Fujifilm's latest SLR departs from its reduction optics system used in the earlier E series made with Nikon. Unlike the Nikon D1, the S1 is based on the lower-spec F60; but keeps the same APS-C sized sensor with a 1.5x focal length multiplier.
It wasn't that long ago that a digital SLR would cost upward of ten thousand dollars. The Nikon D1 was a ground-breaking professional camera that came in at $5,500, and the FinePix S1 Pro further reduces the barrier of entry for a digital SLR with a retail price of $3,500. The S1 Pro sits soundly below the Nikon D1, lacking its environmental sealing and vertical grip with the benefit of being two-thirds the weight. The S1 Pro is also limited to 1.5fps and shutter speeds between 1/2000 and 30 seconds. The S1 Pro lacks an orientation sensor, which means you will need to rotate images taken vertically on your own. One nice feature that the S1 Pro offers is the ability to use compact flash, microdrives, or smart media (the D1 only supports compact flash). With the S1 Pro, more does not always mean convenience: it requires three different types of batteries to power the digital components, the standard body, and even the clock.
The S1 Pro's CCD supports ISO equivalents of 320, 400, 800 and 1600. The 3MP CCD is designed by Fuji and differs from a classic CCD. While classic CCDs have an array of rectangular photosensitive sites across the horizontal and vertical axes (one position per pixel), the Fuji "Super CCD" uses octagonal sites situated at a 45° angles. This gives the camera more information when it interpolates signals along the horizontal and vertical axes (but gives a corresponding loss of resolution along diagonals). The S1 Pro supports saving shots as JPEGs or TIFFs (24-bit only), but not a native raw format. Reviews have praised the S1 Pro's Super CCD for its dynamic range, sensitivity, and colour reproduction (especially of skin tones).