Fujifilm Finepix F50fd review

As the replacement for the Fujifilm F30/F31fd, a camera that has reached an almost legendary status since its launch back in 2006, the Fujifilm F50fd has some big shoes to fill. If anything deserves to be called a 'classic' camera in the shortlived world of digital compact cameras it would have to be the Fujifilm F30/F31fd. It wasn't very pretty, it wasn't very feature packed and it wasn't even very cheap. But the F30/F31fd produced some of the best results we've ever seen in a compact camera, and was leaps and bounds ahead of all its competitors when it came to low light / high ISO performance, proving that just because a camera has a small sensor it doesn't have to be completely useless at anything over ISO 400.

The F30/F31fd's outstanding performance in low light was the result of some clever technology (Super CCD sensor and Real Photo Processor) on the one hand and Fujifilm's admirable refusal to succumb to the pressure to compete in the 'megapixel race'. In an almost unique attempt to optimize image quality (rather than marketing potential) they limited the F30/F31fd's resolution to 6 megapixels, on a sensor that is slightly bigger than the competition's.

Although the F30 and F31fd sold in pretty decent numbers, proving that it is possible to sell a camera on image quality rather than numbers, Fujifilm has finally caved under the pressure and joined the mainstream with the F50fd, doubling the F30/F31fd's pixel count to squeeze a whopping 12 megapixel on the tiny 1/1.6in sensor.

The F50fd also ups the 'whiz bang' factor condsiderably, adding a range of new features including a mechanical CCD-shift image stabilization system, improved face detection and a 2.7" LCD monitor. But can it match its predecessor's peerless image quality or has Fujifilm thrown the baby out with the bathwater by not only joining the megapixel race, but going right to the top with a full 12 megapixels? Let's find out, starting, as ever, with the headline specification.

• Face Detection 2.0 Technology built-in to the camera’s processor
• Dual Image Stabilization (High sensitivity + CCD shift)
• 2.7-inch TFT screen with 230.000 pixels
• ISO 1600 sensitivity at full resolution
• 12 million pixels Super CCD HR VII sensor
• 3.0x optical zoom
• IR Communication (IR simple™/IR SS™)
• VGA movie capture of 25 frames per second with sound
• Micro thumbnail view (up to 100 thumbnails visible)
• 5fps continuous mode (3MP, 12 frames max)
• Aperture and shutter priority modes

Fujifilm - FinePix 30i review

Even with the batteries in place, the FinePix 30i feels rather lightweight and plastic. Designed very much for the youth market, Fujifilm highlights the fact that it can also be used as an MP3 music player. The company even supplies a wired remote control so you can select tracks while the camera is in your pocket. With only a 16MB SmartMedia card for storing audio or images, though, you'd be lucky to fit more than four music tracks on it, depending on the sampling rate.

As a camera, the FinePix 30i is quite fiddly to use. The buttons are small and the two shaped menu selectors, positioned around the jog-switch which controls the digital zoom, are particularly awkward. The three other buttons set into the back of the camera are hard to operate with a thumb, as they're too close together.

The FinePix 30i comes into its own as a fun camera, with extra features such as sound captioning of stills, short video sequences and sound-activated shooting. The idea of this last feature is to set the camera up, perhaps at the start of the party, so it shoots whenever there's a burst of laughter or shouting. If the party's any good, though, wouldn't it be going off most of the time?

Our test images came out over-bright, with the macro, flower picture looking particularly washed out. You can adjust for this using manual exposure compensation, but the automatic setting should have made a better attempt.

The FinePix 30i is a peculiar mixture. While its sound-based features could make it a handy toy in a busy social life, the price is not really right for a gadget. As a camera, its lack of optical zoom and fiddly controls make it look rather expensive.

Fujifilm - FinePix A204 Zoom review

A sub-£200 digital camera with this specification would have been unthinkable a year ago. Prices continue to fall and the FinePix A204 Zoom from Fujifilm has an impressive feature list. It starts with a 2-megapixel CCD array, so the camera can capture high-resolution images at up to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels, and adds to this a 3x optical zoom. Zoom lenses are normally only found in digital cameras costing well over the £200 mark.

Fujifilm has adopted a technique used by Olympus to protect the lens with a sliding cover but, unlike its rival, the sliding mechanism isn't linked to its power switch. This means you can leave the lens exposed with the power off or leave it covered with the power on, neither combination being particularly helpful.

