My Fuji S2 Shipped Today

Should have it in hand on Wednesday. Needless to say I am excited.

FWIW, I got the camera from Ritz and they only got a few of them. I think B and H got a few as well.

Cheers

James Wiseman

I'm soooo Jealous, Keep rubbing it in

Best of Luck,

Marc

Got it!

I am happily surprised to see that it is smaller than the S1. It's really small!

Cheers

James

What housings are available? Have you ordered one? Did you have an S1 housing?

KC

No one has "formally" announced a housing for the S2 yet. Now wouldn't be a bad time though...hint...hint.

I got to play with an S1 last week and This convinced me that the S2 is the way to go. The S1 and S2 will shoot TTL with any flash. The camera controls are ALMOST identical, between the S1 and the S2 but the S2 is based on the N80 body which has a LOT of nice features. I guessing this camera will be a slam dunk in the Ike housing, similar to the S1 setup shown here (photo courtesy of Ikelite):

Cheers

James

James, I saw where you posted that you expect a 1.5x mag with your S2. My understanding of digital SLR focal length multipliers is that it merely crops the image and does not magnify it. I.E. you will still only get 1:1 mag with the 60 mm lens though it will give you the view and working dx of a 90 mm lens.

Good question. Yes, the camera does crop the image since the sensor is not as big as a piece of film. The magnification factor is very real though.

I set up my cam tonight (Still learning mind you, so be nice!!!) and took some aquarium photos (Nikkor 60mm lens):

Porites and Christmas Tree Worms:

And a closeup cropped from the above shot of a 1/8" across sessile hermit crab. For reference, the coral polyps are about 500 microns across:

And here's a shot of my Heteractis magnifica anemone:

All shots taken at JPEG fine - auto white balance. SB28DX in TTL.

I have a lot to learn about this camera and tonight was a HUGE brain fry learning how to hook the camera up to the computer and transfer images via firewire. I also played w/ the RAW file conversion software - LOTS to learn there too.

Cheers

James Wiseman

Can't edit post. Photos in order:

Terrific! I'd really appreciate it if you could report some real write times, if it's not too much trouble. From the specs, you can do burst mode and fill the buffer in 7 frames. What I really want to know is, once the buffer is full, what is the min time between frames? I won't be using burst mode underwater, at least with strobes. But I often take quick succession frames, where I just wait for the strobes to recycle (1 second for my DS-125s). I really want to know if the camera can keep up if I take about 1 shot per second over some length of time. This is where I've heard some discouraging times from the D100.

Thanks!

Linda

A more accurate description would be as follows: The CCD (or CMOS) sensor is smaller than a 35mm frame. The lens is designed to focus on the area of a 35mm frame at a given distance (the focal length). When you put the lens onto a digital SLR, the "real" focal length of the lens doesn't change. Instead, the CCD is, in effect, capturing the middle xx% of the image the lens would give if it were focusing onto a 35mm frame. What this means for James' 60mm lens is that, because the CCD in the S2 is approximately 67% the size of a 35mm frame, the CCD captures the same image area that would be rendered by a 90mm lens, if it were focusing onto a 35mm frame (if you want to view it as cropping the middle 67% out of the area a 60mm covers on a 35mm frame, then I guess you could look at it that way, too -- the end result is the same as if you had a "full 35mm size" CCD with the same pixel density and you cropped the middle out of it (though in this case that is not actually happeening!)). Why, in the subject line did I add "at least not optically"? Try this: If I double the pixel density of the sensor, am I "magnifying" the image? I think most people would answer, "No". Can I zoom in to see more detail? Assuming the lens can "project" the image well enough, yes!

While maybe not a complete "red herring", the discussion of having or not having "true" magnification, is in practice, basically moot -- you get what you get from the camera (there is no real information "lost" due to the "multiplier" except maybe the information that would be sensed by the "non-effective" pixels around the periphery of the CCD). It does effect lens choice, however. The obvious negative to all this is that you need a lens with a wider "35mm" angle of coverage to get the panoramic shots you could get with a film SLR. The good news is that the image the CCD sees is one covering an angle narrower than the "35mm" focal length giving you making your telephoto lenses "more effective". An added benefit is that the image the CCD sees is obtained by sensing the photons coming through the sharpest part of the lens (in effect, the CCD is not "seeing" the edges of the image the lens would produce if its entire "35mm" angle of coverage could be sensed).

