The Fujifilm FinePix HS10 is a powerful, feature-packed camera that offers a huge list of features for the serious shooter, but which is cheaper and more convenient than most SLRs. It offers an incredible 30x zoom length range, which goes from a very wide angle 24mm setting to a awesomely long 705mm zoom setting, so it can take in anything from a landscape or group shot to a close-up of a distant object. In the super macro mode, the lens can also focus down to about 0.4 inches (1cm) from the front of the lens, providing for some very close shots.

The HS10 also shoots high-speed video, capturing up to 1000 frames a second. The resolution of this video is greatly reduced from the standard mode, though: at the maximum 100fps speed, the video is just 64 by 226 pixels. It also requires a lot of light to work effectively, and the captured video is somewhat noisy and grainy.

A number of special shooting modes are also available. These include a one-shot panorama mode (where you press the shutter and pan the camera to capture) and several modes that use multiple images to enhance the photo, including an advanced low-light mode and a motion elimination mode. We found that these worked well, but had some odd glitches: on the one-shot panorama mode, there were some obvious glitches in our test image where the camera had stitched together multiple images. But these mode are definitely useful and add to the usability of the camera.

Performance (read in-depth performance coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
We found that the HS10 performed well in our tests, capturing images with mostly accurate color and a good detail. The performance of the camera did fall off a little at the wide and telephoto end of the zoom range, though, with the edges of images becoming somewhat soft and fuzzy. The camera also offers a very wide ISO range of 200 up to 6400, all at the full 10-megapixel resolution. We found that the amount of noise in images was low across the range, although the higher ISO settings do show some very visible noise, and the colors in images above ISO 1600 do look somewhat muted and pale. 

We also found that the quality of the video that this camera captures is a little disappointing. Although the HS10 captures video at Full HD resolution (1920 by 1440 pixels), we found that it had rather weak color and only captured a moderate level of detail. Although the video looks good, it does not have the same crisp clarity of a high-end dedicated camcorder or an SLR that shoots video.

Comparisons (read in-depth comparisons at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
There are a number of cameras available that offer a similar feature list, but the HS10 surpasses many of these. The $400 Sony DSC-HX1 offers similar special shooting modes, but the HS10 has a slightly longer zoom lens and shoots higher definition video. The $400 Nikon P100 also has a shorter zoom, and we found the images to be a little noisier than the HS10. Panasonic offers the FZ35, which has an 18x zoom lens, but we did find that the HS10 scored better on most of our tests.