Pixiq

Summr holidays are upon us as of this week (in the UK at least) which means that there might be a swathe of people looking for cameras to take pictures of their kids on the beach, up hills, doing stuff that kids do in six week holidays, as well as maybe capture some wildlife or pretty architecture, too. So how about a superzoom? A compact camera for those who want decent telephoto images. We’ve already looked at the Canon SX30 IS so we thought that we’d dip our toes back into the water with the Fuji Finepix HS20EXR, which raised the bar on their original superzoom, the HS10.

It comes with a 30× optical zoom, a 16 megapixel sensor, has a manual zoom function, and shoots in RAW. And it sounds as if it should be great. But there seem to be some issues with it; noticeably high noise levels even at relatively low ISO values, it’s slow in RAW, and the electronic viewfinder isn’t all that great. But, you can’t compare it to a dSLR and if you don’t want to change lenses but still have the option for big zoom, then it might be the camera for you. Read on, though, and decide for yourself…

Cameras.co.uk says ‘The Fuji Finepix HS20EXR is an ideal choice if you are looking for an advanced digital camera with plenty of zoom power. This camera is packed with features, takes high quality photos and handles in a similar way to a Digital SLR.’ – Read the full review on Cameras.co.uk

CNET UK says ‘Photo quality is roughly in line with what we would anticipate from a bridge camera. Strong points include deep, rich, naturalistic colours and high levels of detail, particularly in good, even light. There’s minimal blur too, thanks to a pretty good image stabiliser.’ – Read the full review on CNET UK

ePHOTOzine says ‘The EXR sensor can dramatically improve dynamic range and produces good colour, although as is expected with small sensor cameras to get the best results you’re best sticking to the lower ISO settings.’ – Read the full review on ePHOTOzine

PhotographyBLOG says ‘We really liked last year’s HS10, but can’t shake off the feeling that this year’s upgrade represents a step backwards rather than forwards, principally because of the 16 megapixel sensor and the resulting drop in image quality. The Fujifilm FinePix HS20 EXR is still a good camera, with a long list of stand-out features and a logical, well-thought-out interface, but ultimately the photos that it produces just aren’t as good as the model that it has replaced.’ – Read the full review on PhotographyBLOG

Pocket-lint says ‘For all of its plus points there are certain areas (such as the viewfinder quality) that fall just short of the mark and other small niggles (like the awkwardly-placed flash that interferes with the manual zoom) which see the HS20 EXR shy of greatness. This may be forgiven if image quality was extra special, but that highly-populated 16-megapixel sensor won’t see the most critical of picture-lovers outwardly impressed. It’s perfectly good for standard day-to-day snaps, but it’s not encroaching on DSLR territory.’ – Read the full review on Pocket-lint

TechRadar says ‘Ideally Fujifilm wanted to create an easy-to-use super zoom camera, packed full of fun and creative features which ultimately produces a higher level of picture quality. What they have in fact achieved is a feature-filled super zoom that does produce stellar images when used manually, but may provide disappointing results for those shooters content with using auto commands.’ – Read the full review on TechRadar

What Digital Camera says ‘Where the HS20 comes a little undone is with its reasonable, though not staggering, image quality. The latest sensor is, frankly, over-populated in pixel count (the HS10 produced better images) and even the half resolution (8MP) EXR output can only provide so much of an improvement. For HS10 users hoping for a new revelation, this isn’t the worthy upgrade model.’ – Read the full review on What Digital Camera