Digital Trends

Fujifilm FinePix F50fd

January 3rd, 2008 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

Having reviewed several large mega zoom digicams recently, the F50fd was a bit of shock. It’s extremely compact, about the thickness of a deck of cards and a shade smaller. The silver- or black-bodied camera looks like so many other point-and-shoots but it does have a few nice metal accents. This is really a carry-around camera and fits neatly into almost any pocket. It measures 3.6 x 2.3 x .9 (WHD in inches) and weighs 5.4 ounces without battery and memory card, 7 ounces with, hardly an anchor and just right for toting around.

The front of the camera is fairly plain with its 3x optical zoom and built-in lens cover. The lens translates to 35-105mm in 35mm terms, the basic aim-and-forget focal range. No extra wide-angle or super telephoto here, just your basics which is a bit of let down. You’ll also see the built-in flash, AF Assist lamp and a few embossed logos and decals. It’s clean and neat.

On top you’ll find the tiny pinhole mic, on/off key, shutter with surrounding wide/tele control and another to turn the Dual IS on or off. Fujifilm uses a CCD sensor anti-shake system as well as automatically boosting the ISO to eliminate blur. It does a decent job but I prefer true lens-based OIS for better results. Also on top is an infrared port that lets you beam images to another IR-enabled device. I’d be surprised if even six people—outside of Fujifilm employees—would use something like this. (If you’re out there, please let me know.)

Given its small size, the 2.7-inch LCD screen dominates the rear. Slightly larger than the typical 2.5-incher, it’s rated 230K pixels. The screen is quite clear and had no problems with bright sunlight. This is a good thing since you have to drill down about five levels to fine-tune adjustments. You can do a quick power-up if you hit the nearby F-mode key, go into Power Management and pick Clear Display. This is still way too long a journey and Fujifilm engineers should shorten this process. The screen is surrounded by a black panel, helping it stand out. To the right of the screen is the mode dial and dedicated keys for Playback, F-mode menu, Display and Face Detection. Under the F-mode menu you can adjust ISO up to 6400 when you move beyond the basic Auto setting. There are governors that limit ISO to 400, 800 or 1600 when you’re in Auto. You can also adjust resolution between 12MP through .3 megapixels and FinePix Color so you can shoot in black-and-white, standard or F-Chrome for a more vibrant result. Display lets you eliminate icon clutter onscreen (grid lines are available). The Face Detection key lets you choose between two types of FD—with red-eye reduction on or off; you can also disable the function.

As usual the camera has a four-way controller with center menu/OK key. Tapping the four points lets you adjust the flash, self timer, macro on/off, delete or exposure compensation (if you’re in manual).

The main mode dial is your key control and here you can choose between Auto, Natural Light for shooting without a flash, Natural Light + Flash which takes two shots at the same time (with and without flash, naturally). Manual mode is pretty limited (you can change white balance and the burst mode) and Aperture- and Shutter-Priority lets you adjust those values between f/2.8-8 and 1 second to 1/1000th of a second. There’s a movie mode with 640 x 480 at 25 fps the top resolution, a lesser quality than the more typical 30 frames per second found on almost every other camera available. I don’t know why Fujifilm shortchanges this feature especially with the proliferation of large flat panel HDTVs. Perhaps they’ll bump it up next year. The final two options on the dial are for SP1/SP2; these Scene Positions are your basic scene modes such as sunset, landscape, sports and so on (15 in all). You can leave your favorite as the default as you switch between SP1 and SP2, nice options to have on hand. The onscreen menus as you scroll through the choices show a tiny thumbnail and offer brief descriptions. They’re nicely done and easy to follow.

On the right side is a compartment for the USB-A/V out jack and the wrist strap connection. The left has a four pinhole speaker while the bottom has a tripod mount and compartment for the battery and memory card. Hurray! Fujifilm got with the program and has a combo xD Picture Card/SD/SDHC card slot. Instead of forcing you to buy the more expensive xD cards like Olympus, Fujifilm gives *you* the option. Thanks, guys.

The FinePix F50fd comes with the basics including strap, battery, charger, a 164-page printed owner’s manual and a CD-ROM with basic FinePix View software (ver. 5.4a for Windows and Mac). Once the battery was charged, it was time to see what this point-and-shoot camera could do.

Image Courtesy of Fujifilm