Digital Pleasure from Mount Fuji (Fujifilm Finepix 2600 Zoom)

Member Name: RayBanUK

Product:	Fujifilm Finepix 2600 Zoom
Date:	09/08/02 (985 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent mid-range Digital Camera, Image Quality, Reasonably Priced

Disadvantages: No Camera Case, Limited storage on 16MB SmartMedia, Batteries need to be recharged seperately

After waiting for years for the digital camera scene to mature, I finally took the step of buying my first digital camera at the beginning of this year. Going on reputation and after some initial research reading through the numerous digital camera magazines, I finally decided to buy a FujiFilm digital camera.

First things first, I don't admit to being an expert in the field of photography. I would be the last person to ask anything technical about cameras, so this opinion is mostly based on my own experiences with using cameras and not technicalities. So apologies if I get a few things wrong.

I've constructed this opinion into several sections as its very long, so feel free to skip on parts that you feel irrelevant to you.

My thoughts on Digital Cameras
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I've waited for years for digital cameras to get to a stage where they were no longer gimmicks and could be considered as an real alternative to my ageing APS camera. I made the mistake of getting an APS camera as soon as the technology was released and then was disappointed with it. Yes it had smaller and better loading film, 3 views and index prints, but the film and developing were expensive too!

With digital cameras, the early years (mid 90's) were dominated by the 'wow' factor where although they were technically good (so called state of the art), the image quality left a lot to be desired. The images taken were so pixelated that it didn't look good when you wanted to print a 6x4 (normal photo size). Then there was the worry of whether your printer was good enough to print the image. At the time, the cost of both the digital camera and photo printer was quite expensive. So I was put off the digital cameras and stuck to my APS.

In the last few years however, digital cameras have become a much better proposition, with better images and functionality and more affordable too. Digital cameras
now range from around £30 for a toy to about £5000 for a top end professional product so there is something for everyone. Even photo printers have become cheaper at around £100 for a relatively good model. Best of all, you can get the likes of Boots and Jessops to develop your digital images to normal photo prints!

It was time to buy!

My criteria for buying
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My main criteria were simple. Good image quality at a reasonable price. The image quality had to be good enough so that it was comparable to a 35mm or an APS when transferred onto a photo print. I've never gone beyond using compact cameras and wasn't expecting the digital camera to be at a professional level.

My initial hunt for digital cameras for around £100 ended when I realised that the image quality they produced weren't up to scratch. Most of the under £100 cameras were using a resolution of under 1.0 million pixels which to be fair isn't much good for anything other than images for web pages and computer screens. The 1.3 million pixels cameras were better but still not quite as clear as I wanted. (The millions pixels figure in hunting for a digital camera is very important as the more pixels, the better quality.)

By this time, after researching though several digital camera magazines, I had decided the minimal I wanted was 2.0 million pixels. This took the price over £200 but was worth it for the extra quality but I wanted to keep it under £300 due my tight budget.

The Camera
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The Fujifilm 2600 Zoom was the camera I eventually bought which met my criteria above and was a 2.0 Million pixels camera. Unlike some digital cameras that adopt a square or upright rectangle shape, the Fujifilm 2600Z is shaped like a normal compact camera and holds like one too. The only difference is, it's a little bit fatter in depth.

On first glance, the camera looks very metallic but really its plast
ic coated which keeps the weight of the camera down. A shutter covers the lens when not in use and a quick slide reveals the optical lens. It seems bizarre that this does not turn on the camera though, instead you have to press the power switch as well. Likewise you have to turn the power off even when you shut the slider to its close position. It seemed very weird and inconvenient at first but I'd soon got used to it.

It features a Fujinon optical 3X Zoom lens (which is equivalent to 38 x 114mm on a 35mm camera) as well as a 2.5 digital zoom.

Around the back, a 1.8 inch LCD screen dominates amongst a whole host of buttons and switches.

The camera comes supplied with a 16MB Smartmedia card, which is slotted into the bottom of the camera next to the batteries. The SmartMedia card is the memory in which the camera saves your pictures to.

It runs on two rechargeable Ni-MH batteries. The downside is you can't charge the batteries whilst they are in the camera, having to removing them and charge them in the separate charger.

