Our first sample image was taken on a very bright day with the S8000fd zoomed-out to wide angle and set to its lowest 64 ISO sensitivity. As such this represents perfect conditions. The crops are detailed and only the most dedicated pixel peepers would find any noise to complain about. There is however a little fringing visible at high contrast areas on the yacht’s deck and a slightly electronic appearance to the image compared to the same shot taken with some other cameras.

Landscape: 3.26MB, Program, 1/900, f7.2, ISO 200, 4.7-84.2mm at 18mm (equivalent to 103mm)

The overcast sky and bright boat have caused the camera to underexpose this shot.

The crops also reveal a significant increase in noise, especially in shadow areas.

The S8000fd allows you to easily adjust the aperture – or shutter – if desired.

As before, there’s quite visible noise on the 200 ISO image when viewed at 100%, but at least there’s still plenty of detail.

This allows you to grab some really tight shots of subjects even from a large distance, but as the crops show, the S8000fd suffers from quite noticeable coloured fringing when zoomed-in.

There’re also visible noise and smearing despite the relatively low 200 ISO sensitivity.

It’s possible to almost touch your subject with the S8000fd and still keep it in focus, and this allows for some dramatic macro shots.

We increased the sensitivity to 400 ISO here and noise is certainly visible, but it’s not a big issue for this particular composition.

Unlike many cameras which underexpose this scene, the S8000fd has slightly gone the other way, although the main subject is exposed correctly as a result.

As before, there’s visible noise at 400 ISO and also smearing on areas with little detail. But those portions containing detail still look acceptable.

Our second high-sensitivity indoor shot was taken at 800 ISO. There’s an increase in noise and smearing through noise reduction, but as the crops show, there’s still some detail remaining.

Look closely though and there’s some strange edge artefacts which may bother the pixel peepers among us. Certainly like most non-DSLRs these days, the higher sensitivity samples are best not scrutinised too closely.

The S8000fd also offers higher sensitivities still, but at 3200 and 6400 ISO operates at a reduced resolution of 4 Megapixels, along with considerable image processing.

So like most non-DSLRs these days, you’re best off using the S8000fd at sensitivities of 400 ISO and below.