Mike

Linda,

OK, so let me be clear so we are comparing apples to apples. You want me to fill the buffer with RAW's then stop shooting and measure the write time?

With what media? I have a 1 gig microdrive and I have a 256meg Viking card. They are different read/write speeds.

Also, as the buffer starts writing, you can keep taking pictures, about 1 a second or so.

FWIW, when shooting in the highest quality JPEG mode, you can continuous shoot indefinitely. I'm not joking! I also hooked the camera up to the SB28dx w/ the SC17 cord, and the flash can keep up! The camera takes a shot every 1/2 second and that flash can recycle fast enough at least when not doing a full dump.

It makes you wonder about the Ike DS125 - I wonder "how much" it can recharge in 1/2 second.

Mike: you are spot on about the multiplier - it is cropping - sort of like a "digital zoom" unfortunately. I guess on the good side, you are only recording information from the middle 2/3 of the lens so for wideangle, you will have less barrel distortion and light faloff at the corners. According to Eric, this is why the Sigma 14mm lens performs well on DSLR's

Cheers

James

Hi James,

Actually, my point was that it is neither magnifying nor cropping. To say it was cropping would be to imply that it was capturing information and throwing it away (which is what digital zoom does). Rather, the image simply is what it is -- a representation of a certain angle of view captured by a certain number of sensors in a CCD. The FLM is simply an artifact of the way everything in the camera world is compared to the "35mm standard" (even the 8mm-24mm zooms on P&S digicmas have an accompanying statement saying something like "equivalent to 35-105mm"). So, I wouldn't say that it is unfortunate that the camera crops the image ('cause it doesn't!). Instead I would say that while it is unfortunate that the same wide-angle lens I use on my Canon A2 to give me a wide angle picture covers only 67% of that field of view when I put it on my D60, my D60 sees the middle 67% of my 100-400L giving me a an even narrower field of view for telephoto!

Mike

James - you answered part of my question, which was the wait time needed before taking each addititonal frame once the buffer has filled (e.g. not write time for the whole buffer, but write time for each frame). I am interested in what differences in write times you see with the media you have. When you say 1 frame a second or so, was that with the CF card?

Thanks, I'm encouraged. Since I'm planning to shoot mostly in RAW, these times sound much better to me than the D100 times.

On most subjects, the DS-125s recycle nearly instantaneously. But on some subjects, I definitely need near a full dump, so it takes the full recycle. In practice, I've never noticed waiting for these strobes, however, which is a first. On all the other strobes I've used (Nikonos SB-105s, Sea&Sea YS120s, Ike 50s and 200s), there's always been a situation where I'm ready to take the next shot before strobes recycle. I dread taking a step backwards and having to wait (long times) for the camera instead! I would like knowing that I'm never more than a second away from the next shot... I don't need it alot, but when you need it, you need it.

By the way, you might want to send a note to Sea and Sea, asking about housings. If they get lots of queries about this, they might consider a housing for the S2 more seriously. I've already done my part!

Linda

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What's the email address I should send my request to?

You can PM it to me if you want.

Cheers

James

James - I just sent mail to info@seaandsea.com, and my request got forwarded. You can use that, or try sales@seaandsea.com to see if that's a more direct address (I haven't tried that one). I did get the address of the U.S. sales and marketing manager, and if you want that one, let me know. But I think the request might look more sincere (and less like a setup!) going through the normal channel...

Linda

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The buffer fills up after 7 RAF shots.

After that:

With the microdrive, if I don't shoot anymore, it takes about 45 secs to empty the buffer. Each RAF is about 18 megs.

After the 7 shots are taken, I can take another shot every 5 seconds or so.

With the Viking 256 meg card:

After taking 7 RAF's it takes 55 seconds to clear the buffer

After the 7 shots are taken, I can take another shot after 5 seconds and then another one after 7 seconds.

HTH

James

Thanks, James. The times aren't as good as I had hoped, but they are at least acceptable. Especially compared to D100 times that I've heard.

Linda

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