cantabrigiensis
Member
Hi, All
Just some very brief first impressions of the F300EXR, which hit the shops here today. The price was attractive so I bought one without hesitation (promotional launch price 469 Singapore dollars, vs. 539 Singapore dollars list; 1 US dollar = 1.3 Singapore dollars approx.).
First impressions are good -- it seems very well made, has a good heft, is slightly larger and feels slightly heavier than an F70. The screen is beautiful and bright, and I expect it'll be quite easily visible in daylight (it was dusk by the time I left the shop). The lens zooms out pretty quickly to max. Focus at wide is very fast, though probably not as quick as Fuji claims. At full tele, focus hunts a bit -- no surprise here -- but is still noticeably faster than other compacts.
The flash always pops up when you power up the camera, even if you'd previously set the flash to "always off". It won't stay down when you press it right down. It's very easy, of course, to forget and leave your finger on the flash while powering up, but the flash unit doesn't feel very prone to damage -- I don't foresee it becoming a problem, at least for me.
The mode dial is more "notchy" than the F70. Some scene modes have moved -- for example, Pro Low Light is now in Adv. mode. The playback, display and F-button are now capsule-shape rather than round, which I find less easy to operate. The scroll wheel is a bonus -- lets you go from one picture to the next easily, though it doesn't work when you've zoomed in your pics (a pity). The scroll wheel also operates aperture and shutter speed value in M mode.
The salesperson at the store demonstrated the 360-deg. panorama function to me; it seemed to work very well.
Pro-focus works very well on the F300 -- it was useless on the F70. You can set three degrees of blur, but level 3 gives unnatural results. Pro-lowlight works very well too, as it did on the F70 -- very useful when panning, say, moving vehicles at night.
I've yet to test the camera in good light ... perhaps this weekend!
Just some very brief first impressions of the F300EXR, which hit the shops here today. The price was attractive so I bought one without hesitation (promotional launch price 469 Singapore dollars, vs. 539 Singapore dollars list; 1 US dollar = 1.3 Singapore dollars approx.).
First impressions are good -- it seems very well made, has a good heft, is slightly larger and feels slightly heavier than an F70. The screen is beautiful and bright, and I expect it'll be quite easily visible in daylight (it was dusk by the time I left the shop). The lens zooms out pretty quickly to max. Focus at wide is very fast, though probably not as quick as Fuji claims. At full tele, focus hunts a bit -- no surprise here -- but is still noticeably faster than other compacts.
The flash always pops up when you power up the camera, even if you'd previously set the flash to "always off". It won't stay down when you press it right down. It's very easy, of course, to forget and leave your finger on the flash while powering up, but the flash unit doesn't feel very prone to damage -- I don't foresee it becoming a problem, at least for me.
The mode dial is more "notchy" than the F70. Some scene modes have moved -- for example, Pro Low Light is now in Adv. mode. The playback, display and F-button are now capsule-shape rather than round, which I find less easy to operate. The scroll wheel is a bonus -- lets you go from one picture to the next easily, though it doesn't work when you've zoomed in your pics (a pity). The scroll wheel also operates aperture and shutter speed value in M mode.
The salesperson at the store demonstrated the 360-deg. panorama function to me; it seemed to work very well.
Pro-focus works very well on the F300 -- it was useless on the F70. You can set three degrees of blur, but level 3 gives unnatural results. Pro-lowlight works very well too, as it did on the F70 -- very useful when panning, say, moving vehicles at night.
I've yet to test the camera in good light ... perhaps this weekend!
