FUJIFILM FinePix S2 Pro Digital Camera

This camera is superb. I like the feel and response it gives not to mention the outstanding picture quality. I especially like it since it has a a Nikon f mount and can record in 12 mega pixels which is superb for its age. Not much to dislike but since you ask i suppose i would prefer if it was built of metal not plastic and had a larger viewing screen but these are minor issues.

Nikon components fine but had several problems with the Fuji elements , defective small display panel - fuji service only available via Fuji unlike Nikon you are at their mercy - £200 for a small display - quoted less , charged more - never rufunded difference. Third fault developed was that the camera shows image on display post exposure , record light shows but did not record to either card slot - cost over £400 - Exit camera into council wheelie bin at under two years old. If you are buying one get insurance cover as repairs are not economical. Have a D100 over twice as old that I carry round in the car for the odd shot - two Nikon D2x(S) and Hasselblad digital now but no more Fuji thanks. On a plus point colour saturation was good.

We own both a Fuji S2Pro and a Nikon D1 the comparison between the two is huge the Fuji is very easy to get to grips with whilst the Nikon is a true pro jobbie the weight difference is immense the fuji is a much lighter camera even with the additional battery pack which means 8 AA batteries installed and then there is the Nikons relatively small CCD giving only 3mp as opposed to the brillianf Fuji giving up to 12mp (interpolated) but what does this really tell you .....not a lot I'm afraid the proof lies in the actual photos I have taken some stunning shots with both cameras and the Nikon simply blows the Fuji away but dont let this put you off the Fuji is a remarkable pro camera giving excellent photos shot after shot and I will never get rid of it but I stick with the Nikon and yes it is quite old but it is still the weapon of choice for lots of pro action photographers still and it is still the quickest camera out there today and this is where the Fuji comes back into play ... we have put it up against the D1 for fps and it was the same speed so that makes it a quick camera to so if you are wanting a really good camera go for the Nikons but if you want a Nikon alternative it has to be the S2Pro

I've owned an S2 Pro for over 3 years and taken over 35,000 trouble free photos. Things I like on the Fuji are the uncomplicated menus (menus on some later DSLR's I use can be quite demanding). The CCD reproduces the most accurate flesh tones- better than my Nikon D200. This coupled with 12M pixel RAW images is a must for wedding photographers. Use of the Nikon lens system mount was also a stroke of genius for Fuji- finding excelent lenses for the S2 Pro is no problem.


Like others I think the battery arrangement is cumbersome compared to the very latest DSLR's but I worked with it for three years and had no real problems. Just remeber to keep a set of spares ready when working!

It has an excellent feature set, image-quality and good handling, all provided at a sensible price. It's likely to be more popular than the S1 Pro and hats off to Fujifilm for keeping up with the high standards set by Nikon and Canon, and in some ways exceeding them.
In summary the main positive points of the Fujifilm S2 Pro are:

Well designed user interface
Good weight and handling characteristics
Wide selection of features and options
Excellent image quality
12 megapixel mode is optional
Firewire and USB connections
High usable ISO range

Negative points are:

Complication of using two battery types
Exposure compensation is in 1/2 steps
Occasionally camera/menu operation could be faster

nice trouble free camera, great quality pictures, compatibility with nikon is a big plus, if it was a bit smaller i would never change it for another one.

I got this camera for my daughter (age 11) I have a new Sony A350 and rather than let her 'play' with my expensive new camera I got an ex-pro style DSLR that I thought could take a few knocks and would be a good learning tool for her.

It's a fantastic camera! The body feels brilliant - much better quality than my Sony, viewfinder is beautifully clear and all controls and displays are logical, fall easily to hand and communicate information clearly.

Pictures of people are just stunning, colours are rich and deep, The flash is obviously relatively weak, but better than my A350, redeye isn't a problem.

6 mega-pixels doesn't sound too impressive, but the S2 can produce images 12mp using software and the Super CCD tech in the body. I can't see any difference in the images taken on my 14mp Sony A350 and from the S2 at 12mp. In fact I prefer the colours produced by the S2.

RAW images are a different story - the Sony images are clearly better - the progress made since the S2 was developed are evident here.

However the original purchase price in the UK was around £2000 five years ago - I got this S2 for £165, less than a tenth of it's original cost and quite frankly if I hadn't already invested in my Sony A350 (& several lenses) I would be quite happy to use this camera as my preferred choice. I'm sure it will suit my daughter for several years.

If you get the chance to get one of these - you won't regret it!

The S2 is an interesting, somewhat quirky digital SLR from 2002. In its day it was one of the top six-megapixel cameras, and competed directly with the Nikon D100. In its favour the S2 had a slightly higher resolution, and the JPG output was more vivid and much sharper. Against it, the body was larger but cheaper-feeling, the interface was odd, and it was more expensive. On a physical level it was directly based on a contemporary Nikon film body, but with a digital back added as a sort of cradle, and by modern standards it's a relatively bulky device.

The interface is sound, although there are three things that irritate me. The histogram is small and not the best around (it overlaps slightly less than a quarter of the image on a 1.8" screen, so it's hard to make out whether you have blown highlights). There's no flashing highlights display and there's no proper post-capture histogram, either. You can enable a post-capture histogram, but this forces the camera into a mode whereby you have to explicitly save every image. The only other irritant is that you have to turn the P/S/A/M dial to a separate ISO setting in order to change ISO value. You have to switch back to e.g. A or P to take the shot rather than just pressing the shutter button. The camera will only use memory cards that are 2gb or smaller.

