Testing / Sample Images

The sample S3 UVIR came with an IR filter and a UV filter. We shot a range of subjects with each filter. However, we shot relatively little without the filters because the shots just look washed out. Each of the three color channels – red, green and blue – are about equally sensitive to infrared and ultraviolet, so the addition of those frequencies affect each channel equally, evening out color contrast.

Blood

Blood shows up dark in infrared light, but many clothing dyes don't. So, spots of blood will show up dark against a light background, even on a black t-shirt. To demonstrate this, one dedicated DigitalCameraInfo writer set aside a black shirt at home, waiting for some sort of bloody incident to occur. After a couple of days, his daughter ran cheerily down the hall with a triumphant shout of, "Daddy! I have a bloody nose!" Alas, it dried up too quickly to get on the T-shirt. Later, the writer inflicted a personal injury upon himself to yield blood for the test and greater quest for truth. Interestingly, both the infrared and the ultraviolet filters were effective in showing the blood. The comparison shot was taken with a Nikon D80, and it doesn't quite match up with the S3 UVIR shots, but it demonstrates that the blood did not show in visible light. ***

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Ultraviolet, Visible Light Only, Infrared**

Daylight 

Below are two comparison shots of outdoor scenes. The first, of a house's peaked roof with sky in the background, contrasts the S3 UVIR's performance between an IR filter and a UV filter. The image pair with color is a composite of two shots of the scene – the top one through the #87 infrared filter, and the bottom one through the UV filter. We split the composite into red, green, and blue channels because we saw so much color variation in the UV shot. The IR shots' channels are fairly consistent in tone, while the UV shot is much brighter in the red channel. This may be due to the UV filter's efficiency, or it may be that the filtration built into photosites on the chip passes UV with varying efficiency.

Top: Infrared; Bottom: Ultraviolet

Top row: Red, Green and Blue channels of Infrared shot; Bottom row: Red, Green and Blue channels of Ultraviolet shot

Our other daylight shot was taken with a 300mm f/4 Nikkor, on a clear, cold day. We had hoped to demonstrate the superior haze penetration of infrared, but the effect is limited because it was such a clear day. Still, the visible light shot shows significantly less contrast than the IR shot. We could not test this scene in UV because we don't have a UV filter that would cover the 300mm. We used an 87c Kodak Gelatin filter for the IR shot.

*Vegetation
*We shot all sorts of produce with the S3 UVIR but have chosen to show the pineapple top . The left shot is through the IR filter and the right is through the UV. Foliage reflects both IR and UV efficiently, so the top looks pale in both shots. We notice more shadow in the UV shot, but that may be contamination from visible light, as we saw in the outdoor shot of the house.

Left: Infrared; Right: Ultraviolet

Ink

When Fujifilm reps demonstrated their IS-1 infrared camera at the Photo Marketing Association show, they took pens and blacked out their names on their business cards, and then shot the card in IR. Voila! The name reappeared! The trick was so popular we had to ask for cards that hadn't been defaced. The technique is useful in identifying forgeries, altered checks, and other problematic documents. We marked up a swatch of newspaper with ballpoint pen, an indelible marker, a water-based marker, and a pencil. Our comparison shows infrared versus visible light, and it clearly shows that IR "sees through" the inks but doesn't have a particular advantage with pencil.

Top: Infrared; Bottom: visible light, with FujiFilm FinePix S2

*Fabrics
*In some situations, some fabrics are not opaque to infrared light. Sony found this out to its chagrin when it released "Night Shot" infrared-sensitive cameras, and some users put IR filters on them and went to the beach. Because we at the reviewed.com family of publications frown on such behavior, considering it intrusive, pathetic, and scummy, we did not attempt to invade anyone's privacy. Instead, we laid a few shirts over a newspaper with a large headline. The effect was evident when the fabric was in contact with the newspaper, using either the UV or IR filters. With air space between the fabric and the newspaper, we did not see the effect. The effect varies with the type of fiber and fabric thickness. Our most obvious results were with a cotton broadcloth shirt. Fujifilm has concerns about misuse of the camera, though the camera is marketed primarily to law enforcement professionals.

