Fujifilm FinePix J50

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Features

The ridged mode dial allows for easy access to beginner-friendly features.
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Being a no-frills shooter, the J50 doesn't have face detection or hardware-based image stabilization. This is a bit of a letdown because most budget snappers now already tout face detection. However, it does have some beginner-friendly features, most of which can be found on the mode dial. Besides the full auto mode, there is Baby, Picture Stabilization, Red-Eye Reduction, Digital Zoom, Portrait, Scene Position and Movie. We will look at a few of them below.

The Picture Stabilization mode is the J50's answer for sharper images without optical or sensor-shift image stabilizers. By increasing the ISO and matching a suitable shutter speed, it is possible to achieve decent shots. The only tradeoff is the noise level which gets bumped up with a higher ISO sensitivity.

The meter tends to underexpose shots, so it is advisable to manually compensate the exposure.
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In Scene Position, there are more scene modes to choose from, such as Fireworks, Beach, Natural Light, etc. There is also a Manual mode, which is slightly misleading as it allows for only adjusting of the ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation and changing the white balance. The Portrait mode optimizes skin tone colors and the soft effect hides wrinkles. It worked well when we tested it, but don't expect the J50 to make you look 20 years younger than you are.

Although high ISO is one of Fujifilm's trump cards in the point-and-shoot field, this shooter's sensitivity measures from only 100 to 800. While this may seem lacking, we guess anything higher may create severe noise as the camera doesn't have Super CCD or a dedicated image-processing engine.

We liked the 5x optical zoom, which totals the focal length of the J50 from 37-185mm. This was good for close-up shots but the lack of a wide-angle lens meant we had to take a few steps back when snapping landscapes or group portraits. One thing to note is that when the zoom lens is extending, the mechanical action is louder than most conventional shooters. But this doesn't affect the performance of the camera.

The 2.7-inch LCD is the typical size of most shooter's displays these days. We liked it because Fujifilm didn't scrimp on the screen's size despite the fact that the J50 is a budget point-and-shoot. Also, it was easy to view under sunlight as well, and this earned a few brownie points from us.

The J50 is powered by a Lithium-ion battery and storage comes in the form of either SD memory media or the lesser-used xD-Picture Card. This is a great because the former is more affordable and comes in higher capacities, too. However, there is only one expansion slot, so don't expect to put two cards in this snapper.

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