Impressive Camera. Impressive Images
Written: Sep 21 '02 (Updated Feb 14 '03)
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Pros: Quality Pictures; Video Recording; Build Quality; Compact; Extras
Cons: Auto Focus problems; Shutter Speed in Auto mode.
The Bottom Line: A camera that is small enough and quick enough to use, with all the features a bigger cam would have.
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| MichaelHatton's Full Review: FUJIFILM FinePix F601 Zoom Digital Camera |
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Introduction
The Fuji FinePix F601 Zoom, costing just over £400 at time of purchase, isn’t the cheapest cameras you can buy. Right on the same shelf as the F601 was a Sony CyberShot camera at half the price. Both cameras had appeal, but the FinePix has that many more features. The F601 is a truly compact Digital Camera, not only does it has the features bigger cameras have, it also has some which they don’t. The FinePix can be bought in numerous packages:
You can buy the camera itself stant alone, or buy it with certain features. The camera itself costs less than £350 which makes the features more of an expense rather than necessary. The package I have is the Premium package. With this you get a Dock, which is optional in any other package, and at £30, this light piece of plastic is an expensive essential. At this price, features such as “Free Hand Belt” seem stupid to have on the case. The box it comes in actually has two boxes. This is the premium package, so you get the Dock, and Camera in their own box.
The dock is quite essential but not necessary, you can benefit from a number of additions, such as an easy way to store your camera when it is recharging, or accessing the files with a USB adaptor. Or using the Video output, to project onto any TV with a composite input and audio input.
In The Boxes
As said there are two boxes, in the first smaller box, is the dock and the other larger box holds the camera and extras. The dock comes complete with a USB cable and AV cable.
In the other box is all the stuff you get with the camera itself. Remember you don’t get video output with the camera itself. In this box you will find.
The camera,
A USB cable,
CD-ROM with software
Smart Media card
Lithium Battery
Small leather bag/case,
An AC power adapter,
Plastic wallet for Smart Media card
The reason the premium package comes with two USB leads, is that the camera itself has a larger socket than the dock, the reason is that the dock takes out the video and audio portion to their own sockets. The other reason is that it has to give the camera power, as it will take the AC adaptor. This means you can re-charge the Lithium battery with both the camera or the dock, using the same type of socket.
The Dock
The dock is made from silver plastic, it fits snugly around the camera botton, where by it connects to the camera via a plug on the bottom of the cradle. There is a power button so you can switch it on and off, plus a LED for showing the access to the camera. When recharging the camera displays a red LED on the front. On the rear are three sockets, one for the AC adapter, the other for the USB link, and the third for a video socket. It uses a small 2mm mini jack type of connection for the AV lead.
The Camera
The F601 is easily the smallest camera I have ever seen, in fact many Webcams seem a similar size. The measurements of the camera physically are:
9.4cm tall – 7.3cm wide – 3.5cm deep.
3.76in tall – 2.92in wide – 1.4in deep.
The weight of the camera is also very good, it is quoted as 228grams (7.8oz), without battery, not exactly something hard to carry. For its size there are a lot of features packaged into the camera. The compactness comes to the fore, when I realized that the battery and SmartMedia card have to pass beneath the LCD screen, and the lens cap is built in. The lens cap is built under the aluminium casing, and flips out of the way of the lens.
The LCD screen, is marginally small at 1.5in diagonally. But when considering the camera size, anything bigger would hamper the battery life. The battery and SmartMedia card slot into the side of the F601, where a flip lifts up when you slide it down. On the other side is a socket for the AC adaptor, while the connection on the bottom has its own cover. The top of the camera holds a pop-up flash lamp, which pops up with the press of a button on the back.
There is very few buttons on the F601, at less than ten. There is a manual switch, which lets you either View stored images (Playback) or take pictures (Record). You have two buttons near the LCD screen, DISP and POWER, the DISP button can be used to draw a grid on the screen and turn off the LCD screen, or look at a slideshow/thumbnail of all the images stored on the SmartMedia card. Above and to the right of the screen is a selection of buttons made to be used by the right hand thumb; there is one button here, that manual switch and a Menu joystick. The stick can be used to zoom in and out, not to mention navigate the menus shown on the LCD screen. Selections are made when the stick is pressed.
On the top right part of the camera, next to the flash module, is a jog dial and shutter release button. There are a total of five settings for the camera, when in Record mode. Manual, Semi-auto, Auto, Video Recording, Audio Recording. This camera does have a Video record capability, not to mention unlimited Video recording. The Semi-Auto setting gives you five options, such as for taking large open area views, night shots, fast action shots, or for taking multiple images every fifth of a second.