Top: Infrared; Middle: Ultraviolet; Bottom: Visible light with Nikon D80

Filtering the Light Source

It doesn't really matter where the filter is, as long as it removes all the unwanted wavelengths of light. We shot images with an IR filter over the front of a Nikon SB80 flash but with no filter on the lens and got the same effect as filtering the lens. The advantage was that we could see through the viewfinder and focus the camera. We shot in subdued light and used the S3 UVIR's fastest sync-ing shutter speed - 1/180 - so that the ambient light was not a factor in the exposure. The IR filter we used for this is unexposed, processed Ektachrome transparency film. Apparently, any transparency film will do, but we had Ektachrome on hand.

Filtered flash, with no filter on the S3 UVIR

Physical Tour

The Fujifilm FinePix S3 UVIR is essentially a FinePix S3 Pro. In addition to removing the cutoff filter, Fujifilm added a badge to the top of the camera that reads "UVIR," and made a few changes to the firmware. Our tour of the FinePix S3 would serve just as well for the S3 UVIR but here are the highlights.

Front

The viewfinder hump of the S3 UVIR conceals a popup flash. A PC sync terminal is high on the right side of the body. The lens release button is on the right side of the Nikon-compatible lens mount and so is a focus-mode selector lever. The bottom edge of the S3 UVIR bulges to form a vertical grip. The horizontal grip is comfortable and features a control dial at the top, near the shutter release. The focus-assist light is between the grip and the lens mount.

**Back
**The S3 UVIR has two LCD displays on the back: the monochrome display shows shooting data and control options and the 2-inch, 235,000-pixel color display shows image review and the S3 UVIR's limited live preview function. There are four buttons in a row between the two displays. Buttons for bracketing and flash sync mode are above the displays. The viewfinder window is relatively small, compared with the FinePix S5 and the Nikon D200. The focus/exposure lock button is to the right of it, and a second control dial is to the right of that.

The 4-way controller is dish-shaped and to the right of the LCDs. Two buttons, the MENU/OK and BACK buttons, are below the controller. A small pilot lamp indicates the very long periods it takes the S3 UVIR to write data to memory.

The memory card door is low on the back. It accepts Compact Flash and xD memory cards. The door has a secure latch.

Left Side

The left side of the S3 UVIR features ports for USB2, Firewire, and a 10-pin Nikon remote control. There are also jacks for video output and a DC power supply.

The strap lug is at the top of the side, and the latch for the battery compartment is at the bottom.

Right Side

The vertical shutter release is visible on the right side, as is the strap lug. Otherwise, it's an expanse of grip surface.

Top

The mode dial is at far left on the S3 UVIR. It can be set to a few exposure modes, and it also accesses ISO and custom mode settings. A lever below the dial sets the shooting mode to single, burst mode, self-timer, and shot preview. The hot shoe is on top of the pentaprism. A third LCD display is to the right of the viewfinder hump. It's monochrome, and it shows basic exposure parameters. There's also a button to light up the two monochrome LCDs for checking settings in the dark. The shutter release is on the top of the grip, and the power switch is a ring surrounding it.

Bottom

Since the batteries slide out of the side of the S3 UVIR, the bottom sports only the tripod bushing.

Components

**

Viewfinder**

Depending upon how one uses the the S3 UVIR, the viewfinder really doesn't matter – with either UV or IR filters on the lens, there's nothing to see through it. Still, it's the same viewfinder that's in the S3. It's small, compared to more recent mid-range DSLRs, and the diopter bumps out of adjustment easily.

**LCD Screen
**The S3 UVIR's color LCD screen handles image playback well. It shows good highlight and shadow detail, without looking too flat. The UV and IR images shot are essentially monochrome, and images shot without a filter are just strange. On the S3, the LCD shows very good color reproduction.

The two monochrome LCDs are contrasty and easy to read. The back monochrome LCD shows the S3's full range of shooting options – dynamic range modes, which are useful in UV and IR, and film emulation, which really isn't.

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Flash

The S3 UVIR's popup flash produces ultraviolet and infrared light but without any exposure control. The through-the-lens (TTL) exposure system is only sensitive to visible light, so, with either cutoff filter on the camera, the flash goes off at maximum power with every shot.

