Home > Consumer Reviews > Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD Digital Camera - Black (10MP, 15x Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD

I bought my S2000HD as an upgrade from an S5000 which I have happily used for tasks varying from family snaps to geological fieldwork. If you are a fan of Fuji's almost-but-not-quite-SLR digital cameras then you will feel at home with the S2000HD. It retains all the upsides: smaller and lighter than a DSLR, great lenses, no dust, great photos and a good price.

The S2000HD also has 3 killer features that made me upgrade.
1) Image stabilisation
2) Records movies in HD resolution and allows me to zoom while recording
3) 15x optical zoom

But there are flaws, most notably

1) The zoom is controlled by a push-button style control which is very jerky.
2) The lens has a push-fit cover, instead of a threaded rim. I think this means I will be unable to fit a UV lens filter.

If you don't think you can live with these limitations and you are willing to spend double the money then have a look at the S100fs. If you don't want to spend that much and you don't mind having last-year's model (with no image stabilisation, less zoom and lower res movies) then see if you can find a heavily-discounted S9600.

To start with I'm normally a DSLR user but I wanted something a little smaller for those occaisions when carrying the "big camera" wasn't practical. I didn't want a compact & I still wanted some quality & creativity so I needed a "halfway house". This camera fits the bill perfectly. Small & light but with enough features & modes to keep even a "photo junky" like me happy. Picture quality is great & when images are captured in the 16:9 modes they look fantastic on a large LCD tv (that's saying something coming from me because I'm very fussy!). The quality of the video in movie mode is very good & also looks good when played back on the tv.

If I have one "gripe" it's that the zoom control operates to fast & this makes small adjustments in focal length very difficult. That's the only real reason it didn't get the fifth star.

All in all I'm very happy with the camera & I shall use much more than I originaly intended.

I bought my Fuji s2000HD as an easy-to-use complement to my very-capable Fuji s100FS, but with the added bonus of HD movies. Am pleased with the purchase: it is indeed very easy to use, has good battery life, the menu is common with the rest of the Fuji range, the buttons are simple to reach, it has a very wide zoom-range, it fits in my coat pocket, and the HD movies are a big step up from the usual 640x480 from most digicams. The s2000HD has some downsides though: the colours in low-light or when using flash can sometimes be distorted (especially red), the battery indicator tells you it is about to run out of power way before the batteries run out (though there is a handy discharge function for NiMH rechargeable batteries), and the HD movie quality is not quite as good as I had hoped for (the camera uses only 8Mb/s MPEG4 part2 at 1280x720p @30 frames/sec....with this video profile the bit-rate should be at least 12Mb/s).

Excellent camera. Wanted a little more than a normal compact but without the complexity and bulk of a full SLR and this fits the bill. Only had it a short while so am getting to grips with the settings but am sure once I've mastered these I can make full use of the many functions. Great value for money too as it's much less than other high zoom cameras. Only downside is that using AA batteries instead of a battery pack means it gets through a lot of batteries especially when filming. Other than this it's a great buy.

HD Video quality is great, with good colour correction. Zoom is heavy handed most of the time and motor noise is significant. File format is MPEG-3 so you need to put the files through (eg) Avidemux to produce AVI files which can be easily edited in low cost or free editors.
Autofocus and zoom work continuously in video mode which is an improvement on previous models.
There is a stills mode, with features like the ability to shoot in burst mode in a range of resolutions, and a super macro mode that lets you get as close as 1cm to the subject. Video quality and the addition of lots of stills camera functions with full manual control make this one of the best value cameras on the market at the moment.
Memory cards can be had for under £10 for 8Gig if you look around.
An ideal choice if you want to get into HD video and want full stills capability too.