Design

Fujifilm Finepix HS20 EXR review – Design

The first resounding thing about holding the HS20 is that its cosmetics haven’t changed from the previous HS10. A shame as the protruding built-in flashgun atop the camera gets right in the way of being able to rotate the zoom in a single rotation. It’s clear that the flash has to sit forward to get a good reach beyond the lens, but at the expense of useage is a shortcoming. More advanced users may be interested to see the three-pin TTL hotshoe that can now cater for external flashguns.

As well as manual zoom there’s also a manual focus ring but it’s set so far back towards the camera’s body that it’s just not overtly practical to use.

Nor are there any design tweaks to be found in the 200k-dot electronic viewfinder either – an area which could have benefitted from seeing a little more work for a larger, brighter and higher resolution image. At present the size of the viewfinder is a little on the small side.

Quibbles out of the way, though, and the HS20 EXR does indeed make perfect sense. It’s got a bold grip that’s good in the hand, the button array is comprehensive (though the ‘press and hold’ method can become a little irksome) and the rear LCD screen can be angled 45∞ down or (in excess of) 90∞ upwards on the vertical bracket for more unusual framing. Should the sun be too bright then that electronic viewfinder, despite its shortcomings, is an absolutely essential feature to have and of great use for extra support when at the fullest zoom.

One issue that’s been rife from various sources is the apparent ‘overheating’ the HS20 quickly encounters. However, fear not, this is only a firmware issue for cameras running pre-v1.02 software. The camera doesn’t actually overheat, moreover ‘thinks’ it’s too hot when the internal sensor temperature is fine.