Fuji Finepix F11 - review from an A95 user (1 Viewer)

[RedBishop]

I got the F11 for my brother and tried it for digiscoping.
The conclusions are - A Fantastic camera for general usage but below average for digiscoping.

The main reason why I thought this camera would be good for digiscoping is the high ISO capabilities of the Fuji Super CCD. To my eyes ISO 100 in the A95 is just barely usable, with the F11, I thought ISO 400 was still ok. This is an incredible achievement in a sensor that small, and a breakthrough in P&S cameras.
The problem is that the light gathering of the lens, compared to those of the A95, is very weak. To get the same shoot speed equivalent to what I go from the A95 in ISO 50, I had to use ISO 400; this makes the whole ISO thing useless.

The camera itself is extremely fast and responsive, a real joy to use, the LCD is large and bright with a very fast refresh rate; this makes it very usable even in very bright sun.
Size wise the camera felt perfect to me, not as bulky as the A95, with good and comfortable grip.

Another thing I noticed was that the lens of the F11 was not in the same class as the A95 (which is average by itself), capturing fewer details.

All in all, some combination of these two cameras would be a winner for me, for the time being, I'm keeping my A95.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for these comments. I was expecting a bit more from the Fuji. There doesn't seem to be a perfect digiscoping camera around at the moment.Neil.

 

[chubri777]

This is what I have been looking for. I use an A 95 and my scope is a B&L Elite 77ED with a 30x Hi Res eyepiece. I like the A95 fine for everythiong except digiscoping. Maybe I just don't know how to set it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Chuck

 

[john-henry]

This is what I have been looking for. I use an A 95 and my scope is a B&L Elite 77ED with a 30x Hi Res eyepiece. I like the A95 fine for everythiong except digiscoping. Maybe I just don't know how to set it up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Chuck

Chuck,
The A95 is an excellent camera for digiscoping, but like all these things some settings and modes work better than others.
There is a mass of information in this forum on the A95 so really the best suggestion I can give is to go through several previous pages and copy this info, then read it at your leisure.

regards

john

 

[pilrito]

F11 sensitivity

...
The problem is that the light gathering of the lens, compared to those of the A95, is very weak. To get the same shoot speed equivalent to what I go from the A95 in ISO 50, I had to use ISO 400; this makes the whole ISO thing useless.
...

RedBishop, there is something wrong with this statement. I am not doubting your information, but that is akin to saying "this camera is only 3" long, yet it is much bigger than the other, which is 5"
The point is that ISO is an international standard; it is a measure of sensitivity. As the meaning of the f: value is also independent of the camera, your saying that 400 ISO in the F11 is the same as 50 ISO in the A 95 means that it is 8 times less sensitive (!); and that can happen only if the actual aperture is 8 times smaller. You should just use a higher aperture value on the F11, because the range of max aperture is about the same in both cameras: 2.8-4.9 in the A95, 2.8-5.0 in the F11 for similar focal ranges.
Antonio

 

[digitalbirdy]

Suprised at poor F11 results

Hi RedBishop, I am surprised at your poor Fuji F11 results, as I use an earlier F10 with outstanding results. Maybe the F11 is fitted with a cheaper lens system. I know Fuji altered a few things, but not really sure what.

The following suggestion may help the results improve: I noticed when first didgiscoping with the F10 that having the lens close to the eyepiece was NOT the best position. In fact keeping the lens about 1cm away seemed to work best.

I use the manual position setting to set the compensation to -1/3 and the jpeg quality to very best - 6Mp Fine. At ISO 400 even in this gloomy grey January I am getting some very sharp, very bright bird photos.

In fact other than £1200 worth of pro slr gear, the F10 has the sharpest lens I have ever seen. I actually need a better digiscope now to utilise it to its full capability.

Below I have attached a photo sample using an F10 through a very low end Opticron scope at 17x magnification. It has been resampled down very small for the internet, but it gives an idea of the quality on offer.

 

[RedBishop]

ISO thing

RedBishop, there is something wrong with this statement. I am not doubting your information, but that is akin to saying "this camera is only 3" long, yet it is much bigger than the other, which is 5"
The point is that ISO is an international standard; it is a measure of sensitivity. As the meaning of the f: value is also independent of the camera, your saying that 400 ISO in the F11 is the same as 50 ISO in the A 95 means that it is 8 times less sensitive (!); and that can happen only if the actual aperture is 8 times smaller. You should just use a higher aperture value on the F11, because the range of max aperture is about the same in both cameras: 2.8-4.9 in the A95, 2.8-5.0 in the F11 for similar focal ranges.
Antonio

Antonio,
I'll try to explain it again, maybe I missed something, I'm not saying anything about the sensitivity of the cameras here.
I had my Scope target at a flower, distant some 20 meters away, I then hold my A95 against the eyepiece, camera was set to F3.5 (if I remember correctly) and ISO was at 50, the camera gave a shoot speed of 1/500.

