Fujifilm Finepix E550
Review Date: February 24th 2005
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Features
The Fujifilm Finepix E550 has a 6.63 megapixel, 1/1.7 inch Super CCD HR that delivers 6.3 effective megapixels. The camera's 4x optical zoom lens is equivalent to a 32.5 - 130mm lens on a 35mm format camera. There is also a digital zoom available (up to 6.3x depending on which image size is selected). There are 5 image sizes (4048 x 3040 (12.3 million) / 2848 x 2136 / 2048 x 1536 / 1600 x 1200 / 640 x 480 ) which are recorded as JPEGs. There is also a RAW file format available. The camera supports xD Picture Cards (16MB to 512MB).
This camera offers several advanced exposure modes, including Auto, Programmed AE, Aperture Priority AE, Shutter Priority AE and Manual. There are also 4 scene modes - Portrait, Landscape, Sports and Night Scene. The aperture range is F2.8 - F8 at the wide-angle lens setting and F5.6 - F8 at telephoto. The shutter speed range is 3 secs. – 1/2000 sec. There are 5 ISO speeds ranging from 80 to 800 and an Auto option. There are 6 different White Balance presets to choose from (Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light (Daylight), Fluorescent light (Warm White), Fluorescent light (Cool White), Incandescent light), plus Auto and Custom settings.
The Fujifilm Finepix E550 offers exposure compensation in ± 2 in 1/3 EV stops and flash compensation in ± 2/3 in 1/3 EV stops. It has 3 auto-exposure metering options, 64-zone TTL metering, average metering and a Spot metering option. The Fujifilm Finepix E550 has a normal shooting mode (Single) and a self-timer (either 2 or 10 seconds). there are 4 different auto-focusing modes available (Area, Centre, Multi, Continuous) plus a Manual Focus option. The camera offers a range of different continuous shooting modes (Top-4, Final-4, Long-period) plus auto bracketing. There are 3 different colour modes on offer - B&W, Chrome and Standard. The Macro setting allows you to focus on subjects that are as close as 7.5cms, and the Super Macro setting as close as 3cms. The built-in flash offers a range of different modes; Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, plus Slow Synchro, Red-eye Reduction and Slow Synchro are all available in manual mode.
To compose your images, you can use the LCD monitor or the optical viewfinder. The Fujifilm Finepix E550 has a 2-inch low temperature poly-silicon TFT color monitor which has 154,000 pixels which offers 96% scene coverage. There is also an optical viewfinder which offers 77% scene coverage. The Fujifilm Finepix E550 can record movies with sound at 2 different sizes - 640 x 480 pixels or 320 x 240 pixels, both at 30 frames per second with sound. Movies are recorded in the AVI (Motion JPEG) format. You can also record voice memos Up to 30 seconds long in the WAVE format.
The camera's dimensions are 105mm (W) x 63mm (H) x 34.4mm (D), and it weighs 200g without the battery and storage card fitted. The camera is powered by either 2xAA Ni-MH / Alkaline batteries or a NH-10 Rechargeable battery. There is a plastic tripod mount in the centre of the bottom of the camera. The PC interface is USB 1.0, NTSC / PAL AV outputs are available, and there is an optional 3V AC power adapter. Printouts can be made without going through a computer by directly connecting the Fujifilm Finepix E550 to a PictBridge-compliant printer.
Finally, the standard box kit contains a 16MB xD Picture Card, 2 x AA Ni-Mh rechargeable batteries, battery recharger, hand strap, USB cable, A/V cable, Cradle Adapter, CD–ROM for Windows and Macintosh containing: USB driver, FinePix Viewer and ImageMixer VCD2 for FinePix. You will need to buy some bigger memory cards and some rechargeable batteries and charger when you purchase the camera, as neither the 16Mb card or the Alkaline batteries are of much use.
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PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Fuji Finepix E550 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.