The camera's big strength is that its sensor and JPG processor can produce very vivid, colourful, contrasty JPGs. If you shoot RAW the camera becomes a fairly average six-megapixel SLR, although its colour response still has "pop", for want of a better word. In my experience blue skies look a little bit greeny-yellow and reds are very red, but this isn't displeasing.

The S2 has a six megapixel sensor, although it interpolates the images up to 12 megapixels. The merits of this were debated widely in contemporary reviews, and the general consensus was that its output is slightly sharper and more detailed than other six megapixel cameras of the period, such as the D100 and Canon D60. The debate is basically meaningless as of 2009.

The camera works fine with Nikon's older flash units. If you have one of the pre-digital SB flashes - I have an SB-24 - you can use it in TTL mode and it works. Unfortunately the body only allows for one stop of flash exposure compensation. The viewfinder has on-demand gridlines, although the viewfinder itself is relatively small. The body is plastic and feels cheap.

It's not bad at higher ISOs. ISO 1600 is a stretch, but ISO 800 is perfectly okay if you expose to the right. If you boost shadow areas you end up with banded noise. The in-camera noise reduction makes JPGs resemble the output of a Fuji F30 compact, e.g. obviously smoothed but not ugly.

The camera has an odd battery system. You're supposed to use four AAs plus a pair of CR123s, although the camera will work with just four AAs. I like the fact that it uses AAs. I can interchange batteries with my flash unit, and AAs are cheap and will be around forever.

As of 2009 it has depreciated from being an alternative choice for advanced Nikon shooters to being a kind of entry-level alternative to the D40; compared to the D40 it will autofocus screw-drive lenses, but overall the D40 is the superior choice (sadly neither camera meters with pre-autofocus Nikon lenses). It also tends to be overshadowed by the Fuji S3, which captures images with extended dynamic range, and holds its value on account of it being almost unique.

i like the idea of have a pro camera, love all i can do on photos,
is a shame not haven more item for this camera.
i got this camera coz all the review i look at was good

The reviews here say as much as is needed to explain how good a camera this is. My Brother has the S5 and he tells me the S2 I bought off Ebay is not much better than his S5. After buying my S2 I looked for lens's for it on Ebay and if I am using any of my Nikon lens with this camera the results speak for themselves. I bought some rechargeable batteries for this camera. My latest addition was a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5.6G VR lens I paid #400 for. If I did not think the S2 was worth I would not have bought such an expensive lens for it.

The S2 Pro is easily one of the best Camera's I have ever owned, and i have had a fair few over the years now. Although I do have newer DSLR I would not be without this camera.

I have used it for capturing images from weddings to wildlife scenes, many of which have sold via my website.

Remember that peoples complaints always surround fuji's customer service and not the cameras performance. Read any literature online and you will see what a great unit this is.

so I bought a second hand Fuji S2 Pro. I have 2 other Fuji cameras and I like their photos and build quality, was I wrong to buy an elderly S2 pro? No, is the definitive answer, it has obviously been well loved and looked after but even so was a 6Mp DSLR up to the quality of the newer S9600 I own?

I bought an S2 body for under £150 and a tamron lens for under £60 so for less than £200 I bought a full DSLR camera. The Fuji feels like a proper old 35mm SLR with a power wind on the bottom, its big and a little weighty but like my other Fuji cameras (S8000 and S9600) it feels right, the buttons and dials are in the right places and everything feels solid. Fitting my new lens and lifting the camera for my first couple of shots and it felt like I had moved backwards through time and was holding my old Pentax Z10 again, the camera whirred into focus and blat, blat, blat 3 shots taken before I realised that this was a proper camera and could take more than 1 photo before spending the next 10 seconds saving to memory card. I also forgot that Fuji use the Super CCD system which means that in reality I'm getting an equivalent quality to a 12Mp sensor, the pictures are sharp, bright and have and excellent colour balance. After playing around with the butons on the back I had swapped the Film Speed to 400 ISO and another 3 photos taken, amazing and starting to feel like David Bailey. A new camera of similar specification will still set you back over £250 without a lens and it will Not be as robust as this old monster. The quality of image is as good as the 10Mp S9600, but I haven't had them both out in proper test yet but even so the 9600 takes a brilliant photo. There are downsides with the S2 pro however, its not light and its a BIG camera, it doesn't like memory cards over 1Gb and can still take SmartMedia cards if you can find one. On the plus side it takes AA batteries and two CR123A batteries that can be replaced with a battery grip and another 4 AA batteries, as it is getting on a bit and was based on the Nikon D100 accessories are getting easy to find, and although a Nikon lens could cost silly money a cheap alternative can be found for around the £50 mark on Ebay, as can flash guns and anything else you might want. I personally cannot believe that I have such a superb camera for under £200. To anyone wanting to move into semi professional photography I would recommend this as the way to go or anyone wanting to get an SLR again but not pay £500 for a decent kit, head this way Ebay yourself into some slightly older technology and have a ball.

I owned a Fuji S2 Pro a few years ago but sold it as I wanted something newer and better. I tried various digital slrs but was never completely satisfied with any of them. After revisiting photographs taken with my S2 Pro I realised it was as good if not better than anything else I had used.Prices are now very reasonable so I bought one.
The camera is well constructed and a good size and weight. It produces excellent pictures - very sharp and lovely colours. I would say it is best suited to portraiture and landscape work but probably too slow for sports photography. It uses both AA and CR123 batteries which is a bit of a nuisance but can work without the CR123 although the flash does not function. The S2 Pro is not really a beginners camera but once mastered it is a joy to use. I love it so much I now have two!