Fujifilm FinePix F10 Zoom review

Minimovie fans will like this camera's ability to shoot decent films at 640x480-pixel resolution, 30fps with sound for almost 15 minutes using a 1GB xD-Picture Card. The video clips can be played back, fast-forwarded, rewound or viewed single-frame, but no in-camera editing is available.

Thanks to the F10's hefty battery, the built-in flash is robust enough to illuminate subjects out to 6.4m with the lens at the wide-angle setting and out to 4m at the telephoto position (both on Auto ISO). You can choose Auto, Red-Eye, Fill, Flash Off, Slow Sync (for balancing flash with ambient illumination) and Slow Sync/Red-Eye flash settings.

Performance
The Fujifilm FinePix F10 scored decent-to-high marks on every performance test and can be tweaked to do even better. For example, at 0.7 seconds, shutter lag was pretty good under contrasty illumination, and at 1.2 seconds, average under more challenging low-contrast lighting, even when using the brilliant green focus-assist lamp. But switching to the optional High Speed Shooting mode set an all-purpose focus distance, and with the autofocus system out of the equation, shutter lag dropped to a speedy 0.1 seconds.

We were especially impressed with the camera's NP-120 lithium-ion battery, which plugged away for 1,480 shots on a single charge, half of them using the camera's muscular flash unit. The 57g, 1,950mAh battery is disproportionately large for a camera this compact -- in fact, it's the highest-capacity lithium-ion battery we've seen so far in a snapshot camera. We subjected it to a heavy dose of zooming and card formatting during its workout, and it managed to keep that 64mm LCD lit up the whole time for framing and picture review.

Wake-up time from a deep slumber was only 2.3 seconds and we were able to snap off shots every 1.4 seconds thereafter (3 seconds with flash). Continuous shooting produced 40 shots, both at full resolution (in about 60 seconds) and at 640x480 VGA settings (in about 48 seconds), for a maximum continuous speed of 1.2fps.

Image quality
Overall, image quality was pretty good, with only a couple of problems. Most shooters should be pleased with the photos the Fujifilm FinePix F10 produces at sizes up to 200x250mm and occasionally larger. The SuperCCD sensor delivers relatively sharp photos, with lots of detail in highlight and shadow areas and without the tendency to blow out the lightest areas. Colours were not overly saturated, but the generally good white balance was fairly warm under incandescent lights.

Though you probably won't want to blow them up too big, low-light photos shot at ISO 800 look surprisingly good.

Of course, those higher ISO ratings provide much of this camera's allure. There was very little noise at all at ISO 80, and while noise was noticeable at ISO 800 and ISO 1,600, it was no worse than that produced by most other point-and-shoots at ISO 400. The upper ISO ranges were good enough that we felt comfortable switching off the flash indoors and going for a more natural look.

The downside of the image quality is excessive fringing, predominantly on the sides, as is typical for snapshot cameras. But we also frequently saw it in the middle of the shot, where we didn't expect it, on boundaries between saturated hues.

Edited by Lori Grunin
Additional editing by Nick Hide