Slimline

Fujifilm's slim, smart-looking FinePix Z10fd has been designed to appeal to 18-35 year olds. Its 'aero' curved body is available in red, orange, olive green, Prussian blue and black to co-ordinate with the latest fashions and it sports a 7.2-megapixel imager and 3x optical zoom lens. There are plenty of features and functions to engage potential buyers in this take-anywhere camera. But, above all, it's easy to use with only four selectable shooting modes: movie, manual, auto and natural light and with flash – and the camera displays a text message that tells you what each setting does.

Don't get carried away by the 'manual' mode designation; it's really a full-auto mode that allows you to adjust white balance and exposure compensation settings. Unlike most point-and-shoot digicams, the Z10fd's card slot will accept both xD-Picture cards and SD cards – including SDHC but not adapters containing the smaller SD card sizes. It also has 54MB of internal memory as a back-up.


Only four shooting modes are provided.

Most of the rear panel is covered by a 2.5-inch LCD and the camera is switched on and off by sliding the front lens cover. No viewfinder is provided and the display on the monitor is a long way from colour-accurate, and also rather dull. The lens is also located so far up into the corner of the camera's body that it's difficult to hold the camera without getting a fingertip in the shot.

Beside the monitor sit two arrow pads, the lower one with a Menu/OK button at its centre and direct access buttons for macro, anti-shake, flash and self-timer controls. The upper arrow pad's horizontal buttons adjust the zoom lens, while the vertical buttons engage face detection and quick review. No image stabilisation is provided.

Face detection (which accounts for the 'fd' tag) also includes automatic red-eye removal when the flash is used. The system can identify up to 10 human faces within a frame and places a green rectangle around the central subject. The user manual warns that it won't work for pets or other animals and when the subject is standing on his/her head. 'Difficulties will occur' with faces that are obscured by glasses, hats or hair, when the face is in profile and with subjects that are too far away for faces to be recognized. If no face is detected, the red-eye correction is suppressed.

The Z10fd supports several continuous shooting modes, including a high-speed setting (which is located as a separate menu entry) and long-period, top 3 and final 3 (which are grouped together). Selecting the high speed mode increased the long period frame rate from one shot every 1.7 seconds to one shot every 0.7 seconds, which is the same frame rate as the top 3 and final 3 modes.

Built into the camera body is a wireless transmitter plus an inconspicuous infrared lens. Together they allow users to 'beam' image files from the camera to other devices that are compatible with IRSimple technology. The two devices must be within about 20 cm of each other with their IR lenses facing and it takes three button presses to activate the transmission, which takes roughly three minutes for a high-resolution file.

Another cool feature that will appeal to the target market is the Blog Mode which, like the IR Communication facility, is located in the Playback menu. The Blog setting copies selected image files and automatically resizes them to 640 x 480 pixels so they can be sent in emails or posted online. Shots can also be trimmed before saving them in this mode. A related feature is the Auction mode, which lets users record up to four shots of a subject as a single image and is handy for displaying several angles of items posted in online auction sites.


Image playback.

We've covered Fujifilm's Natural Light & With Flash mode in previous reviews. This setting records two shots: one with and the other without flash. The images are displayed side-by-side to give users an on-the-spot comparison so they can select the more pleasing result.

Performance

For its price, the Z10fd is a nice little camera that may suit some people in its target market. Unfortunately, however, the test camera's picture-taking performance was rather ordinary. Imatest showed resolution to be well below expectations, right across the image field. There was a noticeable deterioration in sharpness at ISO settings of 400 and above and severe barrel distortion from the widest angle of view to mid-way along the zoom range.

Colour accuracy was also below average with distinct shifts in reds, blues and olive green. Saturation varied from being well-controlled in wide-angle landscape and scenic shots to very punchy with close-ups and zoom shots. Imatest also revealed severe chromatic aberration and we found pronounced purple fringing in outdoor shots taken in bright conditions.

JPEG compression was quite severe as you can see from the table below.

The auto white balance setting failed to remove the colour casts of incandescent and fluorescent lighting, although the pre-sets came close enough to neutral colour rendition to provide an adequate basis for further adjustment in editing software. No manual measurement setting is provided. Digital zoom shots showed average levels of processing artefacts.

The flash required at least ISO 400 to illuminate an average-sized room. Low light photography was limited by an inability to set the slowest shutter speed (3 seconds) but shots taken at ISO settings of 400 and above showed visible image noise.

The test camera powered up in roughly one second and we measured an average capture lag of 0.5 seconds, which reduced to 0.1 seconds with pre-focusing.  Shot-to-shot times averaged 2.5 seconds without flash and around five seconds with. The long-term continuous shooting mode recorded 7M Fine JPEGs at 1.7 second intervals. Selecting the top 3 or final 3 modes reduced the capture interval to 0.7 seconds. We were unable to test the IR transmission facility.

IMATEST GRAPHS

SAMPLE IMAGES

Auto white balance setting under incandescent lighting.

Auto white balance setting with fluorescent lighting.

ISO 100

ISO 800

ISO 1600

Close-up

Digital zoom

Image sensor: 5.76 x 4.29 mm CCD with (7.2 megapixels effective)
Lens: Fujinon 6.3-18.9mm f/3.7-4.2 zoom lens (38-114mm in 35mm format)
Zoom ratio: 3x optical; 4.8x digital
Image formats: Stills – JPEG (Exif 2.2); Movies - AVI (Motion JPEG)/WAV
Image Sizes: Stills – 3072 x 2304, 3072 x 2048, 2304 x 1728, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480; Movies – VGA/QVGA  at 30 fps (monaural sound)
Shutter speed range: 3-1/1000 sec
Image Stabilisation:
Exposure Compensation:.
Focus system/range: Centre/Multi AF; range 60 cm to infinity; macro 8-80 cm
Exposure metering/control: 256-zone TTL metering; Program AE with 16 pre-set modes
ISO range: Auto, ISO 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
White balance: Auto, Fine. Shade, Fluorescent (x3), Incandescent
Flash modes/range (ISO auto): Auto, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Slow Synchro; red-eye reduction available; range 0.7-3.9 m
Sequence shooting:  long-period max. 0.6 fps; Top/Final 3 – max 1.4 fps
Storage Media: Approx. 56MB internal memory plus dual xD-Picture Card/SD/SDHC expansion slot
Viewfinder: n.a.
LCD monitor: 2.5-inch Amorphous silicon TFT color LCD with 150,000 pixels
Power supply:  NP-45 Li-ion battery
Dimensions (wxhxd): 91.2 x 56.6 x 18.8 mm
Weight: Approx. 110 grams (without battery and card)