Fujifilm Finepix F440
Review Date: April 6th 2005
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Conclusion
(out of 5 stars)
The Fujifilm FinePix F440 is a very well-designed, extremely compact digital camera that is small enough to carry around at all times, stylish enough to impress your friends, yet doesn't forget to produce excellent images too. The Fujifilm FinePix F440 has the look and feel of a premium product, with its brushed aluminum exterior and excellent general construction. The large 2 inch LCD on the rear of the camera is impressive given the camera's overall size and it produces impressive 4 megapixel images that aren't too noisy at ISOs 80-200 and don't suffer from chromatic aberrations.
There are a few areas where the Fujifilm FinePix F440 is actually a worse performer, however, than the camera that it has replaced (the F420), notably continuous shooting. The Fujifilm FinePix F420 offered a continuous shooting mode in which you could take 4 frames at 4 frames/sec and choose to keep either the first 4 or last 4 frames of a 25 frame sequence. This has been completely omitted from the Fujifilm FinePix F440 Zoom. Also, the movie mode of 320x240 pixels at 10fps for up to 10 seconds isn't as good as the one of the F420 and doesn't stand up too well to some competitors' cameras. Other more subjective points that could detract from the Fujifilm FinePix F440 are the quirky square format and the slightly-too-small controls, but these are both things that I personally didn't find too annoying.
Overall the Fujifilm FinePix F440 improves on its predecessor in some areas and takes a step backwards in others. If you only need 3 megapixels then the F420 is probably a better choice (if you can find one). If you don't mind the lack of continuous shooting and 30fps movies and would rather have a 4 megapixel sensor and slightly bigger LCD screen, then the Fujifilm FinePix F440 is a great choice.
The Fujifilm FinePix F440 is currently about £40 / $80 / 50€ cheaper than the 5 megapixel Fujifilm FinePix F450 and is identical in every other respect. Only you can decide whether the difference in price is worth paying for the extra megapixel. Having said that, I would suggest that the extra megpaixel doesn't make too much difference, especially if you never print larger than A4 size, and that you therefore choose the cheaper Fujifilm FinePix F440.
Related Links
Fujifilm UK: Fuji Finepix F440
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