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- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 42 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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31 out of 31 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"A Nice Point and Shoot"
Pros: See Review Body
Cons: See Review Body
Summary: The F10 is a pocketable, 6 megapixel point and shoot, pure and simple. There are really no advanced features, a return to early Fuji Super CCD cameras. Another thing that hasn?t changed are the beautiful Fuji colors ? to my eyes, the best out there. The really big news about this camera is the low-light capabilities, long battery life and very large (2.5 inch) screen.
In terms of size, while not the smallest thing out there, it is definitely small and pocketable. In my opinion, some of the really small cameras out there are so small they are difficult to use unless you are the size of a three-year old. To me, Fuji has done a good balancing act between size and ergonomics. It feels good in the hands, with a slight bump in the front to assist with holding. As far as looks go, Fuji has taken the minimalist approach. It is quietly stylish, with metal accents and like-colored quality plastic. The build quality is very good, it does not feel cheap in the least.
The dominant feature on the F10 is the screen. At 2.5 inches, it is one of the largest ones currently available. That is the thing that everyone notices about the camera. There are other cameras with higher pixel counts, but it is surprisingly good for 110,000 pixels, and has a nice refresh rate providing fluid motion. The screen is bright and can easily be temporarily brightened with a touch at the top of the jog switch in back. The setup menu allows for more permanent brightness changes. It is viewable in sunlight, though I will admit I had some trouble seeing fine details. This would be true of any screen, though, to be fair. However, it is not a trivial point, as the F10 has no viewfinder. Of course, whether you can live without a viewfinder is a personal preference, but I suspect most people can live without one, and, in fact, do. Fuji knows that most people using point and shoots only use the screen for framing, so they cut to the chase and skipped the viewfinder (and let?s face it, that saves Fuji money and design space). All in all, the screen is ok ? I do think they could have done a little better though in terms of making it higher resolution.
Everything is a trade off in life, and what you lose in terms of advanced functions and features, you gain in other places with the F10. Case in point ? the battery. Hands down, this is one of the most powerful lithium ion rechargables on the market. At 1950 mAh, it packs a whollup and is rated at 500 pictures per charge. I did not do a formal test, but I can tell you it lasts a long, long, LONG time. You will not find a better point and shoot in that regard. There are also power saving features to further extend battery life. There is the ubiquitous auto shut down after 2 or 5 minutes of nonuse (it can be turned off), but there is also a mode where the screen will dim after about 10 seconds. The dimming is quite acceptable and the brightness comes back quickly when you go to use it. Again, this feature is optional and can be turned off.
Another area where the F10 excels is the green auto focus (AF) assist light. It has got to be one the strongest AF lights I have ever seen. It can focus in complete darkness (of course, it is not dark for long with THAT light!).
One area Fuji fell flat on is the convoluted connector for charging the battery and downloading pictures to your computer. Prior models used a cradle, which worked well. Maybe the concept of having one connector on the camera itself seemed like a nice idea at design time, but on the user end it leaves a lot to be desired. I recommend using a card reader instead, and using the connector system just to charge the battery. Which brings up another point. Fuji are you listening? Never, ever again put out a camera without a little thing that holds the battery in when the card/battery door is opened. As it is, the battery slips right out ? annoying to say the least, especially when the convoluted connector practically forces you to use a card reader. Ok, enough with the complaints. In the scheme of things, the ones mentioned are less important. All cameras have some negatives, and at least these are not picture quality related.
Now to the really important part ? light sensitivity. Just about every point and shoot (and bigger prosumer models) I have seen have iso sensitivities of maybe 50 to 400. A few prosumer models have iso 800, but the pictures are typically so noisy as to be unusable. By and large, that range is fine for outdoor shots, but indoor shots require the use of flash. What if you don?t want to use flash (and there are lots of reasons not to ? redeye, scare animals/kids away, harsh look, etc.)? Before now you had few choices, but the most popular was to buy a DSLR. But DSLR?s are not cheap (wait until you start buying lenses), and are big, bulky and complicated for a lot of people. Fuji has given many of their prior cameras up to iso 800 capability (and even a few iso 1600), but the higher iso?s were always at smaller than full size for technical reasons. Noise reduction has gotten to the point where Fuji felt it could provide full size iso 1600 images with the F10. Now don?t go thinking the iso 1600 shots will be the equivalent of a DSLR, but they are great for a point and shoot. Here is my personal take in the iso of the F10. ISO 80-400 is very nice (indeed, some of the biggest news won?t get a lot of play, and that is the quality of iso 400), iso 800 is useable, and iso 1600 is useable without further noise work in software up to maybe 5x7 inch prints. This is a BIG improvement in this corner of the digicam market.
What I liked:
Range of ISO settings (80-1600)
Size (small, but not too small)
Size of LCD Screen
Battery Life
AF Illuminator
Picture Quality
Movie Quality
What I didn?t like:
Lack of Manual Controls (this could actually be a plus for some)
Too Much Purple Fringing in High Contrast Situations (e.g., branches against the sky)
Flash Shots Biased Too Much Toward Higher ISO (indicative of underpowered flash)
Lack of Viewfinder
Overall: One of the best point and shoot models currently available.
- 3 replies to this review
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I am looking at buying a small camera with features similar to my Finepix S5000 and I don't want to spend a lot. When I read this review (by the way this user took a lot of time and I thank him for doing such a good job on reviwing) I thought to myself this camera is very good and almost as good as when I purchased my Finepix S5000 (at the time $999 CND), however I never like any negitive results with cameras. I like my S5000 and maybe thinking of checking this camera out before buying. I love my s5000, but I need a smaller compact camera I can carry around with me everywhere. S5000 is more for the proffessional level user. If you go to Futureshop or Best Buy you can buy and try it out and if you not satisfied return and try another camera. I would try it and it is one of the best cameras in it's class from what I've read.
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I'm glad I read your comments as this helped me decide to purchase this camera for low-light shots inside an arena.
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This person should be a professional reviewer.I finally made my decision based on this clear, comprehensive in-depth review. I had been vacillating for much too long now , reading every review i could find. thanks....