Its other controls are more sensibly grouped into bars of three on the back panel, or around the shutter release on its top. Also on the back panel is a 38mm LCD monitor, a quality device unlike the cheaper LCDs found on many entry-level cameras. There's an optical viewfinder, too, so you don't have to rely on the LCD to compose your pictures. The menu system is clear and easy to navigate and most of the everyday exposure and timing decisions are made for you automatically. The camera has a built-in flash too.

Fujifilm has long been a fervent supporter of the SmartMedia memory card format, but with this model has moved to its own, new xD-Picture card. The card is about the same size as a Multimedia or Secure Digital card and seems to have few advantages over these more widely used storage media. While the 16MB capacity is generous for a camera in this price range, it's a shame yet another format has to be added to the list.

The camera can capture video at up to 10 frames per second in QVGA format, at a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. On the card supplied with the camera, though, you can only fit 20 seconds of video. Fujifilm's supplies its own FinePix Viewer for uploading images to a PC or Macintosh and the software is reasonably accomplished at performing simple manipulations of your pictures.

Images are finely detailed, even when blown up for large prints, and the colour balance is good for a camera in this price bracket. Pictures taken in bright light, though, can suffer from over-vividness in their hues.

The FinePix A204 Zoom is supplied with twin AA alkaline batteries, but you can use rechargeable NiMH cells, too. A carrying strap is included, but there's no case as standard with the camera.

Fujifilm - Finepix S2 Pro review

If you're used to professional digital cameras, then the design of the Finepix S2 Pro won't hold many surprises, but if you're used to consumer cameras then you'll be impressed by the build quality. This is a chunky camera that gives the impression (although we didn't test it) that it would survive a knock or two. There's the familiar hand-grip design (as an aside, one wonders how left-handed people cope with the standardised right-handed camera design) with a four-way thumb selector on the rear panel along with a few extra buttons and the 1.8-inch LCD screen below a backlit LCD status panel. On top is the shutter release, wheels for aperture and exposure settings and the main mode selector.

The usual settings are all available. You can change the resolution up to a maximum of 4,256 x 2,848 pixels - that's 12.1 million from the camera's 6.17 million 'effective' pixels - and change the file storage quality too. Various levels of JPEG are the default, but TIFF and raw mode (where the CCD output is dumped straight to file without even going through the camera's image processing electronics) are also present.

Four shooting modes are available; single frame, continuous (approximately two frames per second), preview and multiple exposure. There are also four exposure modes; multi-programmed AE, shutter-priority AE, aperture-priority AE and manual. And, conveniently, there are also four focusing modes; Dynamic AF, Dynamic AF with closest-subject-priority, Single Area AF and Focus Tracking. White balance can be adjusted as can the colour saturation level.

Most of the functions can be locked once you've set them, to prevent accidental changes to the picture quality. The two that aren't lockable are the aperture and exposure wheels, presumably so that you can change them to suit varying lighting and depth conditions while you work. It's possible that these could be adjusted accidentally while you're shooting, but it's not too likely.

We've deliberately left the jargon out of this review, because what matters is the photographic result, not the technical means by which it's achieved. But it is worth mentioning Fujifilm's "Super CCD sensor" which is claimed to produce very realistic colours. It does. There are no tricks involved - the colours aren't made more vibrant than life - but the results are excellent, with fine detail clearly shown, good optical density and outstanding colour balance.

Even on the medium resolution settings the camera produced publishable results, so the top resolution raw mode is really only likely to be necessary for absolute perfectionists and those printing posters. This mode produces 36MB images, but the camera has a large enough buffer that you can still shoot quickly and leave the camera to write the data afterwards. That data is written to either SmartMedia or IBM Microdrive cards. The latter seems more practical, as the 1GB drives are readily available. Camera connectivity is via IEEE1394 FireWire and USB interfaces, although a card reader will suffice.

It's important to bear in mind that you only get the camera body when you buy - lenses have to be bought separately. The Finepix S2 Pro is compatible with all AF-D type, AF-G type and AF-S type Nikkor lenses, so you've got plenty from which to choose. Ultimately, the only thing we didn't like about this camera is its built-in flash, which produced harsh, high contrast photos whatever the setting. Professionals are very unlikely to use it anyway.

