Photography User Digital Camera Deals And Basic Photography Information

I was really excited to get this camera–I currently have a Canon Powershot SD600 that has started to misbehave and I was ready for a nice, new, snazzy 10MP camera. So how does the Fujifilm FinePix compare? **Let me preface this review by saying that I have read NONE of the manuals that came with the camera. I believe if I can’t figure out a simple digital camera without reading the manual, it’s probably not the camera for me. Also, there’s no paper book–it’s all on CD.**

Well, first, the actual model number of the camera isn’t printed anywhere on the camera, so I had to find my product packaging to see just which version I bought (the box tells me it’s the J28). That’s not a deal breaker, of course, but I just find it odd.

One big surprise? There is a tiny bit of internal memory which will allow you to take up to 11 pictures (at the lowest settings) or 1 picture (at the highest setting). I haven’t seen a camera with that feature in a LONG time. That might be a bonus for someone who wants to test the camera and doesn’t have their own SD card ready to go.

A strange thing? This is the first camera I think I’ve ever seen where the battery can actually fit in more than one way! Now, that doesn’t mean it will WORK in more than one way–there is a definite right way to put the battery in to get it to charge. But since I am used to batteries that only fit one way, I put in the battery (it fit!), locked it in, and closed and locked the camera door. And it wasn’t charging. Hmmm. Tried another outlet. Still not charging. Unplugged and replugged the charging cable. Nothing. I finally thought to look at the battery and yep, I had it in backwards. I turned it around and the charging started right away. Oh, and yes, there’s no battery charger–you leave the battery in the camera and have to plug in a mini USB-looking connection and then plug it into the wall. This action doesn’t seem like it would lend itself well to having a backup battery.

At first glance, the camera is slick. And thin. And the display screen is HUGE. The button placement seems nice enough–but the first thing I noticed was that there was no video mode! I knew the camera did video, so then I was on the hunt to find it. Well, I found it, and it’s buried three screens in (menu, shooting mode, then scroll to Movie). This is a pretty big fault in my opinion, as usually when I decide to take a movie, it’s a spur of the moment thing and I just want to flick a switch one-fingered (like on my old Canon). Having to stop to hit a few buttons and scroll to make a selection…well, it might become easier/quicker with time, but I don’t like it.

The camera boots up/turns on and takes pictures somewhat quickly, but I am finding that it often takes blurry pictures. I think this is mostly due to how long it takes to focus if the subject is moving AT ALL. (Which, I am taking pictures of my 8-month-old, so movement is something I pretty much always have.) For a bunch of tries, I got a red AF! on the screen which I’m guessing means autofocus isn’t working or hasn’t yet focussed enough to take the picture (remember, I haven’t read the manual). This actually seemed to happen more often than not–very frustrating. Other times you could see the green square jumping around the screen trying to decide what was a face so it could focus. Of the approximately 130 test shots, half were blurry. HALF! That’s CRAZY.

Something else I was unhappy with? The Picture Stabilization. It’s ONLY a “mode” available three screens in (where the Movie mode is). Which means it’s not something that’s on all the time! This is a BIG fault for me, as this is something that is a default feature on most cameras these days (and not just a selectible mode). But the J28 is more of a budget camera, so I guess they offer some budget settings as well.

I also found that if you try to take a second photo too soon after the previous photo, you can’t. Plain and simple, it’s like you’ve locked it out and you can hold the button down until the cows come home and it will not take a photo. So I hope you don’t want to take pictures in quick succession! I thought it might have to do with viewing the photo on the screen–meaning, if you had the camera set to show the photo for 1.5 seconds, if you tried to take another during that first 1.5 seconds, you couldn’t. So I turned off the photo viewing completely–and still had the problem. There doesn’t appear to by any rhyme or reason to it… Sometimes I press the button quickly and it snaps a photo. Other times I have to do the halfway-hold to get it to focus and THEN it snaps a photo. Other times I hit the button and…nothing happens. I tested for like 10 minutes trying to figure out what was going on and I just gave up.

Then I tested the macro setting. I have taken many macro photos in my life…and I could NOT get a good macro shot to save my life. The closest I could seem to get was about 3-4″ away, otherwise it was totally blurry. This distance limitation might just be part of the camera, but even so, I believe a true macro setting should be able to get up to an inch away. Again, this may be part of the “budget” aspect of the camera.

The auto scene selection isn’t the end-all-be-all that others have said. It seems to pick the wrong setting about half the time. I took two pictures of my dog sleeping on the couch (at a normal distance, maybe three feet). I then zoomed in, not moving, and suddenly it switched to Night setting and the pic turned out blurry. GRRRR. I then took two pictures of my son sitting on the floor. The first setting popped up as Auto and the photo came out okay. The second photo, where I physically moved a bit closer to him, changed to Night setting and came out blurry. WHAT?!? And of course there’s no chance of taking a macro shot while on the auto setting (at least that I could see).

One somewhat neat thing is that when you move through the menus, you get a short text description on the screen of what the mode is–or when you scroll through the different flash options, it tells you what each one is. That said, I didn’t see anywhere to turn those off, and it quickly became annoying.

So, overall, I unfortunately have to say I am NOT impressed with this camera. I have been using digital cameras for 10 years so I am not new to their abilities…and while this camera seems able to take some good pictures, it is also not as good as I wanted it to be. It is probably a good camera for a beginner…but for someone with as much experience (and expectation) as someone like me has, it falls a bit short. For now, I think I will go back to using my Canon PowerShot SD600 and give this camera as a gift to a niece or nephew or maybe my mother-in-law. To get the features I want and expect, I’m definitely going to have to go up in price.

Rating: 3 / 5

This is the fourth digital camera I’ve owned and so far my favorite has been the Olympus FE-340 8.0 m with 5x optical zoom. I had written an entire review comparing the two camera’s with the point being that my venerable Olympus took better photos then the much newer Fujifilm FinePix. This was the plan until I discovered that my Olympus was selling on Amazon for $343.98 compared to the $99.95 listed price of the FinePix. I can assure you I paid nothing close to the $340 when I bought the Olympus at Circuit City last year but it wouldn’t be fair to compare the two since the FinePix is clearly a budget priced camera. Just holding the two in my hands I can feel the much higher quality of craftsmanship in the Olympus and the only thing the FinePix seemed to be superior in was in the crispness of detail in blown up pictures which is exactly what I would expect given its higher pixel count.

The FinePix is a budget camera with budget quality. It’s worthless on night shots and unlike my Olympus doesn’t keep the shutter open long enough to allow in any light (not that the Olympus takes great night shot). I had a real tough time with close up shots in flower (macro) mode and continually got the red reticule of doom. When I tried to take a picture of a pepper growing in my garden the FinePix stubbornly refused to focus on the pepper no matter how I adjusted and always focused on the ground (which did look stunningly clear). I took some close up photos of my herb garden and I have to say that in this case the FinePix was both clearer and more natural looking than the Olympus. If you’re looking to take crisp close up shots I would definitely recommend a camera with a 5x optical zoom.

On tough shots the FinePix fails but if you’re looking to get some easy shots in normal light it works fine. Sometimes I got some graininess on my indoor shots and other times it looked fine. I took a walk around my office shooting pictures of stairwells and hallways and a copier and for a budget prices camera is seemed to do just fine. In fact the indoor close-up shots looked pretty good, you just can’t get as close as you can with a 5x optical zoom. Any close than say 6 to 7 inches and the camera cannot get focus. I took some outdoor shots on a cloudy day and they looked very nice and well detailed. One feature that is unique among all the digital camera’s I’ve owned is that the port for linking the camera to a PC is the same port for charging the lithium battery. I like that but I felt like copying from the camera to the PC took longer than normal. Also, cameras I’ve had in the past would turn on automatically when I linked it to a PC but I had to turn the FinePix on myself.

To summarize this is a budget camera for people who want to take photos under optimal conditions. The daytime landscape shots looked very good but you can feel the cheapness of the camera the moment you take it out of the box. I’ll give it four stars because by and large you get what you pay for.
Rating: 4 / 5