 |
Fuji Finepix JX500
by DirtyDonkey
This new offering from the popular Fuji stable is a 14 mega pixel travel compact zoom.
Basic and uncomplicated by nature I bought and road tested this camera for a non-photographer friend who was looking for something light, easy to use and with decent results for the price.
Taking the camera out of the box I ... couldn't help but notice how light the unit was, weighting in at around 250 grammes once the battery and SD memory card was fitted.
The metal body is smooth and rounded, and the overall size of 97x57x28.5mm is smaller than many models of this class, making it ideal for slipping into a shirt or trouser pocket.
The lens is a reasonable 28mm at the wide end and 280mm at the tele end giving a 10x optical zoom, an ideal range for general travel photography.
Aperture wise the lens offers f/3.3 at 28mm and f/5.6 at 280mm
The 2.7 inch LCD back-screen is a sensible size and gives out a good preview even in sunlight, an improvement over earlier models.
This model has many useful features including-
Image stabilisation - to prevent camera shake, useful when using the zoom end of the lens, and also when shooting in low light when a longer exposure time is selected.
Automatic scene recognition - Where the camera detects what you are shooting be it a landscape, portrait, macro or night shot and chooses the optimal setting for you.
Video - HD 1280 x 720p video recording at 24 frames per second. With full use of zooming during recording, mono sound, and a recording time of 15 minutes per clip.
To save memory, the video can also record at a lower quality of 640 x 480 or even 320 x 240.
Face recognition - The ability to concentrate on the face of your favourite person within a group.
Pet recognition - Yes, honestly! The ability to focus on your fast moving dog or cat, and only click the shutter when they are looking at the camera!
For ease of use, the main control thumb operated ridged wheel with eight basic settings, is situated at the rear of the camera. Two of these (SP1 SP2) are reserved for your personal programmed settings.
Most of these main controls (Auto, video, program etc.) are self-explanatory and easy to access.
For those who like to tweak and twiddle, the more complex settings menus are accessed by the lower dial.
The menu system is very easy to navigate through.
The included CD manual gives full and concise instructions on how to set these.
Also included is an integrated flash, with al the usual auto setting, red-eye reduction, forced on/forced off settings which are easily accessed.
The large on/off button is recessed in the camera top to prevent accidental activation.
Next to this is the all important shutter button which I found to be quite positive when using at half-depressed to lock focus. Surrounding the shutter button is the zoom in/out lever.
The power-up time is very fast, with the LCD showing a preview in just over one second.
And with a half pressed shutter the camera gives you a reassuring confirming 'beep' to show that focus and exposure are set and ready to take your photo.
On taking the photo, the writing of the JPG to the memory card is reasonably fast.
The resulting pictures from the camera were of acceptable if not outstanding quality. Some fringing did appear in hi-contrast situations, but overall a very acceptable result.
This camera would not suit everyone, due to its small size it would not be the preferred model for someone with large hands.
However, the balance between portability, image quality and ease of use makes this model a very acceptable choice for the on-the-move traveller.
Read the complete review |
 |
Fuji Finepix JV300
by ask_eve
After breaking my sony camera I needed a replacement as soon as. I'm not a photographer and don't know a great deal about cameras. I tend to look for one with a decent amount of mega pixels and a good brand like Sony, Fujifilm or Nikon and that's as far as my expertise goes.
The Fujifilm finepix JV300 is described as a ... budget-friendly, stylish compact camera. I was attracted by the 14mp sensor as I assumed this would give good quality photos. The camera also offers a 3X optical zoom lens which can be useful when taking landscape shots or pictures of people standing a little further away.
The camera has a 2.7 inch LCD screen which you can see your image on before you take the picture and look through your pictures on afterwards. It isn't massive, but it is a sufficient size to see what you need to see. It's quite good quality so you can read the settings and information on their easily and you can clearly see the pictures you've taken. You can also use this little screen to watch videos you've recorded on the camera though this isn't a feature I've used as I don't normally bother with videos.
When you buy this camera, you get the camera itself, an NP-45A Li-ion battery and the charger and a CD manual. I never bothered using the CD manual as it's quite a basic camera and I decided to give it a try on my own first. I really like the battery in this camera, I find it lasts much longer than AA batteries that cameras normally take. To charge it, you take it out and pop it into the charger that it comes with, plug it into the mains and leave it for a few hours. This is easy to do and I find a few hours charge is sufficient to use the camera for quite a while.
There are six settings on the camera to be used, portrait, Macro, Landscape, Night portrait, Night and backlit portrait. These are easy to change but I tend to stick to using the portait setting as I only really use the camera for taking pictures of the grandkids and family. It uses face recognition which is meant to reduce red eye when you take the picture using the flash. This is a bonus as I often end up getting red eye in pictures and I'm not one for editing them so it can spoil what could have been nice images.
One of the noticable features of the JV300 is the image stabilisation. I'm usually taking pictures of the kids bombing it around the park or the house and rarely get a picture of them sitting still. This meant that a lot of my pictures were poor quality of blurred with my old camera but I tend to get better images from this camera. They're normally less blurred and better quality which saves me having to take them again.
So I've talked about the cameras main specifications, but what about the camera itself?
