Digital Trends

 

The FinePix F30 has a smoother, more refined shape than the F10 and it’s actually a shade lighter (6.8 ounces with battery and xD Picture Card versus 7.2). Measuring 3.6 x 2.2 x 1.1 (WHD, in inches), the all-metal F30 is about the size of a proverbial pack of playing cards. You’d have no problem toting this one around all day, or taking it to a party to grab candids of your friends doing things they’d like to forget the next day.

 

The front is a fairly standard, with a clean look featuring a minimum of self-serving decals, logos and nomenclature. It’s dominated by a 3x Fujinon zoom lens with a built-in lens cover. This lens is comparable to 36-108mm in 35mm terms, the power of most point-and-shoot cameras. Although O.K., 4x or 6x would be much appreciated by even the most casual shooter. Canon’s popular PowerShot A series have 4x optical zooms and they’re top sellers. Are consumers saying something here? Be that as it may, the front of the F30 also has an AF Assist lamp, a tiny mic and flash. One of the new features of this model is i-Flash that adjusts the level of light output, depending on the subject. We’ll talk more about this in the Performance section.     

 

The top of the camera is nicely laid out with a large shutter button, a mode dial and a power key. Like so many other power keys, it’s small and slightly recessed so make sure your nails aren’t trimmed too short. The mode dial has the usual options such as Auto, Movie, Aperture/Shutter Priority and Manual. The more unique settings include Natural Light for shooting in low light, a feature we liked so much with the original F10. This also gives access to myriad scene modes such as Portrait, Snow, Museum and others  There’s also an Anti Blur setting to deal with fast-moving kids or pets. This changes the shutter speed to capture subjects on the go. Like other anti-blur techniques, it’s a pale shadow of any digicam that uses optical image stabilization such as Panasonic Lumix models or the Canon PowerShot SD700 IS.

 
Image Courtesy of Fujifilm

 

The rear of the camera is dominated by the 2.5-inch LCD monitor (there’s no viewfinder as is the case with most digicams in 2006). The LCD is rated 230K, double the number of pixels as compared to the F10, a very good thing. There’s also the wide/tele toggle switch which has some rubberized ridges underneath so your finger won’t slide as you’re zooming. It helps with one-handed shooting, too. The F30 has a four-way controller with center Menu/OK button. Other keys include playback, “F” for access to ISO, resolution and FinePix Color (saturation). There are also Display and +/- keys.

 

Fujifilm got with the program and eliminated the awkward terminal adaptor cord used with the F10. It was truly a ridiculous design and fortunately, the F30 uses a standard A/V out with mini USB connection and a DC in to charge the battery. You’ll find them on the left side covered by a somewhat flimsy plastic flap. The bottom has a tripod mount and compartment for the battery and memory card slot.

 

The Fujifilm FinePix F30 comes with a decent kit. You get the camera, strap, battery rated 580 shots versus 500 for the F10, USB and A/V cables as well as an AC power cord. There’s 10MB of internal memory so you can take a couple of shots but make sure you purchase a 512MB xD Picture card so you can save 170 6MP Fine shots (2848 x 2136 pixels). Not to go off on a rant but it still bugs me that Fujifilm and Olympus force their customers to use more expensive cards. A quick look at the SanDisk site shows a 512MB xD card costs $59 while an SD card is $39. Money makes the world go-round, I guess. That off my chest, the camera comes with a 164-page Owner’s Manual that’s fairly well written and a software CD ROM Ver. 5.2b with FinePix Viewer (for Windows and Mac), driver, RAW file converter LE and ImageMixer VCD LE for FinePix. It’s more than enough to transfer photos and make prints.  

 

After loading the battery, charging it up and popping in an xD Picture Card it was time to see how the new F30 performed.

 
Image Courtesy of Fujifilm