The Fuji Finepix F10 undeniably distinguishes itself from other ultra-compact
cameras by its uncompromising 3X optical zoom lens, its superior 6 megapixel
sensor and its spectacular battery life. This sturdy metallic ultra-compact digital
camera may be bigger (1.1" thick) then most other ones in its class, but it can
still be carried anywhere with ease. Additionally, its class-leading battery
life of 500 shots per charge (CIPA standard) means not having to worry about
its proprietary lithium-ion battery and its clunky charging system.
Like most ultra-compact cameras, the Fuji F10 lacks in features and controls. It
is a basic point-and-shoot camera with an almost typical feature set:
ISO sensitivity
selection: Auto, 80,100,200,400,800 and 1600.
Exposure is always automatic
except when in night-scene mode with the long-shutter mode enabled via the
setup menu. In this mode, the Fuji Finepix F10 locks
its aperture at F5 but lets the user chose a shutter-speed between 3 and 15
seconds. Exposure
compensation is provided to adjust the exposure but it does not work while
the flash is in automatic mode.
The F10's most distinguished feature is its wide-selection of ISO sensitivities. With
values from 80 all the way to 1600, the Fuji F10 goes much beyond the typical
non-SLR digital camera, regardless of size. Even more outstanding than
having a wide-selection of ISO sensitivities is having them all with very
low noise at full resolution. Astonishingly, the Fuji F10 holds its
own very well, even compared to some low-end DSLR cameras!
Other notable features of the F10 are its first-rate movie mode and several
useful drive modes. Only a few other digital cameras offer 640x480 30 FPS
movie mode with no time or file-size limits. As for drive modes, the
last 3-frames mode is very valuable for taking action pictures. In this mode,
the camera continuously takes pictures at 3 FPS until the shutter is released
and then saves the last 3 pictures taken (the others are discarded). Fuji
designed this mode thinking about photographers who want to anticipate action.
The other 2 continuous drive modes are rather typical: either 3 images at
3 FPS or 40 images at less than 1 FPS.
Usability - How easy is it to use?
The Fuji F10 is first of all a point-and-shoot digital camera.
As such, it is easy to use and doesn't have enough features
to distract users from taking pictures. Framing is done using
a nice 2.5" LCD which can be brightened momentarily by
pressing the up-arrow. This works well except in very bright light where the
lack of an optical viewfinder makes framing a challenge. Otherwise, the
LCD is very sharp and quite fluid. The shutter button also has a very nice
feel with its large size and hard-to-miss halfway point.
The metallic F10 feels solid and is fairly comfortable to hold thanks to a depression
for the thumb on its rear, just below the zoom-controller, and a curved front
element. Even the shutter-like lens cover is metallic which is more sturdy
than most competing models. Fuji supplies a sturdy wrist-strap to keep
it from falling. The strap also has a tightening element which can be used to
securely attach the camera to your wrist. Due to the large LCD and the presence
of a rear-mounted buttons, the F10 has neither room for an optical viewfinder
nor room for your thumb anywhere other than directly below the zoom-controller. This
makes its possible to accidentally press the 'F' button (see description below).
The Fuji Finepix F10 has a limited number of external controls. The only
3 functions which can be used without entering some kind of menu are macro on/off,
flash-modes and the self-timer. Other functions are reached either by the 'F'
button or the 'Menu' button (located in the center of the 4-way controller). The
'F' button is a Fuji classic, it serves to enter a small menu of commonly used
settings. In this menu, the F10 provides 3 settings: image resolution,
ISO and color mode. Notice that ISO is the only truly common setting in
this menu? This is where the ergonomics of the F10 start lacking. In
this menu most users would expect to see at least white-balance and exposure
compensation (and ISO of course). There is clearly room for adding these 2 settings
without removing the rarely used ones (image resolution and color-mode - who
changes these more frequently than exposure compensation?).
The full menu of the Fuji F10 is called by the 'Menu' button. This
menu is organized in numbered vertical tabs, each with between 1 and 6 items.
