Introduction

Ease of Use

There used to be a fine line between a bridge camera and a superzoom. It used to be the difference between having manual controls and being fully automatic. If it had manual controls, then other features such as a viewfinder and raw recording were automatically included in the feature-set. These days, that line is getting smudged and as newer cameras are released, they offer combinations of those features. On a bridge camera, we'd expect to see manual control, raw recording, an electronic viewfinder, metal tripod bush and either a manual zoom ring or a zoom switch on the lens barrel. The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 has some of these features, but not all.

You can select manual controls, such as aperture priority, shutter priority and manual. It has an electronic viewfinder, for using the camera at telephoto settings (or if you just like to shoot that way), but only a plastic tripod bush. That's an unusual feature for a camera with such a large zoom. Still the 16 megapixel sensor is back-illuminated for increased performance in low light. There is a zoom switch on the side of the lens which is great for holding the camera steady while still tracking a moving object with the zoom.

It's a mixed bag with the Fujifilm FinePix S8500. However, it's not the first camera to do this. In fact, it's simply following a trend of recent bridge cameras and superzooms that have had the dividing lines smudged.

The command dial on the top plate is large and chunky and has other features than the previously mentioned manual controls. You can choose from the Panorama mode, SP (Scene Position), Adv. (Advanced settings such as HDR, Low Noise and High Resolution), Auto and SR Auto. The latter mode being the “do everything for you” auto.

Front	Rear

Alongside the command dial, Fujifilm have fitted the FinePix S8500 with a sliding power switch. This prevents accidental powering on of the camera and will therefore protect the lens and battery power. Just infront of that are the exposure compensation and burst mode buttons. Teetering on the edge of the chunky grip is the shutter release button with a large, secondary zoom ring surrounding it.

On the back, the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 has been provided with an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) which sits at the top, directly behind the pop-up flash.  The large screen occupies the Lion's share of the back although there's still plenty of space for the buttons which are located to the right of the screen. There's a direct record button for shooting video on the fly and the S8500 is capable of FullHD video recording. Directly beneath that is the Playback button for looking at photos and video that you've already shot. The navigation pad is in fact a wheel. It can be pressed left, right, up and down, but the ribbed wheel can be turned for faster navigation of menu systems. In the centre is the access button to the Main menu.

On the bottom, you'll find the battery and memory card slots. The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 takes AA batteries and in the past there's been some argument over whether these are a good idea, given the power consumption of digital cameras. Those issues have been addressed these days with both higher capacity batteries being made available and cameras becoming more fuel efficient. It means that if you're out and about and your batteries do fail on you, it's possible to pick up some spares from pretty much any tourist shop or supermarket. The S8500 accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory cards and is compatible with SDXC. These are the ultra high capacity cards that have a theoretical limit of 2 terabytes (2048Gb).

Front	Side

The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 only has one Main menu which is accessed via the button we mentioned before in the centre of the navigation pad on the back of the camera. The menu is split into two sections for shooting and set-up. In the Shooting menu, you can select options such as ISO, white-balance, resolution, compression and AF options as well as metering, video and flash modes. Press left to navigate down to the Set-up menu tab and here you'll be able to change more in-depth features such as the date & time, language of the camera, sound controls, you can reset the camera and format the memory card.

Additions will appear to the menu system depending on what mode you're in. For example, if you're in Advanced Filter mode, an extra option will appear in the Shooting menu to change the filter. This can be a little confusing to work out at first, but once it's been a couple of times, it's easy to get used to.

Start up time from cold is around 1.8sec which is great considering that it's a sliding power switch as they're – in our experience – slower to react. It seems that the average start up time of 2.5sec is changing these days and is coming down under the 2sec mark.

Top	Pop-up Flash

There are seven continuous shooting modes on the Fujifilm FinePix S8500. That list includes a Best Frame Capture mode and AE Bracket. We kept getting a slight delay from pressing the shutter release to the pictures actually being taken of around 0.145sec. There could also be some reflexes to take int consideration. The camera was pre-focused. SH1 (Super High mode, option 1) captures around 60fps (frames per second) at video size which is around 2 megapixels. It stops just after that to download which can take some time. SH2 records at 640x480 (around 307,000 pixels) and again takes 60 frames. The only real advantage we can see for dropping the resolution is to have a faster download time. It cuts off around five seconds in total.

