Ames100's Full Review: FUJIFILM FinePix F20 Digital Camera
Let’s make no mistake here: the Fuji F20 is not the best compact digital camera around. It’s not the smallest or lightest, and it doesn’t sport the biggest feature list. There are some design drawbacks, like requiring expensive and fast-disappearing xD memory cards, and the use of proprietary custom connectors when standard ones would have done better. But there’s one thing that’s outstanding – it has the best CCD sensor of any compact camera around (same sensor as the F30 and F31FD models). As a result it takes great photos, particularly in low light. This factor can’t be underestimated, because in the end it’s the photos that count. I have other cameras that I think are generally better designed all round, with more and better features, but they can’t match the Fuji in sensor quality. The Fuji has at least a one-stop exposure advantage in sensitivity versus noise. It has very little noise at ISO 400, captures decent images at ISO 800, and can even get a usable shot at ISO 2000 in a pinch. In good light it can use a faster shutter speed for sharper pictures. In low light it can capture well-exposed shots with low noise levels that put my other cameras to shame. Usable flash range is an outstanding 21 feet due to the ability to boost sensitivity.
There’s no real magic at work here. Fuji’s SuperCCD sensor is better because:
a) It’s physically bigger for the same number of pixels than the competition, so each pixel gathers more light in a given exposure time
b) Fuji’s patented SuperCCD design allows less wasted space between pixels on the surface of the sensor, improving the light-gathering ability still further.
c) Fuji has tuned their exposure and noise reduction algorithms to take good advantage of the sensor characteristics.
Camera manufacturers are understandably reluctant to advertise information about their CCD sensor size when they have opted for smaller = cheaper, but you can usually find it in the specs posted at more technical camera review sites. For compact cameras it is usually given in the cryptic form of a focal length ratio which is inversely related to the sensor size. For example the F20 has a 1/1.7" sensor, the same as Canon's more expensive G-series cameras. Most consumer compacts from the major manufacturers have smaller 1/2.5" sensors (you can find an explanation and a table to convert to actual sensor sizes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_photography#Sensor_size_and_angle_of_view ). Keep in mind that you also have to take into account the sensor resolution: if they cram twice the number of megapixels into the same sensor size, it makes the signal-to-noise ratio worse by a factor of two. 12 Megapixels may sound better than 6 Megapixels, but there's a significant cost in image noise if they don't increase the sensor size.
Fuji backs up their excellent sensor with a decent lens that’s sharp corner-to-corner, and has real aperture adjustment (unlike some other compacts which fake it with a neutral density filter on a fixed aperture lens). It’s a standard 3:1 zoom from moderate wide angle to moderate telephoto, so nothing ground-breaking otherwise. It has moderate barrel distortion at full wide angle, and some purple fringing in high-contrast areas near the edges - both typical of similar lenses.
Most shots are well exposed in both natural and flash light, but the F20 has a bit of a tendency to over-expose in low light, and under-expose in bright light. Fortunately the extra dynamic range provided by the low noise level means that under-exposed shots can be successfully brightened. By default the F20 is a little too eager to use high ISO settings and fast shutter speeds, often selecting ISO 800 for flash shots and ISO 1600 for indoor shots. Aggressive noise reduction in the shadows at these high ISO levels still results in visible artifacts when you zoom in, so in these circumstances you may want to try manually selecting lower ISO levels if you have a steady hand and can tolerate slower shutter speeds.
Outdoor shots generally look a bit cool and pale by comparison to Canon color, but there’s no clear winner for color accuracy, and overall the color is very satisfactory. The contrast seems a bit too high in outdoor shots, but there’s no way to adjust it in the shooting settings. Highlights are often blown out in shots where a wide exposure range is required, but no more than usual. I still prefer the exposure and contrast choices of my old Fuji F601z, but on balance the F20 is as good as most of our other compact cameras.
The F20 has a reasonably speedy processor. The startup/shutdown, shutter lag, and shot-to-shot times are short, and the image display and zoom/pan on playback are quick and smooth, adding up to the impression of a fast camera. On the other hand, the long-term continuous shooting speed is unspectacular at 2 seconds per frame, possibly held back by slow memory card writing speed. It probably doesn't help that the F20's jpeg images are 50% bigger than our other 6 megapixel cameras even on the smaller Normal setting.
The F20 is positioned as a simpler and cheaper sibling of the F30 in Fuji’s model line, so the feature list is not extensive, but there are some highlights:
- Good choice of Continuous shooting modes, including a quick triple shot (inexplicably called "Top 3"), and a "Last 3" mode which is great for catching the moment in fast sports action, both of which shoot 2.2 frames/sec.
- Double-shot Natural + Flash setting captures both with one shutter press when you want to be sure
- One-button "anti blur" mode which selects maximum ISO 2000 sensitivity.
- Navigation through saved images includes a handy “by date” mode
- Bright white focus-assist lamp helps focus in low light
On the other hand there are no manual settings for F-stop or shutter speed, as those were rather arbitrarily left out to help justify the higher price of the F30 model. You can rotate pictures in the camera, but there's no automatic orientation sensor. This camera has no optical image stabilization, but the fast shutter speed selected by the anti-blur button does have the advantage of helping with both camera movement and subject movement.
