And the buttons they have added can double at times. Take for example the four-way control - each arrow is either used for easy navigation around the menu, or in clockwise order they double as the delete button/ LCD brightner , flash, self-timer or macro. The menu can be viewed on a clear 2.5 inch screen with a resolution of 230,000 pixels. Above the controller are buttons for playback and Fuji's standard 'F' button which gives you quick access to ISO, image size and picture quality. On the top of the F30 digital camera is the power button and another small six functional dial for camera mode, movies, A/S, the different scenes, anti-blur and manual shooting. On the front of this digital camera there’s a 3x retractable zoom and built-in flash and discreetly hidden under a rubber flap you’ll find a combined USB / video out socket and a adaptor socket.| Setup/Installation | | Charge the battery up, press the power button on, turn the dial to camera and you're ready to take pictures. | | Features | | What you get with the Fuji F30 is a 6 megapixel digital camera that comes small enough to fit into your pocket and also doubles up as a JPEG movie recorder at 640 x 480 resolution. There’s a whole variety of scene shots including portrait, landscape, sports, night, fireworks, sunset, snow, beach, underwater, museum, party and flower close up. With a particularly high sensitivity, the FinePix F30 can reach a maximum of ISO 3,200. This means you can shoot at faster shutter speeds, which is handy as there’s no image stabilizer on this camera. The camera comes with a 3x optical zoom lens of F2.8 – F8 which is the same as the standard 36-108mm camera and on the Macro mode you can get as close as 5cm without losing the auto focus. At Unbeatable we like intelligence and this Fuji F30 comes with an intelligent flash mode as well as a red-eye reduction to eliminate satanic look-alikes. And the camera’s fast too. It takes around 1.4 seconds for the camera to start and the self-timer works at around 2/10 seconds and shoots at a double frame rate when you half-press the shutter down. There’s even a continuous shoot mode for those model shoots. Storage wise there’s an internal 10MB of memory but a slot for anything up to a 1GB xD Picture Card. The camera comes with PickBridge and works on a rechargeable NP-95 Li-ion battery. | | Performance | | Like Cher, this is an average performer. It’s been spruced up and improved on since Fuji introduced the F10 but there are still cameras out there that are slightly better at the price. But it is all relative and depends on what you’re looking for. The screen is a good size and apart from taking pictures in the direct sunlight you get to see clearly what you’ll be shooting. There is slight ghosting when the camera is set on high refreshing mode but other than that there’s little disturbance. But the fact it doesn’t have a stabilizer mode means you have to be very careful not to shake, and importantly to ensure your subjects are still too. When there’s so many cameras out there these day with a stabilizer you would have thought that Fuji would have included one. But that’s by-the-by, there are some really good bits like the high ISO which goes to some lengths to reduce any shake. And its continuous mode is outstanding – the F30 captured 0.59fps for as many as 40 frames, refocusing and metering between each shot, and the shutter lag measured an extremely fast 0.4 second in high-contrast and only went down to 0.9 second in low-contrast lighting which is pretty good. | | What's In The Box? | | Fujifilm FinePix F30 digital camera, rechargeable battery, AC power adapter, hand strap, USB cable, A/V cable, and FinePix Viewer CD-ROM. | | Overall Opinion | | There's a lot going for this camera like the fast shutter speed and the clear image on the screen. It's also easy to use and doesn't take a degree to work out the functions. But the fact it hasn't got a view finder for sunny days or a stabilizer to reduce camera shake are a bit of a let down. However the end result is pretty good from this digital camera and wouldn't be a bad purchase for the average digi cam hunter. |
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