There are three continuous modes as well, named Low, Medium and High. Low mode takes around 16 frames in a ten second period at full photographic resolution. It shoots a burst of four frames in the first second then starts to slow down until by five seconds, it's only taking around one frame per second. Medium gets a little faster taking five shots in the first second, but also slowing down and it ends up taking one extra shot in the ten second time period. High mode shoots at 9fps and also then slows down. We got 18 shots in ten seconds. The time it takes to load this information onto the memory card takes longer. We used Class 10 SDHC cards and it took just under 30sec to download each burst test.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The Playback mode of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 is accessed by pressing the arrow button non the back of the camera. The most recent photo you took will be displayed on the screen with some basic shooting information. You can change the amount of information displayed by pressing the DISP button at the bottom of the camera. We favour the Histogram option which shows all shooting information with a small thumbnail of the photograph and a histogram underneath. You can also have basic info or none at all.

In the Playback menu you can edit pictures by removing red-eye, cropping and rotating them. You can mark images for upload to social media including popular sites such as Facebook and YouTube as well as Fujifilm's own social network MyFinePix.com.

In the box, you get the camera, a set of AA batteries to get you started, a neck strap (let's face it a wrist strap won't do), lens cap and USB cable to download photos. You also get a warranty booklet and brief user guide. The full manual is on the enclosed CD which also has MyFinePix Studio ver4.2 for basic editing, tagging and storing of your pictures.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 16 megapixe Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb.

Noise

The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 has a sensitivity range from ISO 100 to 12,800. That's a very high setting for a compact camera with a small sensor, even if it is back-illuminated. Looking at the pictures at normal viewing size, they don't get visibly troubled from noise until around the ISO 1600 setting. That's not bad going. The pictures do get a cast which disappears at ISO 6400 but then comes back with a vengeance at ISO 12800.

Zoom in closer and you'll see that ISO 100 shots are pretty much noise free. Being picky, there's a slight smudging of the darker areas which suggests that noise reduction software is at work, but colours are good, edges are sharp and there's pots of detail. As soon as we move up to ISO 200, the image quality starts to degrade. Now, to be fair to the camera we're being very picky and it's hardly noticeable, but it is there. ISO 400 is where the trouble really starts with a distinct loss of detail in darker areas and coloured blobs of green scatter blacks and shadows. There's also a slight loss of detail and while JPEG sharpening is increased to compensate for the noise issue, it can't cope.

ISO 800 sees the coloured noise suppressed by noise reduction software built into the camera but it's replaced with black & white noise. It looks like the white noise you'd find on your television, just blended with the picture. The speckles of this noise begin to group and join together at ISO 1600. Colour is suppressed to lessen the impact of noise and edge definition is in tatters.

By ISO 3200 a cast is starting to appear but noise reduction seems to fix this for the ISO 6400 setting. By this stage there's little point in taking a picture as noise is simply drowning out any detail while noise reduction is aggressively suppressing colours in order to prevent colour noise taking over. The final setting of ISO 12800 is redundant. There's no point in using it as you won't get anywhere near a decent image from it. It's an “emergency only” setting.

ISO 64 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 has a 46x optical zoom which ranges from 24mm to a whopping 1104mm (in 35mm terms). The wide-angle setting will cause some image distortion on straight lines. For general use of landscapes and the like, you shouldn't run into too many problems. The image stabiliser works well in bright light and the camera will raise the ISO as it gets darker so take a look at the ISO test to see what levels you'd be happy with.

24mm	1104mm

Sharpening

While on the whole we're satisfied with the sharpness of the pictures from the Fujifilm FinePix S8500, we did discover that adding a basic sharpen in an editing suite such as Adobe Photoshop tended to increase the sharpness to a more pleasing level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

There are two compression settings on the Fujifilm FinePix S8500. They both record at full resolution, but the normal setting will lose information in order to make a smaller file size. Images taken at Fine will record at around 6.5-7Mb while at Normal compression they're nearer 3.7-4Mb. That's a big difference in space availability on your memory card, but can also lead to less chance of enlarging images due to lack of detail. We did see a little smoothness in JPEG images indicating a lack of detail in otherwise detailed areas.

