Kyocera Finecam S5 Digital Camera [5MP 3xOptical]

As with all digital cams the LCD will eat battery life, but because the eyepiece is optical you can greatly extend battery life by switching off the LCD and aim your shot through the optical viewer.

Storage is by MM or SD cards. There is no internal memory, but does anyone use it anyway?

The only downside is the rather slow ready time for switching on and shooting, but as previous reviewers have mentioned, this has been addressed in the S5R. There is no burst mode in the S5 but the S5R will take 3 pics a second. Good enough!!! Should you go for the S5 or S5R? It depends on the price, but with the exception of the S5R the S5 must still be the best flash for the cash at 5 megapixels.


Good little camera   January 8, 2004
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Ì recently bought the finecam s5 from Jessops as it was on offer but find it is currently the same price here. It was on offer in Jessops as it is becoming an obsolete model, to be replaced by the S5R. I have found it to be a great camera, it is small, metal case, 3X optical zoom and most importantly has 5Megapixels at this amazing price. The pictures are of good quality and operation is easy. The only downside I've really come across is that it is slow to take pictures and this can result in camera shake. As mentioned in another review this can be avoided by messing with the settings and also by focusing and then shooting(ie half press the button to focus and then all the way to shoot) but this is complicated when giving it to someone else to take a pic! The new S5R has a special chip which eliminates this problem and can take 3 pics per second, it's about £50 more but probably worth it for an excellent camera.


Excellent quality, small camera   December 15, 2003
Judith Delissen (Livingston, West Lothian United Kingdom)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Have had the Finecam for several months now. It is my first experience of using digital. It has taken excellent landscape and family photos. Is easy to operate and to carry. Would certainly have no hesitation in recommending it as a first digital camera.


Great wee camera   November 7, 2003
Scott M (Glasgow)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

If size and quality are important to you and you want a small camera with high pixel count then this is the camera for you. The features are excellent and provide just enough manual control for you to feel you are still in control (if you want full manual operation look else where) while still making it very easy to point and click. The quality of the photos are excellent and I am very happy with my decision to go with the Kyocera. The camera looks and feels like the Canon IXUS 400 but you get 1 MegaPixel more. One of my most common editing functions is cropping and pixel count helps a lot to maintain the quality of the picture.

I was initially worried about the speed of taking pictures but if you play around with the controls and use manual focus, do not use the red eye reduction and pre select the film speed then it becomes fast enough at capturing the action.

My recommendation is a very strong buy.


Kyocera finecam   September 28, 2003
ISA (United Kingdom)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is about one of the smallest cameras in the world.
whaich makes it easy to pop in your hand bag.
It has a very good look to it.
The photos it takes are fantastic and we have no regrets buying this camera, in fact all of our friends who we have shown our photos to want to purchase one.
The photographs in black and white are stunning and it is so easy to use.
the battery once charged lasts for quite a while.
The zoom lens is good to.
I bought this camera from Amazon becuse they were the best priced at the time