Fujifilm's S100FS certainly looks like an SLR camera, but it's not one.

While it shares the large body and lens of SLR cameras, the lens on the S100FS is actually fixed, and rather than using a mirror to allow the user to see the same image through the viewfinder as the lens is seeing, it uses the same technology as a digital compact camera, in which the rear screen shows the image direct from the image sensor.

There is an optical viewfinder, but this is in reality a smaller version of the screen, showing an electronic image, rather than a true optical one. While this may seem like an academic, technical argument, this method has one clear disadvantage compared with a true SLR – there's a discernible shutter lag between pressing the button to take a picture and the shot actually being taken. It's a small difference, true, but it is important for action shots and anything else that depends on timing.

That aside, the S100FS handles very well. The large lens barrel means it's easy to zoom in and out, and the large body means there's room for lots of switches, so you don't have to hunt through the menus to do simple things such as change the shutter speed.

Like an SLR the S100FS can shoot in several modes, such as one in which you set the shutter speed and it does the rest, or in full manual mode, in which you set all the settings. That complicates things – there aren't quite enough dials to go round, so you end up holding down buttons to make certain changes. Overall, it worked well, though, and the menus are easy to navigate, and fast.

Image quality was very impressive, with good colour and excellent detail, although there was a little too much noise in low-light conditions. The 11-megapixel sensor allows for large-scale images or a good amount of magnification for enlargements. The internal flash is reasonably powerful, but there's also a hot shoe adapter for attaching an external flash. In a nice t ouch, it can simulate Fujifilm's colour films, so you can choose to increase dynamic range to get shots that look like they were taken on slide film, for instance.

The lens extends up to 400mm, allowing for long-range shots, which is the one advantage this camera has over an SLR (you essentially get the long lens for free).

This is a good camera, and image quality is very impressive, as is the long lens. But in the past the advantage of Fujifilm's hybrid cameras has been one of price – they've been much cheaper than equivalent SLRs. With SLRs getting cheaper, some cheaper than the S100FS, there seems little point in this camera for most people unless they really like the Fujifilm way of doing things and want to stick with it.

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