We found it easier to use the S3 UVIR with an external flash. We used both a Nikon SB80 and studio flash equipment. The SB80's dedicated features show up, but they aren't any more useful than the pop-up flash because they rely on TTL metering. It's easy to set up the SB80 for manual exposure, which allows the user to set exposure in 1/3-EV increments over 7 EV. The SB80 is pretty powerful in infrared, so we were able to shoot out to about 20 feet with it at f/5.6.

Studio flash was a little trickier. The better flash heads have cutoff filters over the flash tubes. Fortunately, one of our old heads blasts both UV and IR like crazy.

We began our testing with the IR filter over the camera lens and of course, couldn't see a thing through the viewfinder. By filtering the flash head and shooting in low light, we got the same effect. We had heard that unexposed, processed transparency film is a quick

and dirty infrared filter. We had the tails of a few rolls of 120 Ektachrome we shot a while back, and taped some over the business end of the SB80. It worked like a charm. The flash was barely visible at 3 feet but allowed an exposure of f/16 at full power.

**Lens
**Fujifilm doesn't supply the S3 UVIR with a lens but sent us a Tamron wide-to-tele zoom to use with the test body. We opted for a 60mm f/2.8 Macro Nikkor for much our testing, on the assumption that it might be a popular lens in the scientific/forensic market. We also tried a few other Nikkors – AF versions of the 50mm f/1.8, 35mm f/2, 85mm f/1.8, 20-35mm f/2.8 and the 300mm f/4. All of them work. Our tests weren't controlled enough to note any significant variation in how well they transmit UV or IR. We used them with the Wratten 87c filter and UV filter that Fujifilm provided, a gelatin 87c we had on hand, and with flash filtered through processed Ektachrome.

Design / Layout

Model Design / Appearance

The S3 UVIR looks just like a FinePix S3, which is to say, a heck of a lot like a Nikon. Fujifilm added a large plate on top that is printed "UVIR." It's very prominent, but it doesn't match the styling of the camera. It looks like the sort of plate that an aftermarket source might use.

Size / Portability

The S3 UVIR measures 5.8 x 5.3 x 3.2 inches and weighs 2 pounds, which is taller and heavier than most current mid-range DSLRs. To work as a useful kit, it needs at least one lens and whatever filters are right for a given job. To use the live preview for focus, we found a tripod indispensable.

Handling Ability

We like the ergonomics of the FinePix S3, and they're unchanged in the S3 UVIR, save for the fact that the user shoots blind when the camera is used as intended. Most of the camera's features – autofocus, metering, white balance, and other color tweaks – are completely useless with either the UV or the IR filters in place.

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size

The S3 UVIR's buttons and controls have a solid, durable feel. Fujifilm's arrangement of four modal buttons under the monochrome LCD is unusual, but it allows quick access to a range of options. Again, many of these options, such as film emulation and color saturation, are useless in UV or IR.

Menu

The S3 UVIR's menus are unchanged from the S3's with an important exception: in shooting mode, the first menu screen to pop up is the one to allow a 30-second live preview, which is necessary for focusing filters.

Otherwise, the menus look just like the ones on the S3. The menus that appear on the color LCD appear as numbered "pages," rather than usefully-named tabs, so it takes some hunting to find particular entries to adjust.

The four buttons below the monochrome LCD control white balance, file quality, file size, dynamic range, saturation, sharpening, contrast, and film simulation. Of these, white balance, saturation, and film simulation don't influence UV or IR shooting.

The Setup menu controls functions such as image review, custom white balance, color space, dynamic range, auto rotation of verticals, media card choice, media format, beeps, date/time set, USB mode, Firewire mode, frame numbering, language, video format, full camera reset, and live preview. The S3 UVIR also has a function to fully discharge the 4 AA batteries that power the camera. Fujifilm supplies NiMH batteries and a charger, and the company says that completely discharging the batteries before recharging them is useful.

The custom settings menu comes up when the mode dial is set to CSM. It has controls for bracketing order, grid line display, focus area illumination, focus area selection, exposure lock, long exposure mode, autofocus priority, AE/AF button function, comand dial function and multi-exposure function. It's clunky to have to turn the mode dial to access these controls. That is because so few of them are relevant to IR and UV shooting, but it's not a particular drawback for the S3 UVIR.