The F20 relies on a 2.5” LCD, with no optical viewfinder. The LCD has adequate resolution and good brightness. There’s an anti-glare coating and a convenient one-touch “brighten” button for quickly increasing the brightness of the display, but it’s still not very visible in bright sunlight - the lack of an optical viewfinder is a drawback.
The recessed On/Off button is on the top, along with the shutter button and a still/movie mode slide switch. A Wide/Tele zoom rocker is on the back where it falls under your thumb. Also on the back is the usual 4-way navigation rocker with the Menu/OK button in the middle, and alternate shooting functions assigned to each direction: Flash mode right, Macro mode toggle left, Brighten display toggle up, and Self-timer mode down (almost the same as Canon actually, which is a blessing!). Most shooting, playback, and configuration settings are selected on the LCD menu using the navigation controls, including Auto/Manual/Scene shooting modes. There’s a separate Play button to switch the camera into playback mode, and you can switch back to shooting mode by half-pressing the shutter button. Holding down the Play button when the camera is off turns the camera on in playback mode. There's a separate Display/Back button used toggle display modes and to back out of menus or zoom playback mode. Then there's the F-mode button which displays a separate shooting menu to select ISO sensitivity, image capture quality, and Fujichrome color mode. Finally there's the "anti-blur" button, which toggles the maximum ISO 2000 sensitivity on/off. There are no customizable button settings.
The user interface design is ok, but different again from my previous Fuji cameras. I guess I’m a bit spoiled by Canon, which has kept and refined the same user interface for many years. Fuji’s interface doesn’t seem quite as smooth, perhaps because of the constant tinkering from model to model instead of settling on one design. For example, navigation through a large set of images is a bit slower and more awkward than Canon’s design. However, I do appreciate the way that most settings are “sticky” with the F20; e.g., if you turn the flash off it stays off until you turn it on again. I also think it’s good that many settings made in manual mode stick around in automatic mode, such as exposure compensation. I guess I could complain that shooting settings are somewhat arbitrarily split between the Menu button and the separate F-mode button, but the Canon cameras have a similar issue with the Menu and Func buttons. The F20 doesn’t have a mode dial like the F30/F31, so it takes a couple of extra button pushes to switch between Auto and Manual mode to access many settings, but again the smaller Canons have the same issue, so this issue is not unique the F20
There’s a fairly standard video mode that records video with sound in standard MJPEG avi format at 640 x 480 x 30fps – pretty much the norm these days. You can select a smaller frame size, but there are no time lapse or slow motion options. You can't use optical or digital zoom while video recording, and focus is fixed. The camera continues to adjust exposure automatically while filming, which can result in the sound track picking up audible clicking from the lens aperture adjustment. You can attach the AV cable to play back video or still photo slide shows on a TV. NTSC and PAL video modes are supported. The AV output and the USB connector are combined on a single shared custom jack, which I think was a dumb idea. Fuji supplies both cables with the F20, but I’d hate to try to find a replacement.
Battery life is rated at about 250 shots, which is about average for this type of camera, although it is considerably less that that furnished by the bigger battery of the F30/31FD models. Battery life seems more than adequate to me in normal use; I would say that it's actually significantly better than the specification.
The battery and memory card slot are behind a hinged cover on the bottom of the camera, along with a small speaker and a plastic tripod mount which is way off center. The battery is charged in-camera by an external DC power supply. The DC power input and the AV/USB combined jack are under an awkwardly-attached rubber cover on the side. A DC power supply/charger is included, with a rather long and bulky power cord. The charger is quite slow at 5 hours for a full charge, although you can get an adequate charge in 30 minutes if you really need it in a hurry. An external quick battery charger is an extra cost option.
The USB 2.0 interface runs about the same speed as other cameras in transferring photos. The computer interface protocol is PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol), same as Canon and most other modern cameras, so it can share the same software. Fuji’s own Finepix Viewer software is included, but it has little special to recommend it if you have any other photo image processing software.
The F20 has an internal 10 Mbyte memory which suffices for a few shots, but no xD card is included. That's fine with me since those tiny token memory cards included with other cameras aren't really of much use, but I wish it used SD cards instead of xD. I had to pay 5x as much for a 1 Gbyte xD card as I would have paid for the same capacity SD card. It's an Olympus Type M card, which seems to be the only type still widely available. The Type M xD cards are slower than type H, and the Fuji manual has a vague warning that type M cards might not be fast enough to keep up with continous video recording if the card memory gets fragmented, but I haven't had any problem. From what I can tell from other users' reports, using a type H card wouldn't speed up any operations of the F20.
Most of my comments in this review would also apply to the F30, and to some extent to the F31FD. Those more expensive models share the same sensor, lens and processor, but have a higher-resolution LCD, a longer-life battery, an extra shooting mode dial control, and some more extensive settings such as manual shutter and aperture control. The F31FD adds the showy but not very useful Face Detection focus function.
These Fuji cameras are a few years old now, and have been superseded by later models, but they remain the unmatched champions of low noise and high sensitivity among compact cameras.
Update: The F20 performed very well for me on a long vacation trip. I took both the F20 and my Canon SD1000, but I ended up using the F20 more. There were no malfunctions, and it proved easy to use and a good stable fit in the hand for shooting. It had no problem lasting for 5 days of heavy use without a charge (>500 photos, dozens of videos, lots of viewing). The only real problem was the difficulty of viewing the LCD screen in bright sunlight.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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