It'll do (Fujifilm Finepix 2600 Zoom)

Member Name: damworker

Product:	Fujifilm Finepix 2600 Zoom
Date:	29/08/02 (681 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good pictures , cheap

Disadvantages: blurring, mains adaptor

I read all (well, ok, most) of the Dooyoo reports on this product before buying and I think that I can add a few extra comments.

Overall I’m very pleased with the camera but there are a few niggles some of which are probably common to all digital cameras. If you are thinking of buying a digital camera then DO IT NOW they are great.

I paid around £220 which wasn’t too bad but got ripped off buying a 64Meg memory card. I bought from a local store in Reading. Best price at the time was £200 on the internet but with another £10 for delivery but I wanted it now! Memory cards (smartmedia) are much cheaper on the internet but go for a 128M for around £50.

The camera is easy to use, just point and click. All functions are available from a menu. Some other cameras have ‘scene settings’ such as anti-redeye or landscape as a switch, which would be better. The Fuji has a 3x zoom which I don’t find all that useful but given it seemed to add only about £20 to the price is probably worthwhile.

The unit itself comes with rechargeable batteries which are just standard AA size NiMHs (no memory effect). This is good as it means I can get cheap spare ones or use alkalis should the need arise. The only problem with this setup is that the charger won’t power the camera directly. I’ve since learned that this is quite common – the much more expensive Canon IXUS does the same. If you already have AA rechargeable batteries and a charger you might like to look at a different unit. The NiMH batteries last significantly less time than Li-ions would but keep the price low.

The Fuji 2600 is cheap when compared to the £350 Canon IXUS (which I also considered) and this shows in a couple of ways. The most obvious is size – the Fuji is noticeably bigger. However it still fits in the top pocket of a shirt so I felt it was small enough. The other way it shows is in using a plastic body rather than the sta
inless steel of the Canon. I don’t feel this makes much difference and I bought a soft case to keep it in.

Connecting to a PC is via a USB cable and is very easy. After installation, the camera appears as a mounted drive so you can use windows explorer to copy the images off. The Finepix software provided does basic stuff like cropping and enlarging. I haven’t used it much but it does everything I need. As the camera appears as a disk you can use it as an expensive, high capacity, floppy disk to copy files between PCs. I did once lose a picture when the batteries went flat while copying images.

The actual files are JPEGs and the quality of the images is great. Easily enough resolution (2mp) for normal photos. At the highest resolution an image takes around 800K and gives space for 70+ photos on my 64Mb card. I upload to my laptop and print in big batches (usually when I run out of hard disk space).

I have a few niggles with the camera. The first is the latch on the battery/ smartmedia cover that comes open too easily. It happened to me while fighting with my 4 year old for possession of the camera.

There is a little light that is near to the view-finder. So close, in-fact, that when I first used the camera I found it annoying to get a green light shining in your eye while trying to take a picture. However, I seem to have got used to this and now find it quite useful as it tells you when it is ready to take the next picture after taking the first without having to move away from the viewfinder.

I find no use for the screen except for reviewing what I have taken. There is no point in using it for taking pictures so I leave it turned off. It does come on when you connect the camera to a PC and seems to serve no purpose except to say it has connected OK, something you can tell from the PC. This is a waste of battery.

There is a little switch on the top of the unit that toggles between stills, video (haven
’t used it) and playback. This gets caught in the case when taking it out and sets the camera to video. After a few times of this it becomes second nature to check it but it confuses other people if you lend it to them.

The biggest problem I’ve found is that it is very poor at taking a picture of a moving target with pictures blurring easily but I suspect this is common to all digital cameras.

So, would I recommend the Fuji 2600? Yes, I think so. I don’t think its any better than many other cameras available but the price is good and it seems good enough in terms of quality and usability.

Summary: