Fujifilm Finepix HS20 EXR Samples

Below are sample crops from an indoor photograph at each of the Fuji Finepix HS20 EXR's ISO settings. A crop from the Fujifilm Finepix S100FS
Fujifilm Finepix S100FS at the same ISO setting is shown next to each one of the Fuji HS20 EXR. Images below are all unmodified 100% crops from their respective cameras taken at the highest quality setting. ISO and white-balance were set on camera, everything else was left on automatic.

These crops help determine which ISO settings can be acceptably used. As noise increases, most cameras compensate with noise reduction which introduces softness. The result is that, while you can partly reduce noise at the expense of details, the maximum acceptable print size gets smaller as ISO is increased. The point at which a print become unacceptably noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Fuji Finepix HS20 EXR	Fuji Finepix S100FS
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
ISO 6400 (8 MP)	ISO 6400 (6 MP)
ISO 12800 (4 MP)	ISO 10000 (3 MP)
While both cameras deliver very good results for their size, the S100FS is superior without a doubt up to its highest full-resolution ISO setting. From the start is is easy to see that the HS20 EXR produces softer images. The S100FS also performed better in terms of color accuracy, although the HS20 EXR is not far off. Given the resolution of these cameras, ISO 100 to 400 are very usable for common print sizes but we would not go too big on the HS20 EXR due to softness. ISO 800 clearly is a step down, limiting to smaller print sizes and all goes significantly downhill from there.