Snap Happy (Fujifilm Finepix A330)

Member Name: kenjohn

Product:	Fujifilm Finepix A330
Date:	28/02/05 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good price

Disadvantages: Not a lot

~ ~ Some of you will probably recall that the mad cabbie’s first venture into the world of digital photography was an unmitigated disaster. Back in June of last year (2004) I bought the Creative PC-CAM 880 in a local electrical superstore, for no good reason other than it was under €100 in price, and boasted a resolution of 3.0 million effective megapixels. A huge mistake, as any of you who have read my review of the product will know! Fortunately, my wife (devious soul that she is) managed to reinsert the camera back into its original packaging and returned it to the discount warehouse where we purchased it. NOT a full refund I might add (unhappily) but at least we got a credit note from them that we can use in the future. I’m permanently stuck with the 64Mgb memory card I bought for the Creative camera though, (about €50) as it wont fit into my new Fuji FinePix. (Bah!!)

~ ~ Anyways, not one to be deterred by a bad first experience, I reckoned that there HAD to be a digital camera out there somewhere that met our main criteria for purchase. Namely, pick up the damned thing, point it at what you want a picture of, and press the button, without first of all needing to obtain a degree in advanced photography to work out all the different options on the menu bar. In other words, a simple “point and shoot” camera, that is easy to use, and which will give you excellent results on an ongoing basis. Add to this a young lass (my 13-year-old daughter) who was pestering the life out of me for a digital camera, and I knew something had to be done. (For my own sanity if nothing else!)

~ ~ I’d read good reviews about Fuji digital cameras both here at dooyoo and at various other sources, so when I paid a visit to a local camera shop (where I knew the owner personally) just before Christmas, this was the model of digital camera I had already half decided to purchase. Once I explained our basic requirements to her, she quickly produced the Fuji FinePix A330, saying that basically it was as easy to use as an old Kodak Brownie. (Point and shoot!)
It wasn’t that the camera DIDN’T have all the advanced features of its competitors. In fact, it has an extensive menu option with many extra features that you can explore at your leisure. But on auto mode the camera does all the hard work for you, and all you need do is simply click the shutter to produce excellent quality digital photographs. (Just what I wanted) When she said she’d throw in a leather carrying case, four rechargeable batteries and a battery charger, a pack of Fuji photo quality paper for printing and a 64Mgb memory card, all free of charge, then the old credit card came out of my wallet quicker than Wayne Rooney reacts when he gets a sniff of the goalposts! Basic price was under €200 (€194.95) and I reckon I saved in or around €80 with the free extras, so I was happy enough even though you can source the camera for less on the Internet.

~ ~ So why do I like our new little Japanese wonder so much?
Well, mostly for the reasons I have already stated. It really IS “point and shoot” and extremely easy to use, even for an ageing technophobe like myself. You don’t even have to turn it on! Simply slide back the lens cover on the front of the camera and 3.3 seconds later the retractable lens had appeared and the camera has booted up and is ready to go. You can either look at the image in the small 1.5-inch colour monitor on the back of the camera, or do it the old fashioned way by looking through the viewfinder. The FinePix A330 does all the rest for you! All you have to do is press the wee button to take the piccy. The camera will automatically adjust itself to the lighting conditions, sort out the required shutter speeds and all that old guff for you, and even use the built-in flash if it feels it’s necessary.

~ ~ If you want a close up picture of what you’re shooting, then the A330 has a zoom facility that allows you to move in on the subject easily, again with a simple press of a button on the back of the camera. The technical info says it boasts a 3 x optical zoom combined with a 3 x digital zoom, which supposedly gives you life like pictures with excellent colour quality. I’m sure there are plenty of experts out there who could explain in vivid detail exactly what this means and how exactly the camera goes about achieving it, but as far as this wee mad cabbie is concerned all I care about is the fact that the zoom facility is easy to operate, and does the job it’s supposed to do, without the user needing an advanced degree in photography to figure it all out! In fact, so effective is the A330 that you can supposedly take a piccy of an object only a mere 3 inches away from the lens, although I haven’t felt the need to put this to the test yet.

~ ~ The camera comes with a 16Mb picture card supplied, but as I said earlier I got a 64Mb card thrown in free of charge. It really is worth your while investing in a larger memory card than the basic 16Mb one, for the obvious reason that you’ll be able to store far more pictures without either having to print them off or store them on the hard drive of your computer. At the default setting of 3.2 Megapixels, the 16Mb card will store up to 20 pictures, which increases to a massive 82 pictures with the 64Mb card. If you want you can change the resolution of your snaps to either 1 Megapixel or 2 Megapixels, which reduces the resolution (clarity) of your pictures somewhat, but will allow you to store far more on the memory card. (Up to 137 pictures with the 64Mb card!) The A330 will take up to a 512Mb memory card, which at the default 3.2 Megapixel setting will allow you to store up to 665 pictures, but the 64Mb card is plenty large enough for the average user. In fact, if you’re not using it a lot, then the capacity of the supplied 16Mb card isn’t that bad!

