Fuji FinePix F50fd

The F50fd has an attractive yet ergonomic design, with a slight curve that your shutter release finger curls around. That finger can also easily reach the power and image stabilization buttons, as well as operate the zoom lever, which encircles the shutter release. All of the other controls are located on the right hand side of the camera back, within easy reach of your thumb.

The rear mounted control dial turns smoothly but not so smoothly that you're likely to turn it inadvertently and provides access to automatic, aperture priority, and shutter priority exposure modes, as well as a video mode and two photo scene mode notches that can be programmed to activate any of 14 options. A panorama mode is notably missing, but there's an underwater mode for use with Fuji's compatible underwater housing.

For low light shooting, the dial also provides Natural Light and Natural Light & Flash selections. The first boosts the ISO setting and turns off the flash, while the second takes two shots in quick succession, one with flash and one without.

The remaining option on the dial is the somewhat misleadingly named Manual mode. It doesn't provide fully manual exposure controls but instead calculates exposure automatically and provides access to metering, white balance, and auto focus mode selections that are not available in the fully automatic shooting mode.

Those controls are also available in the priority modes. Other physical controls include a review mode button, a button for activating face detection modes, and a display button that turns off icons or activates a rule of thirds grid overlay. As is typical in Fuji cameras, the menu system is split between the main menu button and a function button a setup that makes the menus short and quick to navigate.

My only complaint about the menu system is that, as in other Fuji point and shoots, the menu turns off when you make a selection so that you have to reenter the system for each setting change. The menu button also serves as a center OK button for the four way controller, which itself provides direct access to exposure compensation, flash settings, the self timer, and a macro mode. Overall, the F50fd's control layout is efficient and comfortable to use. Covering the rest of the camera's back is a 2.7 inch LCD that shows a clear, detailed image and remains viewable in most lighting conditions, as well as when it's held at high and low angles and off to the side.

You can not only adjust its brightness but also change the camera's power setting to boost the screen's clarity and refresh rate other power options include a mode that maximizes the auto focus speed and one that extends the battery life. Another nice component of this camera's design is its memory card slot, which is more likely than most to be compatible with cards you already own; accepting either SD/SDHC or xD-Picture Card media.

Read More >>

Fuji FinePix Z5fd

The Z5fd is stylish looking, with a well constructed metal body. When opened, its sliding front cover turns the camera on to expose the 3X zoom lens and built in flash. A small number of buttons puts essential controls at the photographer's fingertips. These buttons also provide one touch activation of a face detection mode and a digital anti blur mode that boosts the shutter speed and ISO setting to capture sharper automatic shots.

Another function button on the camera provides quick access to quality, ISO, and color settings. Not every feature gets a quick access button, however exposure compensation and continuous shooting modes are among those that don't.

You have to go into the main LCD menu to use them. The Z5fd is oriented toward automatic shooting and provides just 12 scene modes, in addition to natural light and natural light + flash modes.

The latter takes a quick pair of shots, one with flash and one without, and lets you save the one you prefer. The 3X zoom lens offers a 35mm equivalent focal length range of 36mm to 108mm, with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 on the wide end to f/4.2 when zoomed in.

It's an average range, with no especially noteworthy capabilities. In most situations, Z5fd's 2.5 inch LCD viewfinder works well and presents a sharp, clearly visible image. You can adjust not only the display's brightness but also its refresh rate, making your own choice about which is more important a smooth view or battery stamina.

The LCD even has an internal sensor that automatically adjusts the display's gain in low light so that you can see what you're photographing. In bright light it's still fairly easy to use as a viewfinder. Like many of Fujifilm's recent cameras, this model incorporates IrSimple connectivity, which lets you beam images to, and receive them from, compatible devices. IrSimple hasn't been broadly implemented in imaging devices, but it can be a handy way to exchange photos with friends who also have Fujifilm cameras.

Read More >>

Fuji FinePix A920

Designed specifically for the first time digital camera buyer and consumers seeking an affordable, easy to operate upgrade to their current digital camera, Fujifilm's FinePix A920 is loaded with features usually reserved for more advanced models. The camera incorporates Fujifilm's signature Super CCD sensor technology, a 4.0x optical zoom lens and features a 2.7" LCD.

Read More >>

Fuji FinePix Z10

The 7.2 MegaPixel FinePix Z10fd features an ultra portable design, making it easy to take this sexy micro mini camera anywhere you go and it comes in five brilliant colors to match the latest styles of today's fashionistas Wave Blue, Wasabi Green, Hot Pink, Sunset Orange, and Midnight Black.

It also sports a Fujinon 3x optical Zoom lens, 2.5" LCD screen and packs 54MB of internal memory to give you some extra room when your memory card has had its fill.

With its stunning high resolution LCD, the FinePix Z10fd also has a cool new slideshow mode from Fujifilm that let's you view and share your photos spontaneously with friends with music provided to help set the mood.

Read More >>

Fuji Finepix F40fd

The F40fd's design is pleasingly minimalist. It measures a somewhat slim 2.3 by 3.8 by 0.9 inches and weighs 5.1 ounces. The camera features 3X optical zoom with an 8 mm to 24 mm range (which is equivalent to a 35mm lens with a 36 mm-108 mm zoom) and corresponding maximum f-stops of f/2.8 to f/5.1. One of this camera's features I really like is relatively new to Fuji face detection.

The Fuji FinePix S6000fd, a super zoom, also has this function, hence the "fd" suffix. With this feature enabled, when you're setting up a shot, you'll see white squares appear around people's faces on the camera's 2.5 inch LCD. The person closest to the camera gets a green square, and becomes the primary focus of the shot most cameras just automatically focus on the center of a shot with no regard for its composition.

In my testing, this feature was accurate most of the time, in both group and standalone shots. Another handy function is the F40fd's clunkily named "Natural Light and With Flash" two shot mode. This mode comes in handy when you're not sure if the flash is necessary in a given situation. In this mode, with the press of a button the camera snaps two shots in quick succession, one with and one without flash.

The two shots are then momentarily displayed on the LCD side by side. As we noted in the Fuji FinePix S6000fd review, the camera also adjusts its ISO settings when using this function. My "without flash" shot upped the ISO to 2,000, whereas the flash shot went down to 800 ISO. As is typical, the higher ISO shot showed some colored noise. Fuji's Picture Stabilization technology helps you capture clear action shots.

The camera reduces blur by increasing the ISO based on movement, and the company claims it can do so with low noise. In my high ISO test shots (1,600 ISO), the F40fd did a decent job, with some colored noise, but nothing too prominent. Colors and flesh tones retained vibrancy and accuracy. Like most point and shoots, the F40fd does not have fully manual modes, although you can adjust exposure compensation, white balance, ISO, image size, and color settings.

There's even a black and white mode. The F40fd has three burst modes one that saves the first two shots of a sequence, one that takes the last two, and one that saves a continuous stream of unlimited shots. Continuous burst mode was almost painfully slow in my testing the other modes were speedy but saved only two shots. The Canon PowerShot A550 has much better burst modes.

Read More >>