Each item is only visible as an icon until it is highlighted. This means that
if you don't remember what an icons looks like (try guessing the icon for 'Format
Card'), you have to highlight each item in turn while watching the heading change
near the top of the LCD screen. Once an item is selected, the right arrow enters
the selection sub-menu which is also displayed as icons only until it is highlighted.
The setup menu is entered using the last item of the first tab of the full menu.
It is disorganized in the same manner as the full menu. The menu system
is this cameras weakest point because it makes it tedious to change commonly
used settings.
Several items in the menu system can appear greyed-out when
they cannot be used. This is a normally expected behavior which
serves to prevent users from changing inapplicable settings. For
some reason Fuji did not do that for exposure compensation! Fine-print
in manual says that exposure compensation is disabled if the
flash is in automatic mode, in redeye reduction mode or in
forced-flash mode when its too dark. When any of these
situations occur, Fuji should disable the exposure compensation
menu item. That would prevent people
from concluding that the exposure compensation control does not work! Additionally,
this is the first time we encountered these limitations and perhaps Fuji could
remove them instead.
The zoom controller has a nice feel to it but provides too few zoom steps to
be able to tightly frame a particular subject. There is also a button to
enter playback mode. Playback mode is speedy and well implemented except
for its menu which has the same shortcomings as the record-mode menu. It
is easy to rapidly exit playback mode: Either press the playback button again
or press the shutter-button halfway.
Recharging and connecting the Fuji F10 is rather clunky. The custom battery
of the Fuji F10 is charged in the camera itself. Normally this would be
quite simple, but to do so with the F10, one must connect the F10 to the terminal
adapter, connect the terminal adapter to the AC/DC converter, connect the converter
to the extension cord and then plug the cord into an outlet! Optionally, Fuji
sells an appropriate external charger. The terminal adapter also serves to connect
the camera to a computer (via USB) or to a television (via RCA jacks). The
battery goes in using a plastic door that also covers the xD card slot. Unfortunately
the battery compartment does not have a latch, so it can easily fall out while
changing the xD card. Speaking of cards, xD cards are quite expensive which
adds to the price of this camera.
Performance - How well does it take pictures?
The Fuji F10 shines in its ability to take better pictures than other ultra-compact
and compact cameras. The F10 produces really sharp pictures with nicely
saturated colors. The F10 also has a mode called 'Chrome' which boosts
saturation to unnatural levels which are appealing to some consumers. The F10's
3X optical zoom lens shows excellent corner-to-corner sharpness and no vignetting
at all focal-lengths.
Image noise with the F10 is unbelievably low. At ISO 400 or below,
noise is virtually unexistant. At ISO 800, noise is very fine and barely perceivable
when printed at 22"x16" or larger. At ISO 1600, noise is still quite low (similar
to most recent ultra-compact digital cameras at ISO 200), with a small amount
of softness visible when printed at 16"x12" or more. This means that the Fuji
F10 has roughly 3 stops more usable sensitivity range than most ultra-compact
cameras. Even when compared to larger digital cameras (non-SLR), the Fuji F10
has more or less 2 extra stops of usable sensitivity. See our 100% crops
here. Also see scaled images approximating 4x6 prints from the Fuji F10
here.
Another area where the Fuji Finepix F10 shines is in its speed of operations. The
F10 starts fast, zooms fast, focuses fast and has very little shutter-lag. Focusing
speed was the most impressive, easily beating competing models, particularly
in high-speed mode which tells the camera not to focus closer than 1 meter
(3'). Given
this performance, Fuji once again showed that it is able to produce one of
the fastest cameras on the market.
Conclusion
The Fuji Finepix F10 is an excellent ultra-compact. None of its weaknesses
such as poor ergonomics, klunky charging system, expensive memory and limited
feature set can detract from the fact that this camera takes fantastic pictures.
The purpose of a camera is to take pictures and the F10 does this exceptionally
well. Great color, edge-to-edge sharpness and low noise make pictures from
the F10 outstanding. The F10 can also take more pictures on a single battery
charge than most other digital cameras. This is also a very responsive
camera. Among its class, the F10 is ultra-compact, takes better pictures, takes
more pictures and takes them faster. That is what matters the most for a digital
camera!
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