In manual mode, you are given all the above options except audio/video recording. The manual mode gives you more settings in the menu system. You can set the White Level adjust sharpness, adjust the ISO level (180 to 1600), set the shutter speed, adjust the flash timer, and much more.
Video recording is unlimited, only restricted by the memory amount you use. Typically the video mode lets you do 640x486 resolution, with a QVGA mode for 320x243 giving double length movies. However you can’t switch off the audio section. You can also record in WAV file formats giving you full audio recording. There is options to let you record notes for each image in ten second length sessions, so you can add notes to the images you take.
Advanced Specifications
The camera is a 3.1M pixel camera, this may seem low for this price, but in fact Fuji claim that their third generation Super CCD chip can give 6 Mega pixel resolutions, that means images come in resolutions up to: 2832 x 2128. Quite impressive.
You can set the quality of the images, from 6M pixel all the way through 3M, 1M, and VGA (640x486). Each level has a Fine and Normal mode, the highest level (6M) has a Basic mode. These three levels give you some way in keeping the file sizes down.
The SmartMedia card that comes with the card is a decent 16Mb type. You can buy 64Mb or 128Mb cards for £20 or £45 respectively. SmartMedia cards are about the smallest type of memory for cameras, they are thinner than credit cards, and very small robust too.
The box states how many images you can record onto the card, or the length of video or audio recording. On the highest setting (6M Fine) you can only fit six images onto the card.
This is the quote:
6M (2832 x 2128)
-Fine-6
-Normal-13
-Basic-33
3M (2048 x 1536)
-Fine-12
-Normal-26
1M (1280 x 960)
-Fine-25
-Normal-49
VGA (640 x 480)
-Normal-122
As you can see, 16Mb is quite sufficient for good resolution images. In some night scenes there may be some noise visible, due to this being a 3M pixel camera, and not a 6Mp.
You can record up to 33minutes on 16Mb, in WAV file formats. The Video section lets you record 66 seconds in QVGA (320x243) or 33 seconds in VGA (640x486).
So with a 128Mb card, you could safely record around 4 minutes of video.
Optics Specification
The lens is a pure glass “Super EBC Fujinon”. There is a 3x optical zoom, with an additional 4.4x digital zoom. Optical zoom is done by adjusting the lens distance from the CCD, while digital is zooming into the actual image, not the scene. As you increase optical zoom, the image resolution is constant, but when zooming in digitally, the image resolution decreases.
The optical viewfinder, is located to the top left of the back panel, here there is a green/orange LED which can be distracting, especially when focusing. Although the viewfinder, does give you better view in the dark, it is safer to use the LCD screen. The lens can focus to objects from 80cm to infinity.
In Macro mode it can take images from 20cm to 80cm.
Focusing
Focusing can be done manually or automatically. The auto setting manages to capture very fine focus, however you should take care to make sure the objects that need to be in focus are in the “AutoFocus window”. For example, if taking a shot of a fish, make sure you focus to the fish themselves, and not the back of the tank. Manual focusing is very acute, you can do it in Manual mode, all you need to do is select the option using the Menu button and use it to up/down the focus, then when focused the image will remain in focus. It may be better to use the view finder, although the high resolution 110,000 pixel LCD screen is very fine.
Auto focus can be a problem, often when doing close shots, this can be solved by using manual focus or selecting Macro mode. Still manual focus is going to give the best results. The Lens barrel extends from 1.6cm (zoomed in) to 2.6cm (zoomed out).
Fig 1 – An un-zoomed image showing the cradle and battery.
Fig 2 – A 3x Zoom using Auto focus, notice that it is blurred.
Fig 3 – A 3x Zoom using manual focus, it is much sharper.
Full Auto Mode
Unfortunately, the Full Auto mode, doesn’t let you specify the shutter speed, in this case, you will find any sudden movements are given a motion blur. This can be cured using the Semi-Auto mode, and selecting the action option.
Shutter Speeds
The Shutter speeds vary from 3 seconds to 1/1500th of a second. However, when using the camera in doors or under any artificial light, make sure you set it to 1/30th of a second, as any artificial light will blank about every 1/50th of a second due to Alternating current. So when taking images of TV’s, or any florescent lamp, use a slow shutter speed, anything higher than 1/30th will show an image without light, which is remarkable when you think about it.
Flash
The flash uses a Flash sensor, located to the left of the lens, this takes the instantaneous flood of light and auto-adjusts the light sensitivity of the camera, before it snaps the pic. You can adjust the lead-in or lead out of the flash up to /- 0.6 seconds. This is to have some control on the intensity of the flash.
The flash works well up to a few metres. Anything further away may not show up well. The good thing about the camera is that you can turn off the flash, by simply putting it away. Although you can manually set it to go off, say when looking to a sunset/rise with some people in the shade.
Fig 4 – A Flash shot taken using Auto Focus.
Battery
The Lithium battery pack is 5.3cm by 3.5cm, making it very small, however very powerful. The 1.035A hour battery can recharge from the camera when fully discharged in five hours. The camera is not the best choice to recharge it, you can find a Fuji fast charger for £50 which will charge in two hours, or buy a second battery for £30. The battery will last, when running constantly with the LCD on and some flash included images, for around two hours. A good way to save power, is to use the camera without the LCD screen, or turning the brightness down, you can have it set to turn the screen off or auto-off itself after a certain time of inactivity.
ISO Level
The ISO level can be changed from 180 to 1600. Although the 800 and 1600 settings can only be done in 1M resolutions. This lets you set different levels of sensitivity for the camera, the highest settings work best for dark shots, and the lower are for bight shots. The highest settings do tend to bring some noise into the image though.
Shutter release Button
The shutter release button works in various ways. The first, using Auto Focus, works by pressing the button once, allowing the camera to focus briefly, then holding the button and targeting the shot, then pressing in further to take the picture. The button has two clicks, so that you can feel when you hit the first click. It’s not easy to click both simultaneously, if this happens though, it will auto focus in that time, although you may get a lag between pressing it and it recording.
The second system, is typically in Video/Audio or manual focus recording. This time you must fully press the button in to begin the shot or record audio or video. The button is within the jog dial, and is loose so you can get a good angle with your finger.
Bootup
Boot up is the length of time for the camera to be ready. The F601 will be ready in seconds. The LCD screen takes about a second to warm up, and the Lens takes a couple of seconds to be uncovered, bleep and pop out. It sounds quite nice the first time you here it, sort of like some James Bond gadget.
Picture/Video/Sound Quality
Picture Quality
Picture quality in any mode is impeccable, the colours always seem right, the white balance is excellent, and the sharpness is perfect. There may be problems with darker shots, some requiring the flash, but apart from the occasional dark shot, you can get good photos.
Outdoor photos suite the F601 well, it proves itself with pictures of gardens, wildlife and architecture. The optical zoom is quite impressive, not what you would call magnificent, but good enough for taking snaps. There may be some problems of images with a lot of sunlight, where the darker areas get dimmed out a bit. There are also some times when you find the image you saw isn’t the one you get afterwards, the LCD screen doesn’t show up the finer details, unless you zoom into the image or pan around a little. The flash is remarkably clean, it can give some very good results, even from such a small source.
If you must use Auto focus, make sure you know how to use, and it isn’t a guarantee, the Auto mode isn’t particularly strong and the sooner you get used to the manual settings the better.
Fig 5 - A close up under sunlight using Auto Focus and in the Finest Image quality. This one is mighty big.
Video Quality
The videos would look almost as good as Video CD, if there weren’t’ as much noise as there is. Still, for a camera this is acceptable. The 15fps limit doesn’t seem that bad, and the camera adapts to the focus and light intensity well, although you can’t zoom in on the images. You can use the QVGA mode for the web. The files are in an AVI, file format, which is very compatible with any media player.
Audio
The audio section, monaural, is quite decent, there is some background noise, and the microphone tends to pick up vibrations from the camera. It works from a distance, and you can record over half an hour of audio.
Software
You get FinePixViewer, a program which works brilliantly with the F601 to view any images, or video/audio files from the camera. You can delete the files and add them to the card. The video files take some time to download, but the images are almost instant. It is sometimes difficult to stream the Video files using Media Player, so you are better off using saving them to store.
With the software you can record to a CD, animate the images in a slideshow, auto save the images to a “My Pictures” folder, and basically edit any image on your computer. There is also a package for video conferencing, this works by making the camera act as a Web cam by selecting the PC Cam option in the setup menu. This software is fully compatible with all Windows operating systems, and even Mac OS X. You can register to get more features for free too.
Conclusion
For over £400, the F601 isn’t a beginners camera, and it doesn’t look like one either. The vertically arranged body is not the easiest to hold, but is probably one of the smallest digital cameras. The menus are all laid out nicely with colour buttons and a neat navigation system. The quality of images is determined by how you use the camera. This camera isn’t the most professional camera, some of the auto systems don’t do very well under extreme conditions. However if you’re looking for a camera that has most of the features found in larger cameras, but built into one that is small enough for a pocket, then the F601, I highly recommend.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 560
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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MichaelHatton
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Location: Darlington, England
Reviews written: 192
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