Digital Trends

Fujifilm FinePix F31fd

April 4th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Performance

Like all decent digital cameras, the F31fd is good to go in about two seconds as its boots up and the lens extends from the body. As DT readers know, I start out in Auto then move to the various manual options.

In Auto, the camera responds very quickly. The only hang-ups occurred with the shutter button as it sometimes snapped faster than expected. Also there was some “grabbing” as the auto focus attempted to lock in. This slowed overall operation a bit; it wasn’t the end of the world but it was annoying.

Since Face Detection is the “thing” this season, I had to try it out. I brought this camera along to a restaurant, just as I had the Sony DSC-T100. Like the Sony and the Canon Powershot SD1000 Digital ELPH and other cameras, frames appear on the LCD and track the faces on the screen. I only shot three people and the camera did a decent job of it but lagged the Canon and Sony for overall quality. This comparison was done with 8 ½ x 11 full bleed prints and the difference was quite noticeable. Fujifilm may have brought the feature to the attention of consumers but Canon and Sony do it better. Such is life in the Darwinian electronics business…

As far as other settings were concerned, the FinePix F31fd has one of my favorites—Natural Light And Flash. Turn the mode dial to N/SP and you can engage this setting that takes simultaneous shots with available light and another with a flash. When you download them at home you can decide which one to keep. This is very good feature. Hopefully, it will entice photographers to take more shots with available light rather than just shooting with a flash in Auto. The only drawback is the time it takes the camera to save the files. This is not a D-SLR and doesn’t cost anywhere near one.

Blur is one of the issues when shooting in available light since it’s hard to keep the camera steady during a long exposure. Fujifilm deals with this by bumping up the ISO and shutter speed rather than using optical image stabilization (they call it Picture Stabilization). To its credit, Fujifilm cameras do a very good job handling digital noise, a real bugaboo for the vast majority of non D-SLRs. Although this camera hits 3200 (unusable), shots at 800 were very good and those at 1600 were OK. I’d still use the ISO “governor” and max out at 800.

Images taken outdoors were very good with accurate, natural colors. Overall response was good, not great and the camera labored to save the two images when in the Natural Light And Flash mode. Focusing was not the sharpest and I wished for a finely adjustable focus among the manual options. There is aperture- and shutter priority to experiment with once you get your photographic wings. This is usually not found on point-and-shoot digicams so give Fujifilm credit here. Camera users should get out of the Auto rut (even though it’s so easy) and try these advanced settings just to see what your new toy can do. You may swear by it or go back to Auto, but at least give it a shot.

Image Courtesy of Fujifilm