Fujifilm Finepix F450--Move Over, Ansel Adams
Written: Jan 07 '05 (Updated Jan 07 '05)
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Pros: Extremely well designed, compact, lightweight, takes excellent pictures
Cons: Cons: No DC charger available. Uses xD memory cards.
The Bottom Line: A exceptional camera for the price I've seen on the web: $299. Versatile, durable and light weight. ...And even I can operate it. I highly recommend it
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| happy2000usa's Full Review: FUJIFILM FinePix F450 Digital Camera |
I have been gone for several months, but made it home for the holidays. Among my gifts, I was pleasantly surprised to find a digital camera. Not just any camera. This was a Fujifilm FinePix F450.
At the outset, I should explain my photographic prowess. My wife is the one who bandies terms around like "depth of field," "composition," and "F Stop." Me? I'm a point and shoot man. When I've used up the film, I return the disposable box camera to the store and await my prints. Maybe in the next life my wife will find Ansel Adams and marry him. In this life, she's stuck with me.
Information Overload
I already had a digital camera, one I bought for under $100. It lacks many of the fancy features, but I could point and shoot. The manual that came with it was 80 pages long. The manual that came with the F450 is 100 pages. A twenty-page difference doesn't seem like much unless you consider the F450 manual was English only. My other camera's 80-page manual covered four different languages.
So I sat down and read the F450 manual--something I rarely do. (Most of my software manuals are still in shrink-wrap.) As I waded through it, a pit stared growing in my stomach. The camera came with a ton of features, and along with those came a ton of settings. Settings? Me make a choice? I decided the manual would become my constant companion for as long as I owned the camera.
Overall, the manual is excellent. It wouldn't qualify as a member of the "For Dummies" series, but it's close. I actually was able to comprehend what I was reading. My only complaint--a minor one--is forward referencing. The manual writer tended to use terms that were introduced later in the book. It would have been better if the manual included an appendix.
What You Get
The camera comes with a rechargeable battery, 16MB xD memory card, cradle, power supply, USB cable, software and an A/V cable set for plugging the camera into a TV, VCR, play station or DVD player.
I was immediately impressed with the camera cradle. After you connect the power supply, recharging the camera battery is as simple as putting it in the cradle. (From drained to fully charged is a quick two hours.) Even better, the cradle is connected to the computer via a USB cable. Insert the camera, set the cradle to USB and press a button. The program boots on the computer and you are able to view, edit or delete any or all of the pictures contained on the memory card.
In addition to editing on the PC, the camera has limited editing function utilizing the built in viewer. The viewer also allows you to zoom in on a portion of a recorded picture, something I thought was very helpful. For someone like me, where good composition is an accident, it allows me to crop and trim on the spot.
Were I better at taking pictures, to the point where editing were not required, I might consider the F450's offer of plugging it directly to the printer. As it is, considering my photographic prowess, I expect I will never use that function. â€Ãƒ‚¦Not unless I want to make the local computer supply store owner wealthy from my photographic quality paper and ink purchases.
Sigh¦ Functions, Functions, Functions.
After reading the manual, I threw my hands up in the air, grabbed the camera and took a picture of the dog. Wow! It worked. Just point and shoot. My confidence increased and I began experimenting.
Modes: The F450 has three basic modes: Photography, Movie and Playback. That's pretty self-explanatory. What happens in the selected mode depends on other switch settings. For instance, the switch used to zoom in on your subject the photography mode is also used to zoom (enlarge) your pictures in the playback mode.
Picture Taking Choices: You have three. Normal. Wide Angle. Macro (Close-up.) In addition, you can select a shooting mode. The "Auto" shooting mode does it all for you. Your input is how many pixels you want to use. The "manual" shooting mode lets you override the automatic features and set them yourself. (Another feature I doubt I'll ever be good enough to use.) The other shooting mode choices are presets for portraits, landscapes, sports events and night photography.
Flash: C'mon. A flash is a flash. It's on or it's off. The only change--or so I thought--over the last century or so is we went from flash powder to bulbs to electronic flashes that didn't require reloading the bulb after each picture. As usual, I was wrong. The F450 has five setting. The automatic setting is for us dummies. It flashes or doesn't flash--depending on conditions. I also understand the "Suppressed Flash" mode, though I question why they don't just call it "Off." I also understand "Forced Flash," but why don't they call it "On"? "Red Eye Reduction"? A nice feature, but I thought that's why I spent all that money on my wife's picture correcting software. What I couldn't comprehend was the "Slow Synchro" flash mode. Then I made the grievous error of asking my wife and received a two hour lecture how delaying a flash at night will bring out more of the background. Still confused, I vowed to only use my camera in daylight.
Quality: Okay. This I understood. The more pixels involved, the clearer the picture. It can be blown up to large sized prints with little degradation. I also understood that the more pixels you use, the larger the picture file. You can set the camera at 5, 3, 2 or 1 megapixels. For us nerdy computer types, 1 megapixel equates to 640 x 480. 5 megapixels is 2592 x 1944. In short, 1 megapixel is good for email or web pages. 2 is good for 4 x 5 prints. 3 will yield a 5 x 7 print and for 8x10 you need to use the 5 megapixel setting.