One little niggle I found was the lack of camera case. It comes with a wrist strap but for the money, you would have at least thought they would have supplied some sort of protective case.

Using the camera
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I think using the camera is relatively straightforward. I took it out of the box and within minutes (or hours if you include me charging the rechargeable batteries), I was using the camera. There are 2 ways of taking pictures. One is the traditional viewfinder and the other is to use the LCD screen. I personally quite like using the LCD screen but it does put a considerable drain on the battery life whilst it's on. For example, the battery will last 150 frames if the LCD is used all the time and 300 frames, if it turned off. Either way, just point and click!

Depending on lighting, the LCD screen may not be ideal, as sometimes it's hard to
see whats on the screen due to glare or poor lighting. The best usage of the LCD (and generally all digital cameras with a LCD/TFT screen) is to view pictures after you have taken them. This gives you the opportunity of instantly viewing your results and keeping or thrashing them. No more waiting for the developed pictures just to see if your photos were any good!

There are a host of features that you can control using the LCD monitor such as viewing you pictures either singularly or as small thumbnails and erasing unwanted pictures. When taking pictures, the camera can be set to have automatic flash, no flash, red eye reduction as well as other flash modes. The theres the self-timer for those important couple/group photos!

An important thing to set is the quality of your image. There are 3 settings on the 2600

Fine - The maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 (2.0M/Pixels) Produces wonderful results
Normal - 1280 x 960 (1.0M/Pixels) Slightly smaller but is still detailed.
Basic - 640 x 480 (VGA) Only any good for basic photography for publishing on web.

On the 16MB SmartMedia card supplied, this equals to 20 Fine, 39 Normal or 75 Basic shots. Its not a lot if you take all your photos on the best mode, but SmartMedia cards are cheap and you can get a 64MB card for about £20 which will allow 82 Fine shots which should satisfy the most. If that isn't enough, try the 128MB card (around £40) that can take a whopping 166 Fine shots!

The camera has an optical zoom lens, which can be controlled using the up and down fob just under the click button. This is positioned ideally and ergonomically for the thumb to be within reach.

There is also a digital zoom, which can digitally zoom into an area and enlarge the picture further but quality suffers as it tends to be more pixelated. You can only use the digital zoom on the Normal and Basic modes.

For close ups, there is a Macro function which has a
focal range of 10-80cm.

Picture Quality
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What can I say? The picture quality in my opinion is absolutely fantastic. I can?t really compare it many other rivals with equal specifications but I can compare it to my mid-range FujiFilm APS Zoom camera. I would say that it really equalled it if not bettered. At last, digital cameras are on par with traditional compact cameras in terms of picture quality. The attention in each picture taken is very detailed and the colours are vibrant and life-like.

I've chucked all sorts of landscapes, people and objects at it and every time, it never cease to amaze me in terms of its quality. Whether I'm on holiday in Vancouver or the Lake District, require an image for my ebay auction or just caputuring friends and moments, the 2600 delivers and I can rely on it to produce some beautiful photos.

Last year I used a friends 1.3 Million Pixel Fujifilm digital camera (which was state of the art a few years ago) to take a picture of my car with its brand spanking new alloy wheels on. The picture quality was excellent except it couldn't deal with shiny surfaces very well. This was common on a lot of the earlier digital cameras but the 2600 proved to me it could handle shiny surfaces too.

This was once again tested when my friend asked to borrow the camera for taking close-ups of her own made jewellery. Using the Macro mode, it reproduces all the details on the bracelets including the shiny detail. My friend approved and thought the camera was very good.

OK so its not going to trouble the higher range of digital cameras or conventional professional cameras, but its good enough to replace your compact.

Movie Mode
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The current crop of digital cameras all have movie modes built in which allow you to take video clips. Even the sub £100 cameras do to a certain extent but don't go replacing your camcorder just yet, as its not that
good.

