Fujifilm FinePix Z100fd
£99.00
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The stylish FinePix Z100fd from Fuji is one of the best-looking compacts around in our opinion, with a slick lens and flash cover that opens diagonally. Its highly-polished gloss finish is very good too, and it’s available in a choice of four colours.
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The Z100fd houses a 5x optical zoom that ranges from 36-180mm and an 8Mp sensor which gives plenty of scope for enlargements, though it would have been nice to see a slightly wider zoom to get more into the frame. ISO runs from a very low 64 to 1600, while there is also a CCD-shift image stabilisation system with two modes – continuous or shooting only. There’s also Face Detection (hence the fd), a single card slot that’ll accept either an xD-Picture card or SD/SDHC card, and a 2.7in LCD screen for composition and image review at the rear.
The Z100fd uses a scroll wheel on the back to cycle through the various menus and options on offer. It’s pretty straightforward to navigate around, though it can be a little slow to use at times (for example, you have to dive into a sub-menu to control the ISO). Results from the Z100fd are good, with plenty of detail and it manages Noise well, though the saturation does drop as ISO is increased. It’s not the most feature-packed or the quickest to use, but as stylish compacts go, the Z100fd does the job well – especially at under £200.
Resolution: 8Mp
Lens: 5x optical zoom, 36-180mm (equivalent)
Shutter: 4sec-1/1000sec
ISO range: 64-1600
Image stab: Yes, CCD-shift
Memory: xD or SD/SDHC plus 54MB internal
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This is a mixed bag. I'm a fan of Fuji cameras and I sort of love it and sort of hate it too. The bad. It's slow. So tediously slow. I've got an F20fd too and that's a racehorse compared to it. It takes forever to wake up when you switch it on (I count to 4 before it's awake). The menus take forever to scroll through and then it forgets your settings as soon as you switch it off or view a photo you've just taken. Imagine you've taken a macro of a flower and then a deer steps into view. You decide you want to use sport mode and take a few shots. You have to enter and scroll nine "up" options, then select, then enter again and scroll another ten or so to put it on continuous. Not that it's really continuous - it's just a slightly shorter delay than pressing the shutter over and over. Your deer will have run off or died of old age. Then there's battery life. My F20 will last forever on one charge but this seems to conk out much faster. Faster too than my wife's Olympus FE300 which takes the same battery. And the focussing! Try and take a butterfly on a flower behind a blade or two of grass and watch the focus get it wrong over and over and over....
But on the good side, the colours are lovely. The zoom range is very good, the macro shots are a joy to behold and it's small, light and esthetically very pleasing. It fits in the pocket without trouble so you'll never find yourself wishing you had a camera with you when something amazing catches you out.
To summarise - buy an Olympus FE300 instead.
(Written by: enserp)
05 August 2008 13:30