Ease of Use

The S3 UVIR is in an unusual category, which makes "ease of use" a tricky term. As a piece of technical equipment, its controls are pretty straightforward. We could get images out of it without much trouble. Of course, we had to put up with the lack of metering, lack of autofocus, and a digital viewfinder that only works for 30 seconds at a time.

The only comparison are cameras that have been modified by aftermarket technicians. "Hacked" cameras come in two kinds: full-spectrum cameras, like the S3 UVIR, which are sensitive to everything from UV to IR, including visible light, and which require filtration to make worthwhile images. The second type are infrared-only cameras, which replace the standard cutoff filter with an infrared filter. Infrared-only cameras can't change filters, and can't handle UV photography, but their viewfinders work just fine. Infrared light focuses differently from visible light, so autofocus will be off, and exposure controls won't be reliable, but they might be useful as a starting point.

An infrared-only camera would be much more convenient to use than the S3 UVIR, but it is also less flexible.

Modes

Auto Mode

The S3 UVIR's meter is only sensitive to visible light. Though all the auto modes are available on the camera, they are useless because they don't measure all the light that affects its exposure.

**Custom Image Presets
**The S3 UVIR preserves the S3's film emulation modes, which are supposed to make S3 files resemble Velvia or Provia film shots. Their effect on UV and IR shots wasn't noticeable in our testing.

Drive / Burst Mode

The S3 UVIR's burst mode is variable, depending upon the dynamic range setting. With extended dynamic range, it shoots about one frame per second in JPEG. RAW was faster, but in both cases, the buffer filled up quickly, allowing for bursts of only six images in JPEG and three in RAW.

Playback Mode

The S3 UVIR offers all the playback features of the S3, showing histograms, highlight warnings, and magnifying images up to nearly 19x – plenty to check focus. The S3 UVIR also allows simple slide shows and in-camera cropping of images.

Movie Mode

The S3 UVIR offers no movie mode. The sensor can't stay active for periods long enough to make movies.

Control Options

Manual Control Options

The S3 UVIR has two control dials, which make manual mode convenient. One handles aperture and the other takes care of shutter speed. That's important because manual exposure is the only way to get useful images with the S3 UVIR. ISO and dynamic range can also be set manually.

Focus
Auto Focus

The S3 UVIR has the S3's autofocus system, but it doesn't work with IR or UV filters mounted on the lens, and it is calibrated to focus visible light. IR and UV light focus slightly differently, and with most lenses, focus should be racked out about half a percent of the focal length for maximum sharpness.

Manual Focus

Manual focus with the live preview is a little tricky. Our best results with it involved mounting the camera on a tripod, framing the image without a filter, getting a rough focus manually through the viewfinder, and then putting the filter on the camera and firing up the live preview. Live preview requires hitting the menu button and pressing a button a second time to bring up the view on the LCD. The LCD view remains visible for 30 seconds and a countdown timer keeps track. The view can be magnified to aid in focus. The 30-second limit is necessary because the sensor heats up. The S3 UVIR apparently keeps track of the heat because it won't allow repeated live views without a cool-down period in between.

Exposure/Metering

The S3 UVIR has the S3's light meter, but it simply doesn't give accurate results. It's not sensitive to UV or IR. User will have to establish exposure through trial and error or by creating standardized setups in a controlled environment.

White Balance

The S3's white balance controls remain on the S3 UVIR, but they don't work. The imaging chip has red, green, and blue sensors, but they are more or less equally sensitive to infrared and ultraviolet light, so their color data are contaminated. We didn't have the opportunity to test the S3 UVIR with a UVIR cutoff filter, which theoretically ought to turn the camera back into an S3. Our understanding is that the cutoff filters don't necessarily match the camera's original cutoff filter perfectly, so color would be close, but not quite like the original camera.

ISO

The S3's ISO control remains intact, allowing settings from 100 to 1600, in full EV steps. ISO simply controls how much the camera amplifies the signal from the sensor, so it works just the same way in IR and UV as in visible light. Noise increases with ISO. For most of our shooting, an ISO of 400 worked out well.

Shutter Speed

The S3 UVIR allows exposures of 1/4000 to 30 seconds, with a maximum flash sync of 1/180. The S3 body offers only 1/2-EV steps, not the more typical 1/3-EV.

