Fujifilm FinePix S7000

The Fujifilm FinePix S602 was a sleeper hit last holiday season, selling out its entire production run in just a few months. This year's Fujifilm FinePix S7000 improves on the S602 in nearly every way—starting with twice as many pixels (6.3 megapixels) and a lower price ($700 street).

The S7000 looks and feels like a slightly miniaturized 35-mm SLR camera, though it's not a true SLR. In place of an optical viewfinder, the S7000 has a 235,000-pixel electronic view-finder (EFV), one of the best we've seen. Another winning feature of the S7000 is its excellent 6X zoom lens, with a 35- to 210-mm effective focal length.

The S7000 is the first camera to use the new Fujifilm Super CCD HR image sensor chip, which packs twice as many pixels into the same space as the previous-generation Super CCD sensor. The S7000 uses an in-camera interpolation algorithm to take 6.3MP images and produce files with effectively twice the number of pixels.

Indeed, our test pictures were very sharp and clear, with little noise and vivid colors. But most of the credit goes to the 6.3MP sensor itself, not the interpolation. With the feature enabled, the extra pixels delivered marginally better image detail—but at the expense of greatly increased file sizes.

We found the S7000 easy to use. Advanced photographers will find all the controls they expect, including a full range of exposure modes; a spot meter; a dedicated exposure compensation button; a manual focusing ring; and an on-screen, real-time exposure histogram. If you'd rather not mess with the controls, you can simply put the camera's mode dial on Auto and let the camera do the rest.

The S7000 has one of the best built-in flash units we've seen. The pop-up bulb emits a short preflash before the exposure in order to judge the reflectance and distance of the subject. While the preflash adds a tiny delay to the picture-taking process, it delivers perfect exposures nearly every time.

The company did cut a few corners in the S7000's bundle, however. Power comes from four double-A batteries or a rechargeable nickel hydride battery pack add-on ($40 street), rather than a costlier (and longer-lasting) lithium ion battery pack. And though the S7000 accepts CompactFlash and xD-Picture Card media, Fujifilm provides only a 16MB xD-Picture Card in the box.

Still, we think the S7000 is one of the best values in the prosumer class. The Nikon Coolpix 5700 has an 8X lens but only 5MP for the same price. If the S7000 sounds appealing, our advice is to grab one before they sell out, too.