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Reviewed by UK Guest, 13th Jun 2007. |
| Review Summary: Far more than a point-and-shoot. Designed to perform. |
Overall Score: 5/5
 
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Review: On paper, there are higher specified cameras on the market, and notable "omissions" on the Fuji F31fd spec are: small resolution compared with the market-standard 8-10mp resolution now available, lack of optical camera-shake reduction mechanism, lack of a very long zoom.
And here's why none of those omissions really matter.
"It's only 6mp!"
The 6.3mp sensor on the F31 is a tried and tested item and produces wonderfully smooth images. Having recently tried a £400 Ricoh Caplio GX100 with a 10mp sensor, I can attest to the notion that too many pixels crammed onto a sensor = noise = bad image quality. Lots of pixels does not mean lots of quality. After a certain threshold (dependent on the size of the sensor), you start to get poorer quality images. The Fuji's results are sharp, clean and saturated.
To put 6mp into perspective, prints upto 8x10 will be absolutely fine. 10x12 will be very acceptable. Above that, they will be fine for viewing from anything other than the closest inspection. Does anyone really print A3 prints of everything they take? 6mp is fine for more than 99.9% of the home users' images.
"It only zooms to 110mm" (35mm equiv.)
Very long zooms just mean even slower lenses, which are eventually unusable in anything but the brightest of light. Camera shake is also exaggerated with longer zooms. The compromises that a manufacturer has to make to the whole of the zoom range are not worth the extra reach, and the pulling power of a telezoom dimishes the further up the scale you go. The difference between 24mm and 28mm is vast at the wide angle, but the difference between 80mm and 100mm is hardly noticeable at the tele-end. Not worth sacrificing image quality for. If you need to get closer, use your legs or crop the image in your computer.
"It doesn't have Image Stabilisation / Vibration Reduction / Shake Reduction / OIS..."
Camera shake reduction is a cool feature, but a fast lens (f2.8) and good low light sensitivity (3200iso) mean that this is less of a requirement than with slower cameras. Having said that, it might still be nice to have.
"Yeah, but..."
Despite the apparent "last gen" spec, this camera outperforms all other compacts I have tried. Images are clean and punchy. 400 and 800 iso are very useable. 1600 and 3200 iso provide fine B&W images, and adequate results for colour images (depending on how critical you are). I'm very picky, so this is an endorsement. Cf. the images at 800iso from the Fuji are better than those at 400iso from the Ricoh I mentioned before.
"What's really good?"
The image quality - I've said it before, but you buy cameras for the images they produce, so why settle for poor images from a cool looking camera? The images will last a lot longer than the camera - hopefully a lifetime. I've talked about the sensor a lot, but equally impressive is the Fujinon lens. Lots of other manufacturers brag about their Leica and Schneider lenses, and Fuji has little to no reputation in lenses, but this lens is really great and deserves high praise.
The speed - startup, focusing, write and shutter lag speeds are all excellent.
The size - not too small, but eminently pocketable.
The battery life - I've never run out of juice and I don't recharge it that often.
I don't like using flash, but the flash on this camera does a good job of subtly lighting the subject rather than blowing all highlights way out.
The pic modes and creative options are really great to have for beginners and experts alike.
"Can't ALL be good - what are the shortcomings?"
I kind of wish the camera was SD-card compatible and gave the option to save in RAW. Neither of these are deal-breakers though as memory cards are so cheap now and very few compacts offer RAW. Those that do tend to be slow, so it may be a fair trade off - the Fuji is amazingly quick to operate. I also wish that it had a wider lens - perhaps a 24mm or 28mm equiv., but again, most compacts start at 35mm equiv. A live histogram view is also desireable. Hopefully all of these things can be sorted out on the update of the F31.
Bottom line - the images are great from the F31fd. The camera is perfect as a p&s, but more advanced users can also exploit the manual features for more creative effects.
Very very highly recommended and a bargain at the current Amazon price.
"Who on Earth are you?"
For what it's worth, I am a keen SLR photographer with 10years+ of experience. I'm a die-hard Canon-fan, but for a compact option, this is my hands-down recommendation to all users, of any ability. |
Ratings
| Value For Money: |
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5 |
| Review Score: |
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5 |
| Recommended? | |
Yes |
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Digital Cameras