FujiFilm - FinePix F440 review

Slim, stylish and lightweight, FujiFilm's FinePix F440 is a 4-megapixel camera and, while it has a couple of features that set it apart from the opposition, it uses a standard CCD sensor rather than the SuperCCD that FujiFilm has used in a good number of its other cameras. Measuring just 74.5 x 6.3 x 21.3mm and weighing a mere 150g, the all-metal FinePix F440 could be easily lost in your coat pocket and it has a better build quality than some of the FujiFilm range.

What is particularly interesting is its 3.4x optical zoom lens, which has a focal length of 6.3 to 21.6mm (equivalent to a 38 - 130mm lens on a 35mm camera). There's also a huge (for this size of camera) 2-inch, 154,000-pixel LCD display, which unfortunately becomes almost unusable in low light conditions. The shutter speed ranges from 2 to 1/2000 seconds with aperture stops between F2.8 and F7.4. It takes the FinePix F440 around two seconds to warm up and extend the lens before you can start using it.

The camera comes with a good number of pre-set modes. To aid you in your picture taking there are four scene modes; portrait, landscape, sports and night scene. There is also a good selection of white balance settings; Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light (Daylight), Fluorescent light (Warm White), Fluorescent light (Cool White) and Incandescent light to help get the best depth of colour for your photos.

The built-in flash also has a number of different settings; auto, red-eye reduction, forced flash and suppressed flash in auto mode. If you want to set it up manually there are just two choices; slow synchro and red-eye reduction plus slow synchro. The flash itself has a range of between 0.6 and 3.6m if used in wide angle mode, and in telephoto mode between 0.6 and 2m. The FinePix F440 doesn't support external flash units.

All the controls are well positioned on the back of the camera, but if you have large fingers you may find the four-way controller switch a bit fiddly. The menu is basic but well designed and easy to use, but remember to switch the camera into manual mode otherwise many of the menu options will not be available to you. Once properly set up, the quality of the photos is as good as you'd expect from a camera of this resolution, with solid colours, consistent light balance and good focus.

A lithium-ion battery is included, but this only allows around 150 photos to be taken before you have to recharge it. It takes around two hours to recharge, in or out of the supplied camera dock. FujiFilm bundles an xD picture card with the FinePix F440 and while it is nice to have, it is a mere 16MB in capacity. You really need 128MB as a starting point.

Fujifilm - FinePix S5500 Zoom review

Mention the phrase 'digital camera' and too often the immediate image that comes to mind is of a lightweight, flat, rectangular piece of hardware that carries an uncanny resemblance to those throwaway instant cameras picked up at airport terminals.

Yet if you're serious about your photography and want all the advantages of the digital revolution allied to the kind of control and creativity associated with traditional film SLRs, then the S5500 Zoom will come as a welcome breath of fresh air.

Following on from the success of its predecessor, the S5000 Zoom, Fujifilm has retained the black SLR design, complete with a firm grip and adapter ring. The 10x optical zoom is also retained and you can use either the electronic viewfinder or the 1.5-inch LCD screen to compose your shots.

An extra megapixel has been added (now making a total of 4) for much greater definition and the resulting quality of both indoor and exterior photos is impressive. A macro mode will allow you to achieve good close-up results from a range of 10cm and a built-in self-timer allows you up to ten seconds to position yourself in the frame.

If you feel confident enough you can manually set up both aperture (f2.8 - f9) and shutter speed (three seconds to 1/1000 of a second) to your liking, or opt for fully automatic. Similarly, there are five scene modes (Portrait, Landscape, Sports and Night Scene as well as the inevitable Auto) and five flash settings, including red-eye reduction, forced flash and slow synchro.

Additional refinements mean the white balance (seven modes), ISO settings (four modes) and metering can be varied for optimum conditions and photos can be saved both as JPEGs and as RAW files. The S5500 Zoom is also DPOF friendly for printing just the frames that you want to keep, in the order you want them.

If you're worried during action events about capturing the right moment, you can now rest easy thanks to the continuous shooting mode that comes as standard. Even better, there's a new movie capture facility (at 640 x 480 resolution) at 30 frames per second, complete with sound through the attached microphone. How much you can record depends on the size of the xD-Picture Card you want to splash out on - it comes with a paltry 16MB card but you can go up to 512MB.