Fine	Normal

Chromatic Aberrations

We did find chromatic aberration in a few photographs. It didn't just happen at the edges of the frame or on high contrast lines. We found it in numerous areas on varying photographs.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)
Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

Looking at a big, bulky camera, you'd expect the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 to barge clumsily around, knocking things over, yet despite it's size, the S8500 can get in as close as 2cm. There's a degree of image drop off from quite close in to the centre sweet spot.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

With the flash turned off, the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 does show slight vignetting at wide-angle as well as full zoom. With the flash on, the problem is accelerated and causes a lot of problems at wide-angle. It's a similar response at full zoom to the image without flash, but the light is noticeably centralised with the flash on.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (24mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (24mm)
Flash Off - Wide Angle (1104mm)	Flash On - Wide Angle (1104mm)

And here are some portrait shots. The Auto setting caused a small amount of red-eye which was removed by the Red-eye reduction mode.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red Eye Reduction	Red Eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

There's a Night setting for taking images in low light, but more experienced – or anyone keen to learn the ins and outs of photography – may want to opt for the S setting on the command dial. It allows you to manually select the shutter speed, while the camera will handle the aperture. You can choose the ISO and the camera will tell you if you can't get a decent exposure.

Because of the manual input allowed in shutter priority, we got a nicer result from the camera in that setting. The Night scene mode (even with the Tripod setting) will use a higher ISO and with longer exposures will create various types of noise.

Night Scene	Night Scene (100% Crop)
Night Shutter Priority	Night Shutter Priority (100% Crop)

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 camera, which were all taken using the 16 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Front of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Pop-up Flash

Side of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Side of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Image Displayed

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Turned On

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Shooting Menu

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Set-up Menu

Rear of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 / Playback Menu

Top of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Bottom of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Side of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Side of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Front of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

Despite our original reservations about fudging the line between superzoom and bridge, the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 works quite well. It gives the best features of a bridge camera such as manual control, its size, sturdiness and large zoom with two options controlling it. For the torpid among us, that may raise a smile. Along with all this, it offers more budget features such as no manual zoom ring on the lens, no raw recording and a plastic tripod bush. The latter point is of some concern given that anyone wanting to expand their photographic knowledge will want to invest in a tripod. The bush on the bottom of the camera will get a lot of use with the large zoom and a plastic type won't keep up.

Aside from that, the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 is well built. The battery door is fully lockable to ensure those AA batteries don't spring out on you if the camera suffers an accidental knock. The grip is large for carrying between shots one handed and everything is laid out in a place where it can be reached easily. The buttons are firm and the command dial needs a degree of effort which is great because you won't pop it out of it's position easily.

It's easy to look at image quality as a critical photographer, but let's remember that this is a camera under £200. The everyday sample pictures we took aren't at all bad. Sure they have noise and it degrades the pictures a bit, but that has to be expected on a sensor so small. The only disappointing part of all this is that the sensor is a back-illuminated variety. It trumps up as being the best available for low light photography. So far, we've struggled to find a compact camera that has a reasonable performance in low light. This could be the reason why Fujifilm went up to ISO 12800, but that was a mistake. They should have capped it at ISO 6400 maximum.

Colour rendition is good and the pictures are sharp. The Fujifilm FinePix S8500 does struggle with dynamic range and the best results are gained from areas where the light is flatter. There is a HDR setting on the camera and we have a comparison in the sample shots of the ivy covered post. The camera meters well enough but can struggle in harsh light. We weren't unhappy with the results from the sample tests, though.

For the money, this isn't a bad camera if you're looking to start out with an interest in expanding your knowledge. Image quality can come with more expensive equipment fitted with larger sensors. The picture quality is good for the price and the Fujifilm FinePix S8500 will afford you to learn the tricks of exposure, learn about light and decide if photography is for you before committing to a large lay out. If you enjoy yourself, that will most definitely come!

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4
Value for money	4.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Fujifilm FinePix S8500.

Specifications

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