Advanced Settings: Without going into detail, you can manually set the sensitivity, exposure and white balance. I suppose you use these when conditions prevent the automatic function for making proper corrections. My solution, of course, it to go elsewhere to take my pictures, somewhere that permits proper operation in automatic, but for those of you who simply must have that picture, the F450 is capable. You can also set the color mode to color, black and white, or something called the F-Chrome mode. The latter even confused the manual's author who suggested I take pictures of something in both F-Chrome and Color to see which I liked better. (The manual goes on to state you may or may not see a difference when replaying them in the camera monitor.)
Timer: The camera has a built in 10 second timer to allow the picture taker to get into the picture. My other camera had this as well, and I have many fine pictures of my back as I attempted to slide into the group before the picture was taken.
I did have trouble with this feature as the "business button" on the F450 is a two-stage button. You depress it halfway to allow the camera to do all its automatic magic. After it has set the focus, lighting and other adjustments, you press the button the rest of the way to take the picture. (Or, in this case, start the timer.) I'm consistently pressing the button too far and when I think I've got 10 seconds, the timer has already counted down to under 5 seconds. I'm sure someone more competent with cameras and better coordinated will have no problems with this.
Zoom: The camera comes with a normal zoom mode and a digital one. There's a very nice chart in the manual that explains when you will use one or the other. Once I got to the point where it stated the camera switched back and forth between the two modes automatically, I stopped reading.
Nifty, Nifty
I'm easily amused. When I took the first picture of my dog, my wife looked at it and suggested I try portrait. I did, much to the dog's irritation. She was comfortably napping and didn't want me taking pictures of her. (This is not necessarily a canine trait, but one common to all females who don't relish you taking pictures of them sleeping with their mouth open--drooling.) I immediately switched to macro mode, moved in closer and took a picture of the dog's bared fangs that would have made a dentist proud. (The camera can move in as close as three inches.)
Speaking of snoring, did I mention the F450 records sound as well? While I'm sure this was added for the movie mode, you also have a memo capability in the photography mode. It's ideal for me because I'm forever taking pictures and later--looking at the photograph--asking myself, "What the heck is that?" The camera also has a built in speaker to listen to the memos while you review your pictures.
The camera was made with me in mind. There's a "help" mode to get brief instructions on the LCD display. ...And, just for me. they added a feature that flashes a warning that you juggled the camera as it was taking the picture.
Another feature I like--because I'm a klutz--is being able to protect pictures. By that, I mean if I have a picture I really want to keep, I can protect it from being erased. On my older camera, it was entirely too easy to erase all my pictures inadvertently.
The movie mode on my old camera was a memory hog. The F450 has two resolution choices: 320 x 240 or 160 x 120. With the 16MB card that came with the camera, the maximum movie length is 94 seconds at the higher setting and 288 seconds with the lower quality setting.
The camera is small enough to easily fit in your shirt pocket. (3 inches by 2.5 inches by 0.8 inches thick.) It weighs 5 ounces. What's really neat is when you turn it off, the lens retracts into the camera and seals itself. Even more amazing is they found room for a two-inch square LCD display.
The included software loaded without a hitch and has some very fine editing capabilities.
Downside?
First, while the 16MB card supplied with the camera is far larger than the one that came with my other camera, I was disappointed the memory cards on the two cameras were not interchangeable. Although you see other types of storage medium, like memory sticks, the SD card in my other camera seems to be the standard. The Fuji xD card appears to be peculiar to Fuji products. Consequently, since I was unable to use the 256MB SD card I'd purchased for my other camera, I was forced to buy a 256MB xD card for around $50. That took me from 6 pictures at 5.2 megapixels to 102. (At 1 megapixel, I now have a 2000 picture capability.) I can also now shoot a 25 minute movie at 320 x 240.
My biggest complaint is power and the rechargeable battery. The camera comes with an AC charger. Other chargers are available for foreign AC power. There is not, however, any way for me to charge the camera battery in the car. Fujifilm doesn't list one on their site's accessory page. This is important to me because we spend a lot of time outdoors, well away from any AC outlets. (Unless, while camping, I can charge the battery by connecting it to a current bush.) As near as I can tell, my only solution is to purchase an inverter for the car that will convert 12 volts to AC power. The alternative is to invest in a pocket full of batteries. My other camera, bless its heart, uses AA batteries.
Summary
As I said in the opening, I make the ideal test bed for this camera because if I can operate it and achieve good results, anyone can. Going from disposable cameras to the F450 was bit like leaving kindergarten for graduate school, but I was covered. The automatic functions are excellent and keep me out of trouble. I have even discarded the idea I need to carry the manual with me at all times. The camera, however, has a myriad of advanced capabilities, enough to satisfy the most serious photographer--like my wife.
And that has caused the final problem. I'm running out of hiding spaces. She loves this camera and once she finds it, I'll never see it again.
Note: Rather than repeat a complete list of specifications, they may be found in BertBert's excellent review of the F450: http://www.epinions.com/content_167864733316
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): Gift ($299)
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
happy2000usa
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Wayne Arnold
Location: Tracy, California, USA
Reviews written: 97
Trusted by: 171 members
About Me:
Writer, editor, beta tester, pilot, traveler. I'm an easy mark, always evaluating new software.
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