The 2600Z allows you to take short video clips of 20 seconds or less. The output quality is considerably less than the picture taking though, at only 320 x 240 pixels and 10 frames per second and without sound. At 10 frames per second, it's quite jerky. Basically it's more of a gimmick and its ok for short fun clips but nothing else. It's useful on holiday when you just want to capture a moving image of a sight. I used it whilst I was in Vancouver to film the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Anyway I'd bought the camera for taking pictures so I?m not too bothered about the quality of the movie mode as I considered it as a bonus as opposed to a feature.

Getting it onto your computer
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A USB cable is supplied with the camera, which allows you to connect the camera to your PC. Set up is relatively simple. Just pop in the FinePix CD-Rom that comes supplied and it runs through installing various pieces of software that allow you to get your pictures and video clips onto your computer. The main program you will use is the FinePix viewer software. Once the camera is plugged in via the USB cable, the FinePix program automatically starts up and displays all the photos within your camera onto your computer.

You can then resize, rotate and save them (in a variety of picture formats) to your hard disk for viewing, printing or editing later. The software even comes wit a separate manual detailing its usage. It is a bit limited in what it can do though and personally I use it to save my pictures only and then later use something like Adobe Photoshop Elements to resize, adjust colour levels, get rid of red eye etc. The wonders of image manipulation!

Printing
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Now this all depends on what printer you have. I didn't realise I would be purchasing a digital camera so last year I opted for a very low spec printer, the Lexmark Z13 which is fine for what it do
es (odds and sods), but useless at printing photos. It took about 10 minutes to print one colour photo and it was only so-so in terms of quality but hey it only cost me £25!

In order to do you digital photos any justice you really do need either a relatively good all round printer with decent print speeds such as the HP 990Cxi or better still get a photo quality printer such as the HP PhotoSmart 1215 or 1315. Photo quality are specifically designed to print photos from digital sources so the quality when printed are almost (and in some cases) like processed photos. Some of these printers even have slots so you can just insert your SmartMedia and print without even turning on your computer. They do however cost quite a bit to own and run. Usually the printers are more expensive, the ink cartridges are relatively expensive and then the matter of buying matt or gloss photo paper.

Developing
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For less hassle and maybe cheaper prints (depends on how you view it), you can get your photos from the FujiFilm 2600Z developed by online photo processors such as Jessops Online or BT OpenWorld. They average about 40p for a 6x4 and about 90p for a 7x5 photo.

To have fully tested my camera, I wanted to see how good the image quality was once it had been transferred to a normal photo. So I sent a batch of photos to print to 7x5. The result? If I showed it to you, you would have thought it was taken on a normal compact camera. The quality is every bit as clear as when they were on my computer screen.

How Much
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I originally bought the Fujifilm 2600Z for £250 back in January 2002 but prices have fallen recently making a purchase price of £200 realistic. It currently retails in Dixons for about £229 but obviously shopping at independent camera will get you a better price. At the time of writing the new range of Fujifilm cameras are about to be released. The model that replaces this is the Fujifilm A204 Zoom, which
is almost identical to the 2600 Zoom in terms of looks and features but uses the new xD Picture Card media as opposed to SmartMedia.

So if you want the 2600 Zoom at an even more reduced price than £229, wait for the new model to come out and then buy the 2600 as it will be further discounted.

If you?re still interested...
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If you want to see some images of what this camera can produce, I've uploaded a few examples for all to view at http://www.rayliu.btinternet.co.uk/fujiexamples/
The images have been resized to 800 x 600 resolution as the original files would have taken ages to download!

Conclusion
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This is a fantastic digital camera to own and for the money it really is good value for money. OK I know a few people here will say that there are cheaper cameras that do pretty much the same, but I would say that spending the extra £100-£150 on this will ensure you great picture quality regardless of future models. I was afraid it was going to be a gimmick but it certainly no toy! It's my first digital camera that I have owned, and as a first time digital camera purchase it has more than served its purpose and has made this owner proud.

Would I buy it again? I had the misfortune of using one of the latest generation top of the range FujiFilm cameras just last week and although a lot of it had improved on my model, I just couldn't see myself forking out £650 for a camera as I would not need to have 6.0 Million Pixels. They're maybe other 2.0 million pixel cameras out there that are equally as good as the 2600, but for money, this camera is top quality.

(C) Ray Liu 2002
Thanks for reading and comments welcome as usual!

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