I was very dubious about spending £220 on this as it was my first foray into the digital camera market, so when I got home I was exceptionally careful in unpacking the contents from the box, with a view to selling it on "as new" on E-bay if it didn't live up to expectations. I can honestly say I needn't have worried.
The image quality for a 2m pixel camera is great. It's about as intuitive to use as it gets for a beginner, with the Auto focus and exposure settings working flawlessy every time, in all but the darkest of lighting conditions. It really is great to just be able to point and click and not have to worry about the settings - the camera does it all for you.
Macro mode is great too - I took a picture of a bee on a flower from 10cm away the day after I bought it, and the image quality was astounding. The veins on the bee's wings were crisp and clear. Even when viewed at 300% magnification it was hard to pick out the 'jaggies'.
As for battery life, I can easily get a full day's shooting done on a couple of fully charged batteries, and this includes extensive use of the flash and the LCD to line up shots and view them afterwards. No complaints there!
There is very little difference in the two highest image quality modes - 2M Fine and 2M Normal. The only slight reduction in quality is due to the JPEG settings: in Normal mode, when viewed at about 500% magnification it's possible to see the odd bit of 'squaring' due to the compression ratio, but for everyday use I can't see how anyone would consider this a discernable problem. So you can shoot about 40 high quality, Normal Mode pictures from the 16MB card provided. Great value for money.
The software itself is easy to install and use - it worked straight away on my Windows 200 machine. Downloading images is also a doddle - just plug the camera into the back of the machine and switch it on. The viewing software detects it and runs automatically, bringing all your new pictures up on screen for you. A full 16MB card took only a few seconds to download - an important factor to consider when you're running the camera off batteries. OK, so the actual editing software isn't the hottest thing around, but try downloading a couple of pieces of shareware - DCEnhancer and Colorcast FX - from the web site www.mediachance.com, and the combination makes this little camera virtually unbeatable.
In fact, the only minor gripe I have is the fact that it's rather fragile. I've only had it about three weeks and always treated it with kid gloves, but last weekend I was sitting in my car and viewing the pictures I'd just taken when it slipped from my fingers and fell between the seats. It landed on the carpet with a soft thud and didn't sound like it had done any damage. So imagine my annoyance when I picked it up and the LCD screen said 'ZOOM ERROR'; the fall had dislodged the internal lense, and now it made a funny noise when I tried to zoom in and out.
I sent it back to Fuji and they sent me a repair quote the other day: just under £70 (no replacement parts, just labour!). Doh. So a warning to everyone out there - ALWAYS use the camera strap. You never know how easily these things can get damaged. I've heard that other people have dropped this camera onto rocks, and fallen into the sea with it and it's still worked fine, but in my own experience it's always best to err on the side of caution and handle with care!
So there you go - a great little camera, fantastic quality, intuitive and easy to use. Why bother going for a marginally better £400-£500 mid-range camera which will probably cost only half as much in eighteen month's time, when there's products like this about?
Problems:
None
The image quality for a 2m pixel camera is great. It's about as intuitive to use as it gets for a beginner, with the Auto focus and exposure settings working flawlessy every time, in all but the darkest of lighting conditions. It really is great to just be able to point and click and not have to worry about the settings - the camera does it all for you.
Macro mode is great too - I took a picture of a bee on a flower from 10cm away the day after I bought it, and the image quality was astounding. The veins on the bee's wings were crisp and clear. Even when viewed at 300% magnification it was hard to pick out the 'jaggies'.
As for battery life, I can easily get a full day's shooting done on a couple of fully charged batteries, and this includes extensive use of the flash and the LCD to line up shots and view them afterwards. No complaints there!
There is very little difference in the two highest image quality modes - 2M Fine and 2M Normal. The only slight reduction in quality is due to the JPEG settings: in Normal mode, when viewed at about 500% magnification it's possible to see the odd bit of 'squaring' due to the compression ratio, but for everyday use I can't see how anyone would consider this a discernable problem. So you can shoot about 40 high quality, Normal Mode pictures from the 16MB card provided. Great value for money.
The software itself is easy to install and use - it worked straight away on my Windows 200 machine. Downloading images is also a doddle - just plug the camera into the back of the machine and switch it on. The viewing software detects it and runs automatically, bringing all your new pictures up on screen for you. A full 16MB card took only a few seconds to download - an important factor to consider when you're running the camera off batteries. OK, so the actual editing software isn't the hottest thing around, but try downloading a couple of pieces of shareware - DCEnhancer and Colorcast FX - from the web site www.mediachance.com, and the combination makes this little camera virtually unbeatable.
In fact, the only minor gripe I have is the fact that it's rather fragile. I've only had it about three weeks and always treated it with kid gloves, but last weekend I was sitting in my car and viewing the pictures I'd just taken when it slipped from my fingers and fell between the seats. It landed on the carpet with a soft thud and didn't sound like it had done any damage. So imagine my annoyance when I picked it up and the LCD screen said 'ZOOM ERROR'; the fall had dislodged the internal lense, and now it made a funny noise when I tried to zoom in and out.
I sent it back to Fuji and they sent me a repair quote the other day: just under £70 (no replacement parts, just labour!). Doh. So a warning to everyone out there - ALWAYS use the camera strap. You never know how easily these things can get damaged. I've heard that other people have dropped this camera onto rocks, and fallen into the sea with it and it's still worked fine, but in my own experience it's always best to err on the side of caution and handle with care!
So there you go - a great little camera, fantastic quality, intuitive and easy to use. Why bother going for a marginally better £400-£500 mid-range camera which will probably cost only half as much in eighteen month's time, when there's products like this about?
Problems:
None