Camera Labs

Dear Gordon

Interesting review on the F30, and (indeed) all others on your site - many congratulations for such a good site.

You made a remark about RAW in the review. My recently purchased a Fuji S6500fd, has (I think) the same sensor and adds RAW capability. For some reason, RAW comes out at 12 Mp in the Finepix converter (extra connectivity between the pixels, I suppose). Now, with a bit of experimentation, I think that the results are magnificent. Very detailed, and an almost "film-like" quality, which makes it a very impressive camera for a "small chip" model.

Having tried the FZ50 I thought that it was better to have less megapixels but with each one doing a better job. And so it has proved to be. With a clean image, interpolation works quite well with jpegs, as long as you make allowances for Fuji's over-enthusiastic sharpening (bit of a pity, as from the RAW results it's obvious they don't need it).

Only problem is the files are 72 Mb, which I think is a result of the colour space I'm using.

_________________
HCC
Nikon DSLRs, film cameras from Leica to Linhof

Hi HilaryC, glad you're still enjoying the reviews!

Fujifilm certainly used to do a 6MP product which offered a 12MP interpolated mode, so perhaps the RAW software converter still has that as a hangover...

As for a 72MB file, I suspect that's because your RAW software is converting the file into 16 bit colour space, as an uncompressed 8-bit 12MP file would measure 36MB. Having 16 bits gives you a smoother and broader tonal range to play with, but once you've made any necessary levels adjustments, you could just convert it down to 8-bit and halve the file size. Then perhaps save the file as a JPEG and it'll shrink right down even if you choose the lowest compression. You could also or alternatively reduce the resolution in your software to deliver a true 6MP file if you like.

You're absolutely right though about having fewer megapixels but ones doing a better job. Hopefully the manufacturers will stop playing a numbers game with resolutions and sell new models on lower noise, improved high sensitivity performance or better features instead.

Gordon