Power is supplied by four AA batteries, so it's in your interest to invest in some rechargeable batteries if you're intending to be out filming regularly. PictBridge software comes on the enclosed CD. You can print out your pictures either bypassing or via a PC (a USB cable is supplied) and an A/V OUT socket even lets you display your photos on a TV. You can further crop your images using the zoom editing on the display menu.

FujiFilm - FinePix F10 review

With so many digital cameras on the market, you'd think that finding the right balance between fairly standard, slim, point-'n-click models that are designed principally for the amateur, and the chunkier, higher spec machines geared to the professional photographer should be relatively easy, as long as you have someone to guide you through the maze.

It's even better, then, when you come across a camera where the principal concerns for the amateur have been seriously examined and a few extra features thrown in that are only normally available for the pro. Such is the case with FujiFilm's FinePix F10.

For a start it comes in a sturdy silver metal housing that feels comfortingly solid yet will fit easily in a handbag or jacket. A slight niggle is that it doesn't come with a carrying case so you'll have to buy that separately (there is an optional underwater case that would be ideal for filming fish on holidays). The controls are clearly labelled, easy to use and it takes a mere second after switch-on for the camera to be ready for action.

There's a large 2.5-inch LCD display which can be brightened in darker conditions, but some photographers will bewail the fact that there isn't an additional optical viewfinder. The camera features an F2.8 - 5.0, 3x optical zoom lens with a focal range of 8 - 24mm (which is equivalent to 36 - 108mm) and a powerful flash that ranges from 0.6 - 6.5m at wide angle and has six modes including red-eye reduction, forced, suppressed (good for indoors) and slow synchro (for night shooting where you want to highlight both the foreground and background).

There are two essential elements that make this camera stick out from the crowd. The first is that it is a 6.3-megapixel Super CCD HR camera with FujiFilm's new Real Photo Technology, designed to produce the best quality images at the lowest light settings. The result is a far greater range of ISO (sensitivity) settings, ranging from 80 - 1600, with an auto setting that tends to defer to 800. So now you can often dispose of the flash entirely and still produce remarkably detailed quality images in low light conditions.

The Scene Positions menu offers this Natural Light setting as well as the more usual Portrait, Landscape, Sport and Night modes. The lagging time between exposures has also been considerably tightened so you don't have that irritating gap between pressing the shutter and waiting for the click. There's even a high-speed shooting mode that reduces the focusing time and you can capture up to 40 frames in continuous shooting mode.

It's therefore a shame that the standard XD Card that comes in the box is a measly 16MB when you should be looking for around 512MB, especially as there's also a video mode available.

Which brings us neatly to the F10's other huge selling point - the battery life. FujiFilm claims that the rechargeable lithium-ion battery (which peculiarly needs three leads to recharge) will allow you to take 500 photos before you need to think about it again. Judging by early user reports this seems to be fairly accurate. If so, and at this reasonable price range, the FinePix F10 could be an essential holiday accessory.

Fujifilm - FinePix Z1 review

We've seen a few digital cameras that are smaller and lighter than the Fujifilm FinePix Z1, but they have tended to be credit card-sized things that are gimmicks. By contrast the FinePix Z1 is a real 5.1-megapixel camera that weighs a mere 146g ready to shoot and measures 90 x 55 x 19mm both open and closed.

Although the Fujifilm has 3x optical zoom, a lens doesn't come rushing out when you turn it on, which presumably means that it must operate inside the body with a mirror to reflect light through 90 degrees.

This clever packaging results in a camera that is all aluminium on the front (once the sliding lens cover is closed) while the back is dominated by the two and half inch LCD screen, which is large by any standards but on this camera looks positively huge.

The control buttons are small aluminium items that look good, work well and are completely appropriate on this camera; however the tiny size has led to some design decisions that we're not too happy about.

As a minor gripe there's no tripod mount on the base of the Z1, but we were more distressed by Fujifilm's decision to use a dock to charge the battery and to transfer photos. As a result the camera casing is very neat as it isn't covered with ports and little rubber plugs to keep the weather out, but it means you are obliged to carry the dock and cables with you when you go on holiday or if you are taking so many photos that you will fill the xD memory card.

As Fujifilm only supplies a 16MB card we can take it as read that you'll be buying a larger card sooner rather than later. You would have expected the 2,592 x 1,944 maximum resolution to result in JPEG file sizes of anything up to 6MB, however all of our test photos were in the range of 1.2 - 1.3MB.

