Fujifilm Finepix F30 Review

Review Date: August 7th 2006

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Conclusion

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4
Ease-of-Use	4.5
Image Quality	4.5
Value for Money	4

The Fujifilm Finepix F30 builds on the strengths of what was already a great camera, the Finepix F11, and delivers a compact camera that has no rivals in terms of low-light performance. If you want a digital camera that can easily cope with indoor and low-light shooting, then the F30 is the one for you - currently no other compact digicam comes close at ISO 400 and above, and the F30 also delivers perfectly usable photos at ISO 800 and 1600. Even the fastest setting of 3200 will be fine for smaller print sizes. The new anti-blur and intelligent flash modes are useful automatic additions to what is already an impressive low-light package. The Fujifilm Finepix F30 is a pocketable, responsive digital camera that can be used in most photographic situations and which delivers very good image quality - only some purple fringing in high-contrast situations spoils an otherwise excellent performance. It also provides almost full creative control via the aperture-priority and shutter-priority modes, and battery life has been further improved to an impressive 580 shots.

There are a few downsides, however, which Fujifilm have inexplicably decided not to fix. The F30 retains some notable flaws from the older F11. There is still no histogram available, either in shooting or playback mode. This is an important feature that every enthusiast will sorely miss. The Fujifilm Finepix F30 also lacks manual focus, which you will miss most when the camera's auto-focus fails to lock onto your intended subject. The lack of a RAW mode might also put you off the Finepix F30, something which is exacerbated by the lack of a histogram. And there is a 3 shot limit in the continuous mode, which might put off sports-shooters.

Ultimately, though, the Fujifilm Finepix F30 is currently the new best compact, carry-everywhere digital camera for the discerning photographer. There are still a few unnecessary faults, but Fujifilm have somehow managed to improve on an already impressive camera in the F11 and deliver the best low-light compact camera available today.

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Fujifilm Finepix F30 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.

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