Fuji S3 sun ball reaction

Hello guy, anybody has shot sun ball with the Fuji S3, this is a sounding board regarding interest in this camera for u/w .

I just finished Fuji's training seminar for it and the camera's performance look promising in regards to highlight such as sun ball. I was quite impressed by the prints I saw, but they were wedding shots not U/W, none the less, that white gown shot was impressive (no blown highlight), and I like the profile for slide or negative film emulation (quick and dirty fix), the print where 24"X36" and printed on a frontier, just mind blowing. I want to convince Blake at Aquatica to modify a S2 housing for my trip to Bermuda, basically a 3 controls affair, trigger, speed and aperture, the rest i'll preset, There is a difference in body so buttons etc. wont align properly in any case I just want to test sun spot situation and only have three days.

There seem to be little interest in the camera so far for underwater (Am I wrong). I realise the S2 was popular in part because of the TTL...

Without trying to start too much of an argument Jean, I've always felt the S2 delivered the most appealing (to me) results of any U/W camera. Just when it was time for me to switch to Dslr, I considered it "Old". But I've reconsidered that now and would probably buy an S2 if I had it to do over.

That said, I personally am always interested in shooting Sunballs and would look forward to seeing your results.

And, if you needed another opinion, be more than happy to demo your new rig and give a 1st person report on it...

Rand

Hello Rand, I not looking a chucking my S2pro away, I love the old girl too much, most likely will bump one of my D100 housing/body combo to make room for the S3pro. I shoot underwater studio on occasion and have a bride & groom project I want to shoot in the pool/studio so i'm looking for the queen of white camera and the fact it's file are up to speed wont hurt, the S2pro gives me great results in large prints, but you have to see the S3pro, the software bundle is a slow mother f......, but the freedom of the dynamic scale, wow! I'm looking forward to some more intimate moment with this baby.

Regards

I am also very curious about the S3 and sunballs. In fact I am curious if anyone has got an S3 underwater yet?

Alex

Sure be nice if there was a way to rent these rigs for your own personal tryout.

U/W photo systems now are getting so expensive, you hate to make a mistake but the try before you buy is not an option usually.

And even if you could, I'm not sure that you could master the system in a week or two of diving it.

Yes, you can read reviews, but it's quite obvious no two people get the same results. What might be fantastic for one person's style (read capabilities as well) may not meet the needs of someone else.

Oh well, another Saturday morning pipe dream...

An S3 with an electronic shutter might really be something to play with...

Rentals are always an option for established systems, but you've never bought an established system either Rand Optiquatics and myself offer demo equipment on our trips, and usually anything that is readily available can be arranged.

It will be interesting to see if any major company decides to house this. I personally didn't like anything about the S3 but flash exposure & jpeg processing (horrible slow sync speed, green water, poor raw file processing, teeny viewfinder).

Ryan, I presume you mean the S2pro when refering to the finder size and poor RAW processing, but the finder for the S3pro is bigger and brighter than the S2 and in my opinion the D100, the D70 i'll not compare since it uses plastic mirror instead of a glass prism. the newer sofware while being somewhat slow is a definitly powerfull one for RAW processing.

Regard's

Aquatica has told me that they will not be making a housing for this camera unless their is a lot more interest expressed to them, and Nexus never made a S2Pro housing. This makes this harder for me as I prefer to use Nexus or Aquatica housings. I suspect that if any manufacturer makes a housing it will be Subal.

I am becoming more and more convinced that Fuji has missed the market in terms of price, product timing and additional features and this camera will not do as well as the S2Pro did. I know the S3 is looking less and less attractive to me as time goes on.

Without an announced UW housing option, I will wait until I see what options the new Nikon DSLR's have (the D100 replacement and the new D2 shipping late Feb), and then make a decision. Although expensive, I am leaning towards the D2 if the housing options end up being favourable.

This will be the year I replace my S2, but from all reviews and discussion, Fuji has not done anywhere near enough to make it a simple upgrade to the S3.

M

P.S. I am also concerned that Fuji continues to use the same set of sample images (wedding dress scene) in all their promotions, classes and examples. It is like this is the only set of images ever taken with the camera.

It will be interesting to see if any major company decides to house this. I personally didn't like anything about the S3 but flash exposure & jpeg processing (horrible slow sync speed, green water, poor raw file processing, teeny viewfinder).

Ooops, typo, I meant S2...

Subal's general manager told me that they won't make an housing for the S3

I went to the Dusseldorf's Boot yesterday and played with my new ND70 housing with the optical magnifier I can't wait my next dive ...

also seen the D2H and the 1DS II Subal housings ... too big for me but really great stuff !!! impressed with the LCD size :shock:

Did Andi and Lars go to Boot? If not, I'll miss their web journal.

The Digideep boys were there. I'm sure that they will have something up soon.

Alex

Great!