Now I did the same thing with the F11, holding the camera against the eyepiece, ISO was at set to 80, camera gave shoot speed of 1/125 (again, more or less).
I then had to bust the F11 to ISO 400 and got the same shoot speed of the A95, 1/500.

For what I found, Shoot speed is THE major factor in getting good digiscoping results, and since the F11 has a much weaker light gathering (and to my understanding, this is what my simple test shows) than in this respect, the A95 is better.

Regards,
Avner.

 

[RedBishop]

digitalbirdy,
Nice shot, as I mentioned before, the F11 is an outstanding camera, but I feel confident in saying that for my personal digiscoping taste and preferences, the A95 is better.


Regards,
Avner.

 

[iporali]

Avner,

How much eye relief does your digiscoping eyepiece have? I think digitalbirdy has a point about setting the camera at the correct distance. I have seen similar strange symptoms when the camera has been too close to the eyepiece. I don't know exactly why/how it happens, but part of the light rays may not reach the sensor. This is often accompanied by "kidney bean"-shadowing or "back-outs". An adjustable bracket-adapter would certainly help in this kind of comparisons.

If you eg. use the Pentax zoom at 20x, the exit pupil is 4mm and the angle of the light "cone" coming from the eyepiece is only about 40°. The F11 lens really should have no problems with "gathering" all this light. To remove black frames (mechanical vignetting) you may have to zoom-in up to about 2x (70 mm) - here the lens may be close its shortest extension & requiring least ER.

Were there any differences in vignetting behaviour between the Fuji and Canon?

Regards,

Ilkka :t:

 

[Henky]

I heard from different people that some fuji models indeed have little problems with light, i.o.w. they are slight darker than other camera's However, the difference between your a95 and f11 is that big, i think something else is causing this problem.

 

[RedBishop]

Avner,

How much eye relief does your digiscoping eyepiece have? I think digitalbirdy has a point about setting the camera at the correct distance. I have seen similar strange symptoms when the camera has been too close to the eyepiece. I don't know exactly why/how it happens, but part of the light rays may not reach the sensor. This is often accompanied by "kidney bean"-shadowing or "back-outs". An adjustable bracket-adapter would certainly help in this kind of comparisons.

If you eg. use the Pentax zoom at 20x, the exit pupil is 4mm and the angle of the light "cone" coming from the eyepiece is only about 40°. The F11 lens really should have no problems with "gathering" all this light. To remove black frames (mechanical vignetting) you may have to zoom-in up to about 2x (70 mm) - here the lens may be close its shortest extension & requiring least ER.

Were there any differences in vignetting behaviour between the Fuji and Canon?

Regards,

Ilkka :t:

I was testing it on the Pentax PF-80 with the Zoom eyepiece.
Vigneting with the F11 was no problem, with the A95 I zoom to about 2.5x, with the F11 2x was good enough to avoid any vignating, though, the type of vigneting was less friendly, it was fading to black and not clear black circle as in the case of A95.

All in all, there is a possibility that having the camera set at an 2.28mm from the ep would solve the problem, but it would make the camera useful for taking shoots of the moon, not moving birds, Attaching the camera to the scope should not be a difficult task, as it is with the A95. Sometimes I want to grab a quick shoot, I can easily hand hold the camera, with the F11, this is not even possible because the lens are just too small for the eyepiece.

All in all, I feel that there are few changes in the P&S world in the past two years that it is only a matter of time until we get a good digiscoping camera with all these enhancements (Real high ISO, IS/VR, Real LCD - 3" and 200K colors, 1-2cm macro mode, Sensor larger than 1/1.8, instant response and fast focus), I believe the F11 is not the big news we have been waiting for, maybe in the PMA...

 

[Neil]

I would be interested in seeing a reduced , full frame image , with EXIF info taken with the Fuji F11. Neil.

 

[Timedrifter]

