Slow to above average speed for a consumer camera.

The Fujifilm S8000fd's performance ranges from slow to above average, depending on what you're trying to do. It starts up fairly slowly, requiring over four seconds, which is about average for a long zoom. Full AF shutter response when the lens is set to wide-angle is on the slow side of average, at 0.87 seconds. At telephoto, full AF shutter lag is 0.94 seconds, which is about average for a long zoom. If you "pre-focus" the S8000fd by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure, it's blazingly fast, with a shutter lag of only 0.018 second.

Shot-to-shot cycle times are also on the slow side of average at about 3 seconds for large/fine JPEGs, though it doesn't seem to slow to clear the buffer. The card type used didn't make much difference. Continuous-mode speed is quite slow for this class of camera, at about 1/2 frame per second in "Long Period" (often called Infinite) mode, but at least it can maintain this rate continuously. Again, the card type used didn't make much difference. "Top-3" mode was better at 1.11 frames per second for three frames, but still below average. The "Top-15" modes were very quick, but at reduced resolution, and the sensitivity is limited to the ISO 800 ~ 3,200 range.

The flash takes 7.4 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, about average for this class of camera. Connected to a computer, download speeds are below average these days.

Bottom line, the S8000fd is one of the slower long-zooms at full resolution on the market today, and not recommended for sports or wiggly kids. The only bright spot is prefocus shutter lag, so if you've got the camera setup and prefocused, you can still capture some fleeting moments.

Battery
Excellent battery life with either the LCD, or EVF viewfinders.

The Fujifilm S8000fd uses four AA-type batteries for power. The table above shows maximum number of shots based on the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) standard procedure for measuring digicam power consumption, and using Alkaline and rechargeable NiMH batteries. These are excellent battery-life numbers, but our standard recommendation of buying a couple of sets of high-capacity NiMH cells, and a good-quality charger still stand.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd stores its photos and movies on SD/SDHC or xD Picture Cards (card not included), or in approximately 58MB of internal memory.

We strongly recommend buying a large capacity xD-Picture card or a SD/SDHC of at least a 1 - 2GB, to give yourself extra space for extended outings and videos. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)