**Aperture
**The S3 UVIR controls the aperture of AF Nikkor lenses via electronic contacts in the lens mount. It can set aperture in 1/2-EV increments.

Image Parameters

Picture Quality / Size Options

The S3 UVIR records images at pixel dimensions of 4256x2848, 3024x2016, 2304x1536 or 1440x960. It shoots RAW or JPEG, with two levels of JPEG quality. The native resolution of the sensor chip is 3024x2016, but, because the sensors are arranged in a honeycomb fashion, Fujifilm maintains that they can be interpolated to the higher size.

Picture Effects Mode

The film emulation modes are irrelevant to UV and IR shooting, but the S3 UVIR's dynamic range extension works as well outside the visible range as the S3's does in visible light. With dynamic range extension on, the S3 gave two more EV of range than with it off. We couldn't test the range of the S3 UVIR in a controlled way, but the option extends its dynamic range significantly.

Connectivity / Extras

Connectivity
Software

The S3 UVIR ships with Fujifilm's HyperUtility, which is both a cataloger and a RAW converter. It doesn't have any features specific to S3 UVIR files, but it is a powerful converter. We have tested it on slow Macs in OS X and slow Windows machines, and on those, it's slower than Adobe RAW file converter.

*Jacks, Ports, Plugs
*The S3 UVIR has both USB and Firewire ports, accepts Nikon corded remote controls, has a PC sync terminal and a hot shoe compatible with Nikon-dedicated flashes. It also accepts an external power supply.

Direct Print Options

The S3 UVIR is both PictBridge and DPOF compatible. It can set the number of copies and whether or not to imprint the date.

Battery

The S3 UVIR takes four AA batteries. Fujifilm supplies four NiMH AA cells and a charger. The live preview takes plenty of power, so it would make sense to have extra sets of batteries on hand, and to expect the camera to crew through disposable batteries.

The Fujifilm S5 made the jump to Lithium-Ion battery technology, which packs more energy into a smaller volume and weight. If Fujifilm chooses to make a UVIR version of that camera instead of the S3, battery technology will be one of the significant advantages.

Memory

The S3 UVIR takes Compact Flash cards and xD memory cards. Compact Flash is the most common format for pro-level cameras. Fast, high-capacity Compact Flash memory is widely available and is relatively inexpensive compared to other memory formats. Fujifilm participated in creating the xD memory format. The cards are very small and also widely available.

Other Features
*Sensor Clean Setting - *The S3 UVIR features a sensor-cleaning setting, which allows manual removal of dust and dirt.

*NiMH Battery Discharge - *The S3 UVIR can discharge its NiMH batteries completely, a procedure which can recover their capacity, if they start to take less of a charge.

Overall Impressions

Value

The S3 UVIR is a unique camera. It's possible to have the cutoff filter removed from any DSLR – usually for between $350 and $500 – but that sort of work voids the warranty. And of course, altered Canons and Nikons would lack a live preview. We didn't run across any mention of altered Olympus EVOLT E-330's or Panasonic L1's, with their live preview system.

One indication of the value of the S3 UVIR is that Fujifilm sold out its initial production run. For many technical and forensic photographers who work for police departments and research facilities, full-spectrum DSLRs made the jump from film to digital possible. Given the amount of experimentation needed to hit the right exposure, moving away from film is a huge advantage. For many of those photographers, a warranty from a reputable manufacturer is very important. Other features, such as live preview and extended dynamic range, are also significant advantages over aftermarket cameras.

Who It’s For

The S3 UVIR is a special-purpose camera. Some buyers may want it for pictorial effects, but the main market is technical and forensic photographers.

Conclusion

**Conclusion **

The S3 UVIR is a potent and complex tool for technical photographers, with a steep learning curve. Fujifilm doesn't offer training in the UVIR's use. Company representatives say that the real experts on the S3 UVIR aren't at Fujifilm: they're users who have experimented with the camera, and come up with repeatable procedures. Some early-adopters in the technical field are making extra money training new users.

Buying the camera body alone isn't the only expense, though. The camera only works in combination with special narrowband filters that cost hundreds of dollars each. A user could spend as much on distinctly different filters as on the camera body. Given the level of interest in this camera, we expect that Fujifilm will continue to serve this niche market, either with another production run of S3 UVIR's or with an S5 UVIR.