~~ The A330 gets its power supply from two AA batteries. Unusually these days you actually get the batteries supplied free of charge with the camera. With standard alkaline batteries you’ll be able to take about 160 pictures before you have to change them. Better still, use rechargeable batteries and you’ll get about 200 pictures, as well as saving yourself a small fortune for replacements. This is why I was absolutely delighted to get four rechargeable batteries and a charger thrown in with our camera free of charge. I can have two batteries inserted in the camera, while the other two batteries are charging, which means you never run the risk of running out of battery power. (Which let’s face it, ALWAYS seems to happen at the most inopportune moment!)
If you want, you can also purchase a separate “picture cradle” for the camera to ensure it’s always fully charged. This is a little cradle that the camera sits into while not in use, and which recharges the batteries in the camera for you.

~ ~ As I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of advanced features on the A330 for those of you with a technical bent, and even for somebody as dim as I am when it comes to technology most of these are fairly simple to get the hang of after you fiddle around and experiment with them for a while.
For example, you can select different settings for the type of picture you’re taking. So if you select the portrait mode the camera automatically focuses more on the person in the shot and less on the surrounding area, while at the same time reducing the “red eye” effect you can sometimes get. (You know, the glowing red eyes that make the person look like the spawn of Satan!) If you’re shooting at night time, then the flash stays on for longer and keeps the camera’s shutter open for a longer period, thus increasing the light and resulting in a better, clearer picture. On the sports (or live action) setting, it increases the shutter speed so that you get less blurring of the picture that can happen when a person is in motion. You can even mess around with the different settings like the shutter speed, focus flash, etc yourself, but this is for somebody who knows what they’re about, and not a daft wee mad cabbie! One thing I WOULD like to get the hang of is operating the ten second delay feature, which would allow you to take a family shot without having to ask someone else to take the piccy for you. I’ve managed to master setting it up alright, but then where do you put the camera to ensure everyone is in the shot, and that you’re not simply taking a picture of the wall. Short of buying a tripod for the camera I can’t see how you can manage this trick.
One last feature that my young lass simply loves is the movie mode. This allows you to use the camera as a sort of “mini camcorder”, and will record up to sixty seconds of footage. Every time she comes home from an outing with her pals I have to immediately download this onto the hard drive of the computer, as it takes up massive amounts of space on the memory card. If you were going to be using this mode extensively then I would suggest you opt for the largest possible memory card. (512 Mb)

~ ~ Which leads me nicely onto loading your piccys onto the old computer.
This is where the A330 really excels. Incorporated on the installation CD is a piece of software called the FinePix Viewer. This is similar to another picture suite I have already loaded onto the computer called the Adobe Photo Deluxe. Similar but SO much better, because like the camera itself, it’s so simple to use. To transfer your pictures to the computer all you have to do is plug the USB cable (supplied) into the camera. That’s it! The FinePix viewer does all the rest for you, downloading your piccys onto a file of your choice, and even turning on the camera for you!
Once they are downloaded you have the option of messing around to your heart’s content with things like the picture quality, (brightness, contrast, etc) resizing the picture, or reducing the file size to make it easy to transfer by email or upload onto the web. And unlike the far more complicated Adobe software, this is once again very easy to get the hang of.
You can use the FinePix Viewer to view your pictures either individually or in a slide show, and to transfer them to a CD. They’ve even included an additional bit of software called the “Image Mixer”, which is an editing facility for any movie footage you’ve taken.
There’s even links on the toolbar of the Viewer to take you directly to the Fuji website, where you can do all the usual things like using their helpline or online help, and joining a forum to exchange advice and ideas with other Fuji owners.
I’ve printed out quite a number of pictures using FinePix Viewer, photographic paper, and my ancient (but trustworthy) old Lexmark 3200 printer, and the quality is excellent. I can manage up to 10” x 8” prints using my printer, and it’s great for smaller 6” x 4” snapshots. You can also hook the camera up to one of those new fangled photo printers if you have one, and print out your shots direct from the memory card.
One last little feature which I’ll mention, but which I haven’t tried to use yet, is the ability to link the camera up directly to your television, and view your piccys on the larger TV screen. (I’ll get around to trying it out at some stage!)

~ ~ So my overall assessment of the Fuji FinePix A330 digital camera?
Well, as you’ve probably already gathered, I’m absolutely delighted with our new (newish) purchase, and give it my highest possible recommendation. This isn’t the most technically advanced camera on the market by any manner of means, but it’s absolutely ideal for the average home user who doesn’t want to re-mortgage the house to buy a digital camera. It’s small and compact, (4.09 x 2.42 x 1.23 inches) fits easily into a pocket (or handbag) and is simplicity itself to use, giving excellent picture quality.
Pricewise (as always), it pays to shop around. I was happy enough with the price I paid, (€194.95) especially since I saw the very same camera in the Argos store only last week for €185, MINUS all the little extras I got thrown in free of charge with my own. A quick investigation on the web shows that you’ll probably be able to purchase one for under a £100 Sterling if you shop around at sites like eBay or the like.
Highly recommended by the mad cabbie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

© KenJ February 2005

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summary: Good budget digital camera with excellent picture quality and easy to use

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Features:
Picture quality: