Another Finepix I've Gotten Into (Fujifilm Finepix F410)

Member Name: JPShooter

Product:	Fujifilm Finepix F410
Date:	05/06/04 (699 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great pictures, Great looks, Small & Light

Disadvantages: Erm..no beautiful people included?

I recently broke a cardinal rule of mine and shopped at PC World. I noticed in the paper they were having a sale on and I picked up this little camera and its docking cradle. I'm very happy with the purchase and think the camera is exactly what I was looking for - looks cool, small and great quality photos.

Intro
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The f410 is a 3.1 Megapixel camera, but through the black magic of Super CCD, it goes up to 6 Megapixel. Fuji explain on their website that they use more effective pixels that are hexagonal and make better use of light and create a better image. I'm not sure I understood everything it said, but I know the camera gives a maximum resolution of 2816x2120, which is huge. It has 3x optical zoom, 4.4x digital zoom and movie clip capture with sound at 10 frames per second for as long as 120 seconds. It comes with a shoulder strap, rechargeable battery, power adapter, usb cable, manual and a 16MB xd memory card. The cradle I also got comes with an additonal usb cable and the manual.

Camera
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The camera is pretty small (85x69x27mm - w/h/d), and doesn't weigh a lot with the battery and memory card in. It fits very neatly in any of my pockets, and doesn't feel uncomfortable. The on/off switch is a large switch that runs the length of the front and is easy to turn on and off as you hold it with your right hand. The lens is concealed by a silver disc which slides back when switched on. The back of the camera is uncluttered and is very similar to my old Fuji 2600 and feels like second nature to me. Having said that, there are many new features which did not appear on my old camera which I find easy to use. The screen is 1.5 inches, and has a decent resolution. Buttons on the rear control zoom, menu controls, detail adjustment and mode selection.

The camera looks really good in my opinion (blue LEDs do it for me) and I'm really pleased with the size and weight. I find t
he controls very easy to use and you can take a picture within 2 seconds of turning the camera on. The battery life is said to be about 550 shots with the screen off and 240 with the screen on. In real terms, this probably means you can take the camera on holiday for 3 weeks and not need to charge the battery unless you are taking and viewing pictures for a while every day. The battery charge time from empty is about 3 hours maximum.

The 16MB memory card is small when you take into account the number of pixels the camera produces. On maximum resolution you can get 10 pictures on it, which isn't enough. I picked up a 128MB for under £30 and that gives me an extra 86, which is more than enough for me. The xd card is pretty new and high-spec, so loading and writing times are pretty quick. I was impressed compared to my old Smartmedia card.

Features
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The screen offers lots of options, categorized in certain sections. One feature I like is that you can change the flash options and macro mode with entering the menu system as there are shortcut buttons on the rear of the camera. The button to the right of the zoom control cycles through the flash modes (auto, red-eye reduction, forced flash, suppressed flash and slow synchro) and the right toggles macro mode (close-ups) on or off. The 'f' button links directly to the detail adjustment screen, allowing you to select 6m, 3m, 1m or 0.3m pixels quickly and easily. It also allows you to control video quality (320x240 or 160x120) and the ISO sensitivity (for taking pictures in dark locations).

The screen options start with self-timer (10 seconds, the first five the blue LEDs are on and the final 5 they flash), continuous shooting (for papparazzo types), manual or auto options, and set-up options. Using manual shooting gives 2 more menus, which are the white balance (for different light sources) and exposure compensation (for dark objects on a light backgro
und or vice versa). I don't use either of these options myself as I can't even be described as an amateur photographer, but the manual describes these functions well and gives examples of situations when you might like to use them. The set-up options are numerous; aside from regular options like date and time and language, there are also optinos for image display, power save, beep and shutter volume, LCD option and frame number options. Image display is simply whether the camera will display an image of the photo just taken on the screen briefly after it has been taken, power save allows options for the camera to turn itself off after either 2 or 5 minutes. The camera already goes into 'sleep' mode after about 30 seconds (which turns the screen off temporarily) but then turns itself off if you select one of the options. This is very useful and not too bothersome as you can turn it on and get a picture within 3 seconds. The beep and shutter volumes refer to, obviously, the beeps the camera uses and the shutter noise that the camera makes when taking a photo, LCD option is whether the screen is default to on or off when you turn the camera on and the frame number options refer to whether the frame numbers for pictures will be reset when pictures are deleted or a new memory card is inserted.

There are also other options that I never use but that are definetely worth mentioning. You can alter the digital print order format (DPOF), so you could change the order your pictures are saved on the card if you bypass a PC and put your memory card in a memory card-reading printer. You can also record a voice memo of up to 30 seconds that you can add to a photo, useful if you like narration I guess. Finally, you can protect photos so that they cannot be deleted by accident, which is useful as I've done that before now.

The cradle is a smart bit of kit. You connect it to your PC via the usb cable, and also connect it to the mains. T
hen the cradle acts as a port to your PC and to recharge the battery. Once the camera has been set up properly on your PC, once you put the camera in the cradle and turn it on the software opens automatically and asks you where to save.

Software
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The software is an updated version of the Finepix viewer I had with my old camera. The first screen asks you to set a default save directory and then saves the pictures and video to that location. It also allows you to change the naming conventions for such things like date and time. This is useful to a point, but I always chage the name of my pictures to some humerous comment anyway. This is as far as I use the software, and it does its job well. For things like cropping and altering the photos, I would prefer to use something like Photoshop, as that's just my experience of quality software.

Accessories & Misc
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As far a shoulder strap is good, it's no substitute for a case and I'm going to buy the Fuji one that is made for my camera. As far the case goes, it is very snug and I like the style of it. And for £15 it's not too pricey. The manual for the camera is absolutely superb. I would go so far as to say it's the best manual I've ever had for anything, ever. It explains the majore functions of the camera at the beginning, and then goes into more detail about everything else afterward. It's all written in plain English and has explainations for how to get to certain options at the top of the page. It also has hints at tips at the bottom of pages that help you use the camera's functions more effectively or gives examples of when certain options would be useful. There is also a good troubleshooting section and help with battery usage and what accessories are available to supplement the camera.

Conclusion
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I love the f410. It fills my main criteria as a casual photo-taker
- looks great, small, light, and produces great results. I couldn't even begin to tell you about white balance or other useful features as I simply have little idea, but I know when pictures look good and these look good. The colours look sharp and I've not been disappointed with any shots I've taken, they really are beautiful. Now all I need are some beautiful people to take shots of...

Summary: