital camera it comes down to speed and limited low light performance. Despite showing less image noise than average, softening of details is present at all ISO and gets even more pronounced at slow shutter-speeds. Shot-to-shot speeds are glacial and focusing speed do not keep up either, so this one is not made for action.

The remaining aspects of image quality hold up well in terms of color, white-balance and exposure. There is a problem with poor accuracy of the EVF and LCD but the camera generally exposes well, which gets annoying if you like to adjust things before taking the pictures, rather than seeing the results and then readjusting and taking another shot. Given the HS10's good exposure system, this is not needed very often though.

The ultimate in quality from an ultra-zoom still comes from the Fuji Finepix S200EXR and S100FS
Fujifilm Finepix S100FS, both very good cameras with wide-angle mechanical zooms. It is the ultra-wide angle coverage of the HS10 which should sway people the most.

Neocamera detailed review Read the full Fuji Finepix HS10 review here.