Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook: drag2share: Fujifilm brings DSLR-like X-S1 camera to the US for $799

Thursday, January 05, 2012

drag2share: Fujifilm brings DSLR-like X-S1 camera to the US for $799

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/05/fujifilm-x-s1-camera-launches-in-us/

Look familiar? That's Fujifilm's latest X-series camera, the X-S1, which launched as the XS-1 in the UK for £699 ($1090) in November. Now the company has moved the dash one character to the left and priced the DSLR-like superzoom at $799.95, with a late-January ship date. We were expecting something slightly different after images of a rumored X cam appeared earlier this week, but this is all we're getting at the high-end -- for now, at least. The X-S1 includes a fixed 26x manual zoom lens with a range of 24-624mm and a variable maximum aperture of f/2.8-5.6, with a 2/3-inch 12 megapixel EXR CMOS sensor behind -- the same size found on the rangefinder-like X10. The lens is quite versatile, allowing you to capture subjects both far away and incredibly close -- it can focus on objects as near as 1 centimeter from the lens in Super Macro Mode. On the rear, you'll find both a 1.4-million-dot, 0.47-inch EVF and a 3-inch 460k-dot tilting LCD -- a heads-up sensor automatically switches to the EVF as you get near.

Sports shooters will appreciate the seven-frames-per-second high-speed mode at full resolution, or 10 fps at six megapixels. And as you'll expect with any high-end cam, there's 1080/30p video capture on board with stereo sound and H.264 encoding, along with RAW stills and full manual control, with a dedicated mode dial up top. Unfortunately, due to the camera's smaller image sensor, ISO sensitivity isn't on-par with larger DSLRs -- the native range extends from ISO 100 to 3,200, though you can jump up to ISO 12,800 when shooting "small" resolution JPEGs (which you aren't likely to do). We're holding out hope that Fuji's rumored cam will make a surprise appearance at the company's CES press conference, but for now, this will have to do. Full details are in the PR just past the break.

Gallery: Fujifilm X-S1