Fujifilm S5500 Digital Camera

Mention the term “digital camera” and too often the immediate image that comes to mind is a lightweight, flat, rectangular piece of material that exerts a strange resemblance to those disposable cameras being cared for at the airport terminals. However, if you are serious about your photography and want all the benefits of the digital revolution coupled with the nature of control and creativity associated with reflex film, then the S5500 Zoom comes as a breath of fresh air.

Following the success of its predecessor, the S5000 Zoom, Fujifilm has retained the black SLR design with a firm grip and the ring adapter. The 10x optical zoom is also retained and you can either use the electronic viewfinder or the 1.5-inch LCD screen to compose your photos. A megapixel was added (now a total of 4) for greater definition and quality of the interior and exterior photos is impressive. A macro mode allows you to achieve good results gros plan a range of 10cm and a high-timer lets you up to ten seconds to position yourself in the frame.

If you feel fairly confident that you can set manually at the time of opening (F2.8 - F9) and the shutter speed (three seconds to 1 / 1000 second) to your liking, or opt for fully automatic. Similarly, there are five scene modes (Portrait, Landscape, Sports and Night Scene, as well as the inevitable Auto) and five flash settings, including red-eye reduction, forced flash and slow sync. Other improvements: white balance (seven modes), ISO settings (four modes) and counting may be varied for optimum conditions and photos can be saved as JPEG and RAW files. The S5500 Zoom is also friendly DPOF printing only the frames you want to keep, in the order you want.

If you worry action during demonstrations on capturing the right moment, you can now rest easy thanks to the continuous shooting mode that comes as standard. Better yet, there is a new installation of video capture (640 x 480) at 30 frames per second, with its attached through the microphone. How you can save depends on the size of the xD-Picture Card that you want on Splash - it comes with a card of 16 MB of ridiculous, but you can go up to 512.

Power is supplied by four AA batteries, it is in your interest to invest in rechargeable batteries if you intend to be regularly on the shooting. PictBridge software is included on the enclosed CD. You can print your photos without going through one or through a PC (USB cable is supplied) and A / V socket even lets you view your photos on a TV. You can crop your image with the zoom mounting on the View menu.