This suggests that there is some extreme compression taking place inside the FinePix Z1 and it brings us to the Achilles heel of this camera, which is that it doesn't take particularly good photos.

Outdoors shots are pleasant enough, but there's little of the detail that you'd expect from a 5-megapixel camera and the 3x optical zoom doesn't draw the subject in sufficiently to make up for that lack. Colour reproduction is pleasant and inoffensive, but unimpressive, with none of that "Wow" factor that you get from really good photos.

Indoors it was much the same story and our test portraits lacked sharpness even when they were taken from two metres away. Macro shots of some coins on a plate were absolutely breathtaking, so the camera certainly has its capabilities, but they won't be of much use to the mainstream user.

A firmware upgrade addressing the image compression issue might help, and it's always possible that we had a duff review camera, as some of Fujifilm's sample images on its Web site look fairly good (and larger than 1.3MB). But despite checking and re-checking the image settings, we were unable to produce high quality photos from our review unit. We suggest you try this one in a shop before you buy.

Fujifilm - FinePix S6500fd Zoom review

By now most people should be at home with the 'New World' of digital cameras, especially the flat-fronted variety that require you to do little more than point and click, with instant playback. However, the move up to full digital SLRs might still appear too daunting and too expensive, with so many manual controls to organise in pursuit of the perfect photo.

In which case the so-called 'bridge' cameras like this one are ideal. They have all the look of a DSLR and many of the manual functions available, but also a comforting amount of the work can be handled automatically. In terms of picture quality you know you're going to be on to a winner as Fujifilm has employed its 6.3-megapixel Super CCD sensor and Real Photo Technology II, as well as a comparatively new feature which should improve your portrait pictures.

Before we look at that, let's review some of the statistics. The maximum resolution is 2,848 x 2,136 and the light sensitivity ranges from ISO100 to 3200 which means you can achieve exceptional results in poor lighting conditions without always having to use flash. Talking of which, the camera uses intelligent flash which can be adjusted to your circumstances and there's a 'Natural and Flash' mode which can take two rapid pictures, one with and one without flash, so you can compare and contrast the results.

You can preview your shot via the 2.5-inch LCD screen or the electronic viewfinder and the zoom lens is a Fujinon 10.7x (28-300mm equivalent) optical which is manually twisted. You also have a 2x digital zoom and a manual focus ring if you want to take more control of your image sharpness, plus macro and super macro options which can take you as close as 1cm to your subject.

Fujifilm is particularly proud that this model includes its new Face Detection technology which will recognize up to 10 faces in a frame and auto-expose and autofocus on them to the best setting in just 0.04 seconds. We tried it out on humans and dogs and, yes, it could tell the difference!

This is going to be a big boon as the vast majority of photo enthusiasts take more portrait pics than any other type, and now you don't have to fiddle about trying to focus in a hurry. Also the specialised Scene Position menu adds a further ten settings to the five on the top-mounted mode dial, including such exotica as Museum, Party, Fireworks and Text. It was noticeable, however, that the autofocus was struggling at the end of the zoom, something we've seen on other Fujifilm cameras with this length of lens.

With a 2GB memory card installed you can capture those fireworks or sporting occasions on video for up to 30 minutes at a resolution of 640 x 480 at 30fps. The only shame is that Fujifilm still insists on using the less popular xD-Picture Card format rather than, say, SD, which is much more widely available.

Having said that, the power comes from four AA alkaline batteries which is preferable to having a bulky battery pack attached, and the FinePix Viewer software provides a reliable means of organising and exporting your photos from the camera to the PC or printer via the USB 2 port, if you don't have the relevant memory card holder.

Fujifilm - Finepix F40fd review

Fujifilm's F-series is arguably the most successful line of compact cameras around, in no small part down to consistent performance and solid build quality across the range. The 8.3-megapixel F40fd is currently available at prices close to budget levels, but this certainly isn't reflected in its design. It sports a stylish black and silver casing and has a rather weighty feel about it, which we tend to like.

On firing the camera up for the first time, though, we were a little let down by the quality of the 2.5-inch LCD. While clear and sharp enough when viewing photos, we've seen better refresh rates in terms of using the screen as a viewfinder: it often takes a second for the focus and colour accuracy to kick in if you swing it around too quickly.

