Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD Review

I have had this camera for two months now, and would like to add my comments. (I am not an affiliate or employee of Fujifilm, so this is a truly unbiased opinion).

I brought this camera mostly for the HD movie function, and on this alone, I cannot fault it.

Watching the .mp4 format clips on my 50inch TV was an incredible experience. Silky smooth clips, and I have already made some AVCHD (blu-ray type) compatible DVDs using the material. The mono sound is still high quality, and since mixing is carried out later, it doesn't matter. And unusually, you still have zoom facilities WHILE FILMING! Needless to say, worth every cent! I haven't used my mini-dv camera again...

The review states 15minutes of video..actually you can record as many clips as you want, but with a 15 minute limit to each clip, I suspect mainly because of the file system. To me that is fine since I never record more than a few seconds or at most 2 minutes anyway. Shorter clips for better editing.

Now for the photographic bit. I am a bit disappointed with the lack of detail on the images in this camera. I thought I was doing something incorrectly, but no, the lack of detail is evident. I am a little surprised since I have an 8 Megapixel Fuji which is outstanding. Printing the images however, the problem isn't that evident.

Many reviewers (on other sites) state that the camera controls are fiddly. To me this isn't so. I found them intuitive and easy to use. And anyway different manufacturers have different views. You just learn as you go along.

Start-up and shut-down of the unit was very satisfactory, and the battery life s astonishingly good. Using a set of 2500mAH NIMH batteries, I was down to 1 bar and still managed to take another 250 images and 20 video clips..using full flash, since this was at a Christmas party.

The camera is a bit on the heavier side, which is actually good news for stability. No complaints there. But longer zooms require the tripod obviously.

I got this camera with the soft leather pocket, which is a bit too tight maybe.. and an extremely small remote-control-unit. I cannot state how great THAT is. Taking pictures of huge aircraft at a good zoom without touching the camera is awesome! I also had the obvious USB cable (non-standard...WHY?) , and the hdmi cable..not one I will use often though.

So, apart from the slight lack of detail, I am quite happy with this camera, and would recommend it to others. Build quality is great, battery life is excellent, controls are okay and the video is heavenly.. obviously, all the other extras are great too.

Build quality-9 , Features-9 , Image-7.5, Value-7.5, Overall-8.5

Well pleased!

My S2000HD had a black spot on the lower right of the screen that also transfered to the electronic and or print images right out of the box. Fuji claims it was dropped by me, which is absolutley not true. One of the reasons I bought this product was because of the 2 year warranty, in hindsight that was a huge mistake as fuji like all other 2nd rate manufactures looks for ways not to honor their factory warranties. Not only did they not honor it they make you pay for shipping and the cost of my repair is more than I paid for the camera....Seems to me fuji's quality control could use some re-structuring as it clearly allows faulty product out the door...I will never buy another fuji product again....

I have mixed feelings about the S2000HD. It can do everything I wanted (mainly shooting HD pictures and video for showing on 82 cm wide screen HD Ready LCD tv) but there are some flaws. Wide-angle shooting gives unsharpness in the angles and at the edges. The HD-video is not the HD I expected, probably due to high MPEG compression. Close objects are sharp enough but e.g. landscapes suffer from unsharpness and give artifacts when moving the camera. From normal tv viewing distance however the video looks perfectly acceptable and the HD-stills look really great on LCD tv screen. Tip: adjust the sharpness of your tv set to a low value when you look at the video shots, this will reduce artifacts of moving-camera shots. Considering the price you get an unbeatable machine is my end-conclusion.

Was concerned to read Dennis Spilde's comments but bought one anyway. Am delighted - I have no blackspot on the screen or on images so I guess in part Fuji are correct - although it could have happened before Dennis got the camera. I bought this rather tahn a 35mm SLR - and have to say I would NEVER consider an SLR again - this does all the same stuff, plus HD Video - and without having to carry around 12" of lenses! A superb piece of kit that I strongly recommend. Great fun too trying the loads of various functions .