Fujifilm S6500fd:
front,
front angled,
front angled with cap,
back,
back angled and
face recognition
sample images: one,
two,
three,
four,
five and
six
Features
Fujifilm is making something of a niche for itself with “social” cameras. We have already reviewed the Z3 which is unashamedly a social camera - it is designed for taking pictures of people in dark environments. Now the S6500fd goes one step further - it recognises people and “optimises” the image for them.
Let's get the other stuff out of the way first. It has pretty well every feature you'd expect from a top spec bridge camera. Of course it has more scene modes than you can shake a stick at, anti shake and full P, A, S & M modes. There's a massive zoom and 6 million pixels or so under the bonnet. The only real omission is a connection for external flash. There's a pop up flash but no hotshoe and no PC socket. That's a shame because otherwise this might make a decent studio camera.
Manual zoom
Hallelujah! A camera that not only can you zoom with easily but is also a joy to use the manual focus on. There's a big chunky zoom ring. No messing with little buttons, no fly by wire twitchy barrel, this is a rotating collar. Turn it one way and the lens moves away from you zooming in, turn it the other and it zooms out. This is just how bridge camera zooms should work. It's fabulous.
Manual focusing is also excellent. Select “MF” and the rear collar lets you focus accurately. Even better, when you turn it the centre section of the screen or EVF magnifies that area for precise focusing. Stop turning it and the magnifier goes off so that you can compose properly. Few cameras short of DSLRs get this right but Fujifilm have here.
Face detection
OK, we dealt with the other stuff; now let's talk about the bit that Fujifilm want us to talk about. There's a little button near the eyepiece that turns face detection on. The S6500fd is the first camera with “hardware” face detection. Previous cameras have done the same in software but a hardware routine makes it faster. The camera can detect up to 10 faces in a scene. It counts one as the primary and all others as secondaries. The S6500fd then does its best to make sure that the faces are in focus and correctly exposed. This can often be at the expense of other elements but that's not a bad thing - Fuji know that if you take a picture with faces in it then the odds are that the faces are more important than the rest of the scene. You can always turn it off. Face detection also works on playback - the faces are outlined and you can instantly zoom in them to check for blinks.
So, the $64,000 question - does it work? The answer is a qualified “kind of”. I actually found it slightly spooky to point a camera at somebody and instantly see their face outlined in a box. When it works it's very cool. However, the camera works by looking for the geometric relationship between facial features. This means it works not only for people and shop dummies (yeah, explain that one in Debenhams…) it also works for pictures of people on posters and TV screens. However, it does not work if the subject is not looking directly at the camera. Even a few degrees away and they are unrecognisable. This was as expected but slightly disappointing. In a candid or social setting people do not often look directly at the camera. However, you need to remember that this only stops you detecting their face - the S6500fd still works very well in all other respects! It also doesn't work on non human faces such as dogs.
Handling
Hand somebody an S6500fd and 9 times out of 10 they will think it's a DSLR. You could probably ask them to change the lens and watch while they try to figure out how to release it (you can't - like all bridges cameras it's a fixed lens). I never got them in the same room together but it's about the same size as the new Nikon D40 with a compact zoom fitted. This is a long way of saying “for a bridge - it's huge”.
Really, that's not a bad thing though. Many bridge cameras are too small for my taste. You'll need a bag to carry it in (this isn't a pocket camera) but whatever your size of hands you should have no real problem with the S6500fd.
Buttons are well laid out and logical and I've already mentioned the zoom and manual focus. This is as good as handling gets on a bridge camera.
Image quality
Just great. Noise is fine up to about ISO 400. Over this the in camera noise reduction takes over and pictures don't look noisy so much as “smeary”. This isn't too bad though and I'd rate ISO 1600 as “usable” and 3200 as “usable at a pinch”. That's actually an excellent result - there are DSLRs worse than this.
You can't change the lens on the S6500fd so it's just as well that the fitted one is a cracker. It has a huge zoom from 28mm to 300mm and at its widest setting is a 2.8 lens. Combined with the in camera processing it's also rather sharp. Distortion and chromatic aberration is nothing really to worry about.
The more I used this camera the more I liked it - quality results are at least as good as a budget DSLR with cheap zoom lens.
Don't look at the numbers and think it' “only” 6MP when 7 is the norm. These 6 million pixels will give you some lovely A3 prints even when the light isn't perfect.
Shooting
Here's where you realise it's not a DSLR. Start up is a less than 2 seconds which is pretty good though no match for, say a D40. Focusing is very rapid with good contrast subjects and shot to shot time is very respectable. It's no DSLR but it certainly isn't a slow camera. Even with face detection turned on I was able to grab street candids that I simply wouldn't get with other bridge cameras.
What's not to like
“Dear Fujifilm, please stop using the xD format. It's not big and it's not clever”. Yep, the S6500fd has a tiny internal memory and only take the relatively rare xD cards rather than the much more common SD. There's actually plenty of space to slip a CF card in so I'd love to see that instead. xD cards are hard to get, only come in limited brands and are fiddly to fit into most card readers. I just wish Fuji would get over them.
The S6500fd is powered by four AA batteries. It's really a matter of personal choice whether you prefer a custom lithium battery or AAs. On the plus side you can find AA batteries practically anywhere in the world if you run out. They last a surprisingly long time in the Fuji - I was amazed that a single set lasted a whole day's testing. This is partly because there are no motors to move the lens in and out - you do this yourself. I'd still always advise you to swap to NiMH rechargeables though - they give many more shots and are significantly less polluting than disposables.
Here's a weird one. When a camera powers down it usually takes a light tap on the shutter button to wake it up again. With the S6500fd you have to turn it off and back on again. It powers down when you open the xD card cover so that's another opportunity to turn it all the way off and back on again.
Some of the controls are slightly fiddly. When shooting in “A” mode you need to press the up and down arrows to alter the aperture. The same with shutter speed and “S” mode. Manual mode is particularly fiddly - use up and down to set the shutter speed and the exposure comp button with up and down to set the aperture. A command wheel like the one on the S9600 would work wonders here.
Camera specification
| Mega-pixels: | 6.3 |
Photo: | JPEG |
| Optical Zoom: | 10.7x |
RAW: | Yes |
| Digital Zoom: | 2x |
Aperture: | f/2.8-11 |
| LCD: | 2.5 inch |
Focal Length: | equiv. 28-300mm |
| Dimensions: | 132 x 96.5 x 127mm |
Shutter speed: | 30 sec to 1/4000 |
| Weight: | 601g |
Exposure: | ISO 100 to 3200 |
| Storage: | xD (10mb int) |
Movie: | AVI (640x480@30fps) |
| Battery: | 4 AA |
Microphone: | Yes |
| Interface: | USB 2.0, AV |
PictBridge: | No |