In terms of general operation, you'll find that Fujifilm takes a slightly different approach to environment presets over a lot of the other big name brands. Instead of a shortcut to a typical list or tiled selection, your options are defined by the mode wheel. Here you'll find the standard 'auto' setting, along with the video camera, camera stabilisation and natural light mode to remove unwanted effects of the flash. One particularly nice feature here is the 'Natural & Flash' mode, which takes two shots simultaneously, one with and one without flash, offering you an easy choice of the best picture.

When you use any of these modes you'll find that more advanced settings for fine-tuning or choosing more specific environments aren't available through the main menu. To get to these you'll either have to select manual shooting or one of two scene position presets - SP1 or SP2.

Choosing one of these allows you to pick a specific setting, such as beach, snow, underwater or night mode, and save it to this position for easy access next time you need it. We think this is a great way to narrow down an often daunting list of options to the most useful two and, in combination with the range of fine tuning available in manual mode, gives you an excellent degree of control over your photographs.

One final addition to the F40fd's arsenal is, as more knowledgeable digicam users will already have noted, the Face Detection technology signified by the 'fd' in the name. Easily accessible through a dedicated control, this optimises focus for any faces in shot.

Taking the F40 for a spin we were impressed on most fronts. If you'd rather have more control over the capable automatic mode you'll find noticeable improvement when selecting presets to cater for your environment. Photos were consistently vibrant and sharp, with rich colours and good contrast. Macro mode in particular did an excellent job of picking out the finest details of complex structures without drastic reduction of colour accuracy or depth of field.

Of particular note is the maximum 2,000 ISO, impressive for a camera of this type and offering the ability to produce noticeably better results in dimly lit environments as well as an extended range at night. You'll notice more noise at higher ISO levels, but comparatively the F40 performs well here, and even though a tripod is essential to get the best pictures at these levels, results were pretty good nonetheless.

The F40fd would be well suited to amateur photographers looking for a decent low-priced compact. The controls are well arranged and nice to use, it's easy to take good photos quickly if 'point-n-shoot' is your main concern, and yet it offers enough extra for more experienced photographers to feel at home.

Although some beginners may feel that it's initially not quite as user-friendly as some rivals in this price range, we'd happily bear that slightly steeper learning curve to take advantage of the benefits the latest in Fuji's F-series has to offer.

Fujifilm - Big Job HD-3W review

There's a trend towards making digital cameras a bit less fragile, so they can be used for work as well as play. Fujifilm's Big Job HD-3W is aimed at construction workers, oil workers and engineers, as well as those who go potholing in their spare time.

It certainly looks the part, coming in around the size of a small digital SLR, even though it has a fixed lens and is a digital compact. It's quite light for its size, though, and can comfortably be used in one hand. It comes as standard with non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, so if you want to make the shift to rechargeables it'll cost extra.

The Big Job is claimed to have withstood a 0.7m drop test, though 0.7m is barely the height of a typical desk and less than the height of a trouser pocket. It's also been tested at up to 1m underwater for 30 minutes, so rain splashes and possibly snorkelling are the order here, rather than scuba diving. We captured a couple of goldfish shots from inside their tank without problem, though getting the water out of the Big Job's nooks and crannies took a while.

All the extra thought that's gone into its shock- and water-resistance has left a camera with a modest photographic specification. The CCD sensor has a resolution of six megapixels - nothing special in today's market - and the 28-84mm equivalent lens has a 3x optical zoom with 4.4x digital zoom to add to it; reasonable, but not outstanding.

Internal storage (there's no memory card supplied with the camera) runs to 27MB, so 19 shots in normal quality mode. Fujifilm includes a special CALS mode, taking pictures at 1,280 x 960 pixels, apparently ideal for posting on the Web.

There are only five preset shooting modes; portrait, landscape, sports, night and text, but this could be an advantage, since recent digital cameras sometimes have over 20, leading many people to use just auto. The Big Job uses TTL metering over 256 zones, but you have to train the picture on the admittedly large 76mm LCD display. While this is bright enough indoors, it's not easy to view in strong sunlight and may need shielding with a hand or third-party accessory.

Picture quality was variable. The camera doesn't resolve shots with wide contrasts of lighting well. Even when the auto-focus correctly outlined a small flower, for example, the surrounding foliage was correctly exposed while the petals themselves had their colours bleached. The auto-focus is effective, though, and the shooting modes, once you find them, are well tailored to their subjects.