The camera is available in pink, red, blue, black, white and purple. I opted for the black one as I think this is a more stylish and sophisticated colour but I've seen pictures of the purple and red ones and these are really nice too, more girly so I do wish I'd opted for one of those instead now. The camera is quite small, only 96mm accross so fits nicely in your hand when you're taking pictures and doesn't take up too much room in my bag when I'm out. It's a standard looking camera and doesn't really stand out from any of the other digital cameras on the market. It is quite a light camera, even with batteries inside, weighing just 113g. I think this is becuase it is quite cheaply made and is more light plastic than metal. This isn't really an issue as it isn't an expensive camera so you don't expect perfection and it doesn't change the way in which the camera works.
The flash is on the left hand side, lens in the middle of the camera with the shutter button on top on the right hand side where it is normally located. The on/off button is on the back of the camera on the right hand side and clearly labelled so you don't press it by mistake. The zoom buttons are below and are simple to use. You have a display/back button which allows you to change the information seen on the pictures i.e. date and time etc. The Play button is next to this on the right hand side which allows you to switch from camera mode to gallery to see your pictures. Beneath this is a round set of buttons. These are the settings and allow you to delete photos, change the scene, turn flash on and off and use the self timer. The middle button is an OK button which is used to confirm any setting changes you choose.
When I take photos, I don't bother to change settings or mess with the flash. If the image comes out too dark or blurred then I'll take it again and put the flash on but otherwise I leave it as it is and tend to get nice quality pictures. The self timer feature is one of my favourite features of this camera as I use it frequently. I set the camera up somewhere i.e. on the fireplace, press the self timer button, once for 2 seconds or twice for 10 then step away and jump in for the picture. It can be tricky to get the picture the way you want it, the first few times I was too close or too far away and not center but you get used to it. It's great as I'm normally the one taking pictures and this feature gives me the chance to be in the images. We've had a lot of fun trying to balance the camera on benches and posts to get pictures of us when there is nobody around to ask to take it for us.
The zoom function is simple to use too, you point the camera at whatever your taking the picture of and press the W to zoom in and the T to zoom back out. It's quick and doesn't have a delay so you can snap longer distance images pretty quickly.
I have printed some of the pictures that I took with this camera, normally 6 X 8 inches which fit nicely in my frames at home. They are great quality and have good colour and brightness. I can't complain about the quality of the images.
The camera takes a memory card which means you can take lots of pictures without running out of space. You can use different sized cards depending on how many pictures you want to take. I tend to stick to an 8gb and find this to be more than enough.
There aren't any cases made specifically for this camera model but you can find them to fit as it's a standard shape and sized camera. The JV300 is available on Ebay, Amazon, Boots. You can slo get it from Argos, Curry's and Asda. The average price is around £59.99 for the camera but on Asda direct, you get the camera, a case and a 4gb memory card for £59 which is a great deal. This is an ideal camera for general photography of the family and friends and maybe some landscape pictures. It has a couple of good features and it's very easy to use, if I can master it then so can anyone else! It isn't an expensive camera or a DSLR so you're not going to get proffessional images but it does produce nice, decent quality pictures that you can print off and keep or use online for your social networking sites. This camera would make an ideal christmas present, especially for a teenager as it's good quality but not too expensive to replace if it gets lost or broken. Definitely worth the money!
Read the complete review |
 |
FujiFilm Finepix A235
by Jcm222
INTRODUCTION
I have had this reliable, adequate point and shoot, compact camera for a few years now, and think that it is a great little camera. Obviously, it is not for the professional photographers amongst us but for Joe Public, like me it more than suffices.
DESIGN
This is a compact, neat camera, ... with a depth of just 22mm it is easily carried around with you on nights out or on holiday. I have the glossy black model which looks well, but it should be noted it shows up all fingerprints and dirt so you should keep it in a case and clean it regularly. The LCD screen at the back is fantastic because it fills nearly all the available space, which allows you to get a high quality preview of the image you have just taken. You use the screen to take the photos as well, as there is no viewfinder included. Personally, I feel it would be better if there was one included, as it can make photographs, particularly posed ones, easier to capture.
FEATURES
The camera is 12MP and has a 3X Optical Zoom. The resolution on the camera is very good, but the zoom is not great, particularly the digital zoom, the picture quality seems to deteriorate quicker on this camera than on other similar cameras.
There are over 15 different modes and settings that you can choose from. Some of them are very good, in particular the sport and fireworks mode. The sport mode is very good for taking photos of moving objects - even young children! It has a shutter speed that allows most of the blur to be eliminated.
I find fireworks very hard to capture, but this mode really does work and I would recommend it on this basis alone! The Scene Recognition setting means the camera will determine what you are taking photos off and choose and appropriate mode. To be honest it works very well, but is not ideal if you are in a situation where the kinds of scenes you want is changing a lot in a short space of time, as the camera cannot keep up. The other modes are all reasonably good also.
One problem I have picked up on is the face detection, because often it struggles if there is more than one person in the photograph.
It's really easy to use, as soon as you turn it on, you are put into AUTOMATIC mode ready to take photographs, there are no complicated technical details or menus!
BATTERY AND MEMORY
The camera operates on 2 AA Batteries. It is quite astonishing that when you insert your batteries fresh from the packet (even top brands) it says you only have half the power available. This is the biggest problem, as the camera really does suck the power out of the batteries, so you ought to have plenty of spares with you!
The internal memory holds just four or five high resolution photos, but this is becoming the case with many budget cameras, and you can pick up a memory card on Amazon for a very low price.
SUMMARY
For around £60 on Amazon you can get a camera that serves its purpose really well for most common situations. It is a great camera for going on holiday, or taking photos of the kids! The included FUJI software is really good for editing your photographs, so you will not have to purchase this as extra. I think it would make a great present for teens!
Read the complete review |
