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December 11, 2008
[REVIEW–FUJIFILM FINEPIX F60fd]
Price: $400
Strictly point and shoot
The low-down: This is a 12 megapixel camera with a 35–105mm (film equivalent) zoom lens. Image stabilisation is by CCD shift and, in dual mode, ISO increase. There is face recognition and in-camera red eye removal. There are limited manual controls, but in use we found that the N setting on the mode dial (“retains natural ambience without flash”) gave consistently good results. The 7.5cm LCD screen is acceptable as a viewfinder but for reviewing images it is a little misleading in colour and contrast. There is a 25MB internal memory, supplemented by either SD or xD cards. The battery is proprietary rechargeable and a 230 shot capacity is claimed. The printed Basic Manual is just that – basic. The camera has the usual credit card face area and is 23mm thick.
Like: Image quality is generally good with some tendency to underexpose in dim light. Skin tones are fine and faithful. This is one of the better cameras for auto-white balance. We found that using the N setting we got good results under a mix of available window light and florescent. Noise and noise reduction artefacts are visible at full enlargement, but generally handled well and won’t show up in standard prints. Image sharpness is good with little loss of detail from noise reduction.
Dislike: The lack of an optical viewfinder is always annoying. Sony and Canon can fit OVFs at this price point – why doesn’t every manufacturer?
Verdict: We like the Fuji look, particularly for skin tones. It took some trial and error before we settled on the N setting and decided it was best to let the camera make the decisions, even if it does mean occasionally hitting ISO levels too high for clean pictures. As a simple point and shoot we rate the F60fd as commendable.
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Posted by terry at December 11, 2008 03:59 AM
Worth Checking Out
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