Performance - How well does it take pictures?
The Fuji Finepix F30 presently outdoes every other ultra-compact digital camera in terms of image quality. Compared to the previous champion, the Fuji Finepix F10, the F30 produces images with lower image noise and better exposure accuracy. The 3X optical zoom lens is sharp from corner to corner, just as with the F10 since it is the same lens. Even macro shots remain sharp and without significant distortion. Colors are vibrant and generally accurate although we noticed a few cases where some colors were slightly under-saturated. There is a Chrome color mode which boosts color saturation to produce images with greater consumer appeal. We are glad to see that Fuji has not provided an exaggerated default color rendition. The weakest point of the F30 in terms of image quality is purple fringing which is higher than with the F10 and most competing cameras. Fuji sensors seem to have a higher predisposition to this since this has been a weakness of many of their top cameras. Of course, purple fringing usually occurs near areas of overexposure so it should rarely be intrusive in properly exposed images.
Image noise with the F30 is even more unbelievably low than with the F10. At ISO 400 or below, noise is virtually inexistent. At ISO 800, noise is very fine and barely perceivable when printed at 20"x16" or even larger. At ISO 1600, noise is still quite low but affects fine details in darker areas. Surprisingly the noise at ISO 1600 is comparable to the performance of several DSLR cameras. At ISO 3200, noise is distinctly visible but still fine. We got some ultra-clean 5"x7" prints and some very pleasing 8"x10" prints at ISO 3200. This was so surprising that we tripled checked that the right file was being printed! See our scaled images for examples and our 100% crops for comparing noise levels at all ISO settings.
Another area where the Fuji Finepix F30 does well is in its speed of operations. It starts fast, zooms fast, focuses fast and has very little shutter-lag. Focusing speed and accuracy was very impressive, easily beating competing models, particularly in high-speed mode which tells the camera not to focus closer than 1 meter (3'). The camera's lens moves very fast, even during power up. Given this performance, Fuji once again showed that it is able to produce one of the fastest cameras on the market. On the slower side, shot-to-shot speeds are a little below average and playback speed is just average (although zooming is quite fast). Continuous shooting speed was disappointing, but this is not a DSLR and most small cameras do not do any better either.
|
Fuji F30 vs F10
While it is clear that the Fuji Finepix F30 is an evolution of the already superb Fuji F10, there are a number of subtle differences between these two models. Many satisfied F10 owners will have to consider these points before upgrading to an F30.
Obviously the ISO range has changed, the F10 has ISO 80-1600 while the F30 has ISO 100-3200. Since ISO 100 is so clean with both these cameras, the ISO 80 setting does not add much to the F10. On the sensitive side, ISO 3200 is a full-stop more sensitive than ISO 1600 and provides more photo opportunities, particularly when flash cannot be used or is not desirable.
There are some of minor annoyances with the F10 that are improved upon in the F30. The F30 now has a useful battery latch which prevents the battery from falling out while changing the xD card. This is a very welcome addition for everyone who uses a card-reader to download their pictures and everyone who uses a lot of small xD cards. The F30 also does not use a terminal-adapter which was the clunky way to charge the F10's battery. It seems Fuji found a way to include two connectors in the F30, where the F10 only had one - hence the need for the terminal-adapter there. For that, the F30 has a smaller and less powerful battery than the F10. This is not a problem however because Fuji optimized the power consumption of the F30 to bring its battery-life up to 580 shots from 500 shots per charge. Note that the battery is still charged in camera.
Probably the most common complaint regarding the Fuji Finepix F10 was its dreadful menu-system. We are glad to report that the F30's menu system is indeed better than the F10's overly icon menu. It is easier to navigate and most importantly is much more textual, so there is less need to guess what each icon means anymore. However, we wonder why post-shot image display cannot be disabled anymore? Hopefully this is something that can be corrected using a firmware upgrade. The final improvement over the F10 is the LCD, the new display is sharper, updates faster and is even less reflective. Since the F30 does not have any viewfinder, all improvements to the LCD are obviously important.
As if to maintain some balance, Fuji made some minor mistakes with the F30 that were not there with the F10. While the Fuji Finepix F10 had a tripod mount in-line with the lens center, the F30 has it to one side. All the buttons, including the zoom-controller, the power button and the mode-dial, have unfortunately been shrunk a bit. The body of this camera has been redesigned to be more appealing. In doing so, Fuji reduced the size of the front protrusion which served as a grip for the digital camera. The F10 has a full-height protrusion which makes holding it feel more secure. However, the F30 has some soft protrusions below the zoom controller to give more traction to the thumb. Overall, the body design of the F30 is not as practical as that of the F10. 
Conclusion
The Fuji Finepix F30 is an excellent ultra-compact. With its extremely low-noise images, good lens sharpness, great exposure accuracy, good speed of operation, stellar battery-life, none of its shortcomings can undermine its ability to produce exceptional pictures. The point-and-shoot part of the F30 is easy to use and even the menu system is intuitive. Sure of the advanced functions are fiddly, but this is a 1.1" thick camera with ISO up to 3200! The greatest downside of the F30 is the higher-than-average presence of purple fringing. The remaining downsides are some color under-saturation in default color-mode, poor tripod mount placement and the lack of an optical viewfinder to get better use of the continuous drive modes.
Overall Score:  Excellent
|
Back
to Camera Models
![[Valid RSS]](images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