I feel I must join this thread briefly. I am reasonably new to digiscoping and am only just beginning to get what I call reasonable results. I started out about three months ago using a Fuji F10 with an Opticron HR66. I made an accurate centring adaptor so I could use the scope as a scope and just take piccies when I felt like it. I should add that not only did my adaptor centre the camera lens but it also acted as a stop so that camera lens to eypiece distance was always the same in relation to camera zoom. For those who do not know, the lens extension is the same at wide and and telephoto, with the mid position being approximately 3mm back towards the camera. Strange things happened with this setup that caused me to suspect that my HR66 had a problem; it was at least a month before I realised what was happening without me realising it. The method I used/use is to focus the object via the screen using the scope focus, and then to take my pic. What I realised I was doing was actually angle the camera in the adaptor (in other words misalign the lens with the eyepiece) to avoid odd vignetting affects. This of course meant that there was no consistency to any of my pictures and almost put me off digiscoping completely. Having the opportunity to acquire another HR66 I did so, and guess what? Yes, exactly the same problem! At this point I decided to get another scope. I looked very thoroughly through all the threads and write ups on Birdforum paying particular attention to Andy Brights comments about his experiences with the Kowa TSN3, and decided this was the beast I would go for. The one I bought came complete with the 30xWide eyepiece which I wasn't sure about at first (I'd been using a 20x with the Opticron) but soon realised this was a super lens. The nitty gritty was that instantly all vignetting problems disappeared and as a bonus the horrendous purple fringing I was getting with both the HR66s was virtually completely illiminated. This of course mainly a testament to the quality of Kowa's fluorite lens. I have recently bought the F11 and although I haven't thoroughly tested it yet it appears to be very similar quality to the F10. The advantage of Aperture Priority is the main advantage. At the moment I use one of these universal adaptors which I have set up on the scope permanently and as a consequence do all my viewing through the camera screen. I have designed an adaptor which I plan to have made shortly that will allow me to use the scope as a scope and very quickly have the camera ready to use for piccies. I was very interested to read what digitalbirdy said about lens to eyepiece distance; at the moment I use mine at probably 1-2mm, but will experiment soon with greater distance. I too was puzzled by what RedBishop said about the ISO differences. Perhaps he had different metering etc on each camera? For me the high ISO capability of F10/11 is it's major feature. I can get very good results at 400 and well usable results at 8 and 1600! One thing I have learnt is that it's better to have a noisy sharp picture than a clean blurred one. Noise is reducable via computer programs to a very good extent.
I too bought an A95, it sits in it's box unused (virtually) I tried a few shots and couln't believe the noise level on it, even at low settings. It's a mystery to me why so many people recommend it. I know it has some very desirable features such as the flip screen, magifying focus and pre set programs, but I'd rather be able to shoot in poor conditions and have no problems with vignetting (which I also got with the A95).
OK, so this wasn't so brief, but I just felt I had to say something in favour of the Fuji F10/11 and somthing contrary about the A95 and the mass hysteria about Opticron.

 

[Neil]

Thanks for your comments. The Kowa is an under-rated scope with an excellent line of eyepieces and accessories for digiscoping. I'm looking forward to you experiences with the Fuji F11. Neil.

 

[Timedrifter]

Thanks for your comments. The Kowa is an under-rated scope with an excellent line of eyepieces and accessories for digiscoping. I'm looking forward to you experiences with the Fuji F11. Neil.

Neil, clear your private message box and I'll try again tomorrow.

 

[RedBishop]

I would be interested in seeing a reduced , full frame image , with EXIF info taken with the Fuji F11. Neil.

Fair comment, I will work on few examples and will post it in the next few days.
I will be more than happy to find out I was wrong and that the F11 is indeed better, it is such a fun camera to use!

 

[RedBishop]

F11 to A95, crops

Having read some of the comments here, I decided I'll try again, just to make sure. Again I have to speak for the F11 friendliness, really an amzgingly fun camera, but not for digiscoping, at least not for my type of digiscoping.

Two things I want to emphasize:
1. The F11 vignetting is worse than that of the A95, I could shoot at F3.5 in the A95 and in the F11 only at F4.9 vignetting was cleared.
2. The examples shows the difference in light gathering - with the F11, F4.9 and ISO 80, I got to shoot at 1/85,.
On the A95, with F4.5 and ISO50 (which is as close as I got), I could shoot at 1/250.
I hope that this makes my point about light gathering clear now.

Attached are the 100% crops.

 

[Henky]

If this are the original pictures, the fuji is indeed a little bit darker.

With the fuji at iso 80 and 1/85
The canon at iso 50 and 1/250

You should expect the picture of the canon should be remarkable darker, and it isn't.

 

[Timedrifter]

Having read some of the comments here, I decided I'll try again, just to make sure. Again I have to speak for the F11 friendliness, really an amzgingly fun camera, but not for digiscoping, at least not for my type of digiscoping.

Two things I want to emphasize:
1. The F11 vignetting is worse than that of the A95, I could shoot at F3.5 in the A95 and in the F11 only at F4.9 vignetting was cleared.
2. The examples shows the difference in light gathering - with the F11, F4.9 and ISO 80, I got to shoot at 1/85,.
On the A95, with F4.5 and ISO50 (which is as close as I got), I could shoot at 1/250.
I hope that this makes my point about light gathering clear now.

Attached are the 100% crops.

One thing that should be apparent here is that different telescope/eyepiece combinations produce different vignetting effects. It is therefore not true to state categorically that 'vignetting is worse on the F11'. As I said in my earlier comment, I get no vignetting whatsoever with my TSN3+30X Wide combination at any zoom position.

 

[Timedrifter]

If this are the original pictures, the fuji is indeed a little bit darker.

With the fuji at iso 80 and 1/85
The canon at iso 50 and 1/250

You should expect the picture of the canon should be remarkable darker, and it isn't.

Hi Henky
I think you have misread the pictures - the Canon shot is the underexposed darker one on the left (hover your mouse pointer over the thumbnails)