Fujifilm FinePix F40fd

Opinion: Good camera. Bad warranty. I bought the F45fd model made exclusivelyfor Ritz Camera. I wanted a small indoor camera with a high ISO capability and a strong flash. I wasn't disappointed with the photos. However, the zoom lense locked up. I sent it in for warranty repair only to have Fuji tell me that the warranty "didn't cover that because it's a limited warranty." The quoted cost of repair equaled the cost of the camera. Buyer beware!!!!

Opinion: At £50 this was an unbeatable deal. I purchased it to deal with a Panny FX33 that was lovely in many ways, but noisy at base ISO. I have learnt that there are compromises with all cameras, that no P&S is perfect, and that you choose the limitations you can live with.

The good
ISO 400 brilliant, and 800 totally usable
IQ generally good

The bad
Conservative body, no IS, no wide angle, sluggish shot to shot.
ISO 100 noise is a rather odd repeating pattern and is quite frequent. NR smearing and detail loss at ISO 200 can be striking compared to my Panny

Compared to my more expensive FX33, better in some ways, worse in others. After a recently holiday the FX33 is back in favour. Excellent value at the moment, compared to the unobtainable F30/31

Opinion: Fabulous Picture quality - that's all I wanted. Taking pictures of African children in bright sunlight using the flash to light up the shadows - outstanding results

Opinion: Nice little camera, uncomplicated, ease of use is the paramount feature.
Most reviews brag about high ISO image quality, I have to say it's not what you might expect based on those opinions.
it's not bad either, certainly better than most of the competition in the same price range - but don't mistake it for a F20-30-31 successor.
Overall good camera.

Opinion: Overall a very nice camera with a big sensor (same size as Canon G9) but with only 8 MPixels. Not quite as good as the F30 at high ISO but close. At least this one is still available as I write these words.

Very nice colors after white balance correction in Photoshop.

Opinion: This is my second digital camera, the first one is a Nikon Coolpix 2200.

The first Finepix F40fd has 4 stuck pixels grouped at just above the center of the image because of a defect on the CCD sensor, the stuck pixels can be seen easily on the LCD as a big blue point, so I decided to comeback to the store and exchange it for another camera (I can do it within 7 days after purchase). The second F40fd has a perfect CCD sensor with no stuck ot hot pixels at all, at least for now.

So after several days and more than 200 pictures taken with my new F40fd, I would like to give some personal opinions.

Pros :

- A successful exterior design, I really like the camera for its appearance.
- Very well built, very solid with many metal parts includes the entire front panel, lens cover... the back panel is made with high quality black plastic, in fact it feels as solid as steel.
- Extremely fast operation (startup, shutdown, taking pictures...), maybe the fastest of all PnS cameras I've tried on the stand.
- LCD screen is super, high resolution and very bright, no problem while taking pictures outdoor.
- Excellent battery life, charging the high-capacity NP-70 battery pack takes just about 90 minutes to complete and this small battery can power the camera for a full week-end, that's wonderful comparing to my previous camera.
- Pictures quality is very good, just hold the camera firmly while taking pictures and the camera will do the rest itself.
- Dedicated play mode button, you don't need to turn the fragile mode dial everytime you want to review your pictures, and when you are in play mode, just press the shutter button and the camera will be ready to take new pictures in just 1 second.
- Use SD card instead of unpopular cards such as xD or Memory Stick.
- Firmware can be upgraded to use with SDHC card (high capacity SD card of 4GB and up), I personally upgraded my camera's firmware from V1.01 to V1.10 and a 4GB SDHC card is my camera's main storage now, it's almost 1.000 pictures in highest resolution (8MB Fine quality).
- Small enough for woman's hand.
- VGA video size with voice.

Cons :

- No image stabilization, it means you should take pictures using your two hands to avoid shaking, or you must be very skilled to take pictures with just one hand.
- Flash and focus lamp are on the right side of the lens, which can easily be obstructed by your fingers if you don't pay attention while taking pictures.
- "Face Detection" feature is slow in low light area, for exemple restaurant or coffee shop, sometime it just doesn't work, personally I think this feature is useless and permanently turn it off, it's simply a "must have" because other cameras do have.
- No remote control, you need to operate the camera manually while viewing pictures on your television.
- LCD screen is exposed to direct contact with external objects like coins or keys... you may need to buy an extra 2.5" LCD protection film to prevent your camera's LCD from damages or fingerprints.

Conclusion :

- If you want a fast and compact camera ready to take good pictures everywhere...
- If you don't want to pay a huge amount of money for a camera...
- If you don't care about manual control (in fact, who cares about it with compact cameras)...

You should consider this camera, give it a try !

Opinion: I bought this camera for the wife. I shot exclusively Canon DSLR systems; however, I used this on our recent cruise celebrating our 10th wedding aniversary since I didn't want to lug my 25lb Canon bag around. All I can say is wow...for a p&s compact this camera did very well. I have a decent collection of high resolution sample photos taken with this camera here: [url=http://www.motleypixel.com/reviews/index.htm?openfolder=Point%20and%20Shoot/Fuji%20FinePix%20F40fd/&openfile=fujifilmfinepixf40fd_01.jpg]Sample Photos[/url]

-Roy

Opinion: I’ve had my F45fd (F40fd) for a couple weeks now. I will start with value, for $104 it is spectacular.

Regarding design, the size of the camera is awesome, I found a small case for it and I can carry it around easily in the front or back pocket of my Levi’s. Looks don't matter much to me but the gun metal gray is attractive and I prefer over bright (i.e. reflective) silver.

Features: The flash is excellent, it doesn’t simply whitewash everything and it has a heck of a range. The movie mode is outstanding – works in low light. The sound, as others have noted, is a bit low and you cannot zoom during use. The start time is a huge improvement over what I am used to – hoping I miss a lot fewer shots from now on but the shot to shot time I would call simply average. The screen is excellent. Face detection in this version sort of works.

Ease of use: By reading the manual and understanding all the various modes one can “work around” the lack of manual controls. In fact the differences between modes actually make a noticeable difference in the pictures - which has not always been my experience with other P&S cameras. The menus are not super intuitive and a bit clunky but I guess I’ll get used to them. you have to go into the review mode if you want to examine a last shot for more than 3 seconds. All and all a easy camera to use.

Images: Most impressive to me are the nighttime shots I took with a tripod. I was worried that the nighttime mode with a max shutter speed of 3 sec would not be sufficient but I took a shot of the house across the street with only light from a street light and one porch light and it came out great. Colors are not perfect but never distracting and generally very pleasing. High ISO shot quality better than I expected. Pixel peeping reveals IQ to be nowhere as good as my Nikon D300 but then not much is. It is significantly better than the other two P&S I use however.

Bottom line. Except for the F31 there is not other P&S I’d rather own and for around 100 bucks the F45/F40 is a no brainer.

Opinion: Fuji F40fd is a very good camera that can take beautiful picture at ISO400 in low light condition. Although the pictures at ISO400 has some noise reduction artifact, they are still much much better than my Canon S60 at ISO100 because the Fuji F40 can capture the background light. I am not a fan of Image Stabilizer because they are not good for taking picture of the kids. The F40fd is almost perfect except for noise reduction artifacts even at ISO100. My Canon S60 pictures look smoother at low ISO. The F40 white balance is pretty good. Its movie fuction is also nice. IT takes me more than 3years taking pictures with P&S and DSLR to figure out that I do not need full-manual control on a P&S because they are just useless. I bought the S60 because of its full manual control but I found these manual control are very limited and not as useful as those in a DSLR.