By Damian Koh
14/09/2006
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,39101448p,00.htm

When the FinePix F30 was first launched, it upped the ante on its predecessor (the F10 and a slightly updated F11) for high sensitivity performance in a compact digital camera. The maximum ISO setting--3,200. Though the camera misses an optical image stabilizer--which most manufacturers have begun to include as a standard in their shooters--the high ISO settings compensate when image stabilization is rendered useless, perfect during group photo-taking sessions when no one keeps absolutely still.

The main highlight of the FinePix F30 lies with its low-light, high-sensitivity performance, but the camera doesn't let down in other features. Snapshooters will gravitate toward the full auto mode, while those who wish to tinker with camera settings can switch to manual where they can adjust shutter- and aperture-priority controls. For those in-betweens, there's a whole range of scene modes to select from.

Design
Sexy is the last thing which comes to mind when you're holding Fujifilm's FinePix F30. But behind its plain Jane design, the shooter exudes a build quality and finish that somehow overshadow its looks. At 93 x 57 x 28mm and 192g, including battery and xD-Picture Card, the F30 is neither the slimmest nor the lightest camera around compared with its competition.

Unlike its predecessor, the FinePix F10, the F30 has a slightly more refined feel with its rounded edges. A gently curved nub on the front right and a series of rubber nodes on the back are supposed to improve the grip on the camera, but we find them rather useless during actual use. For steadier shooting, it's still recommended to use both hands.

You get the usual control layout on the shooter. The Power button and mode switch can be found on the top edge along with the shutter at the rightmost position. One improvement we would like to see is for the shutter to have more depth so there's a more pronounced difference between half-priming and fully depressing the button for a shot.

Most of the controls are hidden within the menu system of the camera with the exception of ISO, image size and color mode which are grouped under the italic F button. Due to the close proximity to the edge of the unit, there's a chance you might accidentally hit this key especially when you are holding the digicam with one hand.

There's also a new +/- button which allows you to adjust exposure, aperture and shutter speed settings. The rest of the controls are pretty humdrum, with a four-way directional pad and a central OK key, display, playback and a zoom rocker all to the right of the 2.5-inch, 235k-pixel LCD monitor.

Over on the left, a rubber flap hides the A/V out and DC-in connections so you can do without an external cradle. At the bottom edge, you'll find a plastic tripod receptacle (which would have been better if it's metallic to reduce to wear-and-tear) and the compartment which houses the xD-Picture Card and 1,800mAh Lithium-ion battery. You can slide the hinged door open easily to change memory cards or battery, but that also means it's just as easy to unlock the cover accidentally.

Features
The heart of the 6.3-megapixel FinePix F30, no doubt, lies in its high-sensitivity setting of ISO 3,200 (at full resolution), which also makes it the first compact digital camera (at the time of launch) to go that far. While you cannot compare the same ISO setting with digital SLRs since they use a larger sensor and exhibit lesser noise, this FinePix at ISO 800 rivals that of competing shooters at ISO 400.

Obviously, Fujifilm hasn't bought into optical image stabilization, but touts its high ISO feature as a substitute. There are two main reasons your pictures will turn out to be a blurred mess: One is due to camera shake, and the other, subject movement. While image-stabilized lenses can compensate for camera shake, it becomes useless if your subject doesn't stop moving.

Raising the ISO allows you to shoot at a faster shutter speed which has the dual effect of minimizing camera shake as well as freezing your subject. Of course, with higher sensitivity comes more noise. The ideal situation would be to have both optical image stabilization and high ISO features--a feat which no camera manufacturer has yet perfected. That said, we're quite sure we'll see digicams in the future perform well in both aspects.

Although there are options for the user to manually set aperture and shutter speeds, the F30 doesn't let down when it comes to automatic features. For example, there's the Picture Stabilization mode which leaves the camera to decide the optimum ISO and shutter speed to reduce occurrence of blurry images. There's also the Natural Light mode which eliminates red-eye and unsightly reflections in your pictures since the flash is disabled.

