S5 Pro and Dynamic Range

There have been a few DSLR announcements in the past few months such as the Nikon D80, the Pentax K10D and even the Olympus E-400. All of these DSLR have one common theme; a sensor with higher megapixels.

It's interesting that the much awaited Fujifilm S5 Pro with a Nikon D200 cloned body has decided to go against this trend and stick with the same size 6 megapixel sensor as the previous model. Although the S3 Pro (6 megapixel) was a great camera with it's extended Dynamic Range, it's price was much higher than the competition and this is where the Fujifilm strategy went wrong. For those who do not know what dynamic range is, it is as follows according to Dpreview, "Dynamic range of a sensor is defined by the largest possible signal divided by the smallest possible signal it can generate. The largest possible signal is directly proportional to the full well capacity of the pixel. The lowest signal is the noise level when the sensor is not exposed to any light, also called the noise floor." Click here for more information.

The great thing about the new Fujifilm S5 Pro is that it has even greater creative control over the dynamic range and you can now choose from up to six preset ranges between 100% and 400%. In addition, three new variations of the original film simulation mode (F1) have been added (five modes in total) to give an improved reproduction of natural skin tones.

Although the "development” of the S5 pro has been announced with the release date in 2007!, it's interesting the price has not and I hope the pricing will be much better this time round. Let's wait and see.