The FinePix F30 is not merely a snapshot camera. You can set the aperture from F2.8 at the wide-angle setting and from F5.0 when fully zoomed in. Adjustable shutter speed ranges from 1/1,000 second to 3 seconds. The most annoying thing here is you'll have to go into the camera's menu system to switch from aperture-priority to shutter-priority mode which is a bummer. Fujifilm should have separated the options in the shooting mode dial instead of lumping both together.

The 3x optical zoom, 36-to-108mm (35mm equivalent) lens can focus on objects between 60cm (normal) and 5cm in macro mode at wide-angle setting. Given a choice, we'd have preferred the glass to begin at a wider angle since this camera excels at low-light photography, which we presume would be indoors in tight quarters most of the time.

You can access the rest of the options, including metering (strangely labeled as Photometry), white balance and autofocus in the menus. There's also a continuous shooting and a high-speed shooting mode available (more on that in the Performance section). For the occasional movie recording, this FinePix can record in VGA resolution at 30fps with mono sound. Like many others, you cannot zoom in optically while recording motion images.

According to Fujifilm, the 1,800mAh Lithium-ion battery can last for 580 shots on a full charge.

Performance
Overall, the FinePix F30 is a zippy camera. Powering up the unit took 1.6 seconds and the first picture was snapped at 2.7 seconds. Shutting down took barely a hair longer at 1.7 seconds. You can shoot every 2 seconds thereafter without flash and 2.7 with forced flash. If you turn on red-eye reduction, you have to wait approximately 4.9 seconds in between frames. Shutter lag was near negligible. One complaint we had was with the somewhat irritating noise the camera made during autofocusing.

Continuous shooting was the Achilles' heel of this FinePix. In Long Period, we clocked a sluggish 0.4 frames-per-second limited only by the capacity of the memory card used. The camera refocuses and meters for light after every shot. There are two other available options--Top 3 and Last 3--which record the first three frames when you hit the shutter, and the final three after you release it, respectively, at a faster speed. Alternatively, you can select the High Speed setting which is similar to the Sports mode and reduces the focusing time.

All pictures were taken at 6-megapixel resolution in Fine quality setting on our 1GB Fujifilm xD-Picture Card. The 2.5-inch LCD monitor performed well in most situations, notably in darker conditions as the screen gained up reasonably to help with the framing of shots in the dark. The brightness level is also adjustable in five notches, either to brighten or darken. Some people may bemoan the lack of an optical viewfinder, but if you ask us, having a display that is functional in both bright and dim lighting conditions outweighs the use of a tiny optical viewfinder.

It took about 1 second to reach full telephoto (3x optical zoom) setting on this shooter.

Image Quality
Overall, the image quality from the FinePix F30 was pleasing and the auto white balance was accurate and natural most of the times. However, we felt our pictures were a little on the dull side, and not as saturated as we would have liked them to be. Still, that wasn't an issue since it could be fixed via post-processing techniques.

In addition, we also noticed our outdoor daylight shots tended to be overexposed and details were lost in the highlights--not to mention, purple fringing in heavy backlit frames and strong contrast areas. Unfortunately, there's no option to display the histogram on this camera during review to check for clipped highlights.

That said, low noise performance is this FinePix's claim to fame, and it doesn't let down when it comes to producing acceptable pictures at high ISOs. Generally, you can be assured that your shots from this camera are "safe" between ISO 100 and 400, though noise starts to appear at ISO 400. Still, the speckles shouldn't distract you as much as pictures from competing cameras at similar sensitivity settings. The same can be said for images at ISO 800. As a rule of thumb, we're happy to go up to ISO 1,600 on this FinePix without any qualms. You probably won't be shooting at the maximum sensitivity setting of ISO 3,200 unless it was in extreme conditions.

Overall
As far as we're concerned, the Fujifilm FinePix F30 is in a class of its own when it comes to low-light performance, producing acceptable pictures at high ISO settings. Yes, the camera did falter in some areas, such as the continuous shooting mode and some color fringing in high-contrast shots; other cameras didn't deliver exceptionally well in those areas, either. Overall, the FinePix is a zippy, all-rounded shooter with a build quality that will likely impress, except with the fashion-conscious crowd.