If you like your ultra compacts small, sturdy and light, we’ve got a nifty little camera that’s right up your alley. I’m talking about the Fujifilm FinePix F60fd - Fujifilm’s ultra compact that’s both tiny (92.5 x 59.2 x 22.9 mm) and weighing in at just 155 grams, pretty light as well.
Build
The body is composed of a brush metal finish plastic frame with a few metallic parts, giving it an overall slick yet industrial look. While its rectangular body isn’t the most ergonomic of the lot, its small size fits perfectly in any hand. The texture and curvature of both the front and back don’t help grip the camera too well, but then again the small frame saves the day by allowing you to wield it easily.
The trigger’s on the top side with a ring around it to zoom in and out, besides which sits a flat power button that’s placed so that the device doesn’t power up by mistake while in your pocket. On the right side of the trigger rests the image stabilization button that allows you to turn this feature on and off. The facing side of the camera has a dial on the upper half that lets you pick your mode, while the 4-way D-pad below it allows you to navigate the internal menu. In the middle of the D-pad nests the menu button that you’ll be using frequently in almost all modes.
Overall, while the build of the F60fd doesn’t make it feel or look grand, it is decent enough to get by and has all the physical traits of a good ultra compact.
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Feature****s
The FinePix F60fd is a mixed bag when it comes to features. Apart from the standard modes - Auto, Manual, Scene, Aperture/Shutter priority and movie, you’ve got a few others like “Natural Light and With Flash” that are pretty useful. In this mode the camera clicks two pictures in quick succession, one with flash and one without. This is good for those who can’t decide whether a particular shot needs to be lit via flash or not; you get the best of both worlds in a single click.
The camera features a 12 Megapixel CCD Super Sensor, 3x Optical Zoom (which is quite average), and ISO settings of up to 1600 at max resolution, 3200 at 6 MP and 6400 3 MP.
The gaping void in the feature list, is that there’s no aperture value or shutter speed setting in manual mode, in spite of the user-manual boasting extensive manual mode functionality. The only control you get over exposure is via exposure value and ISO settings. The truly illogical part is that you’re given control over either Aperture value and Shutterspeed settings only in Shutter priority and Aperture priority mode, so I can’t understand why they decided to opt out of it in Manual mode. In other words, the manual mode here is basically a watered down version of what it should be, with many automatic overrides.
For what it’s worth the camera does feature image stabilization at 3x zoom, and a handful of features such as face recognition and red-eye removal, to make the life of a casual photographer easy.
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Performance
Off to a bad start - the color reproduction of the F60fd is bearable but borders on inaccuracy; the camera struggled when it came to shades of green, and most colors were a little washed out rather than vibrant. The auto white balance is decent though, and didn’t give us anything to complain about.
Image quality on the other hand is pretty detailed even at full resolution, but in low light conditions it suffers just a little.
The digital macro mode again, is nothing to write home about. It performs is just about average, but it suffers due to the other flaws in the camera.
The flaws I’m talking about are related to bad ISO calculations when the ISO mode is set to auto. The camera picked ISO 800 for almost every shot in Auto, which was overkill for many of the decently lit pictures since it left numerable artifacts and cringe-worthy overexposed areas. That said, even the sensitivity of the sensor in higher ISO settings ranges from bearable to horrendous, making you see how they’ve added ISO 6400 just to bolster the spec sheet.
To make matters worse, the camera features one of the worst interfaces I’ve seen in any ultra compact, making it a pain to navigate to many of the features that are inadvertently hidden.
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Conclusion
While I wasn’t too pleased with the FinePix F60fp where high end usage is concerned, it’s still a decent camera for those of you who wish to buy a point and click device of diminutive form. The detail levels of images were decent even at full resolution, which is commendable, but that barely warrants a purchase. With nothing offered that’s really out of the ordinary, you can give this camera a skip unless you need one just for basic functionality (in which case again, there are better options out there).
Technical Specifications
Dimensions | 92.5 x 59.2 x 22.9 mm |
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**Weight | |
** | 155 g |
**Type | |
** | Ultra Compact |
**Connectivity | |
** | USB 2.0 |
Storage | xD-Picture Card. SD/SDHC card, Internal memory (25 MB) |
**Battery Type | |
** | NP-50 Li-ion battery (included) |
LCD Type | 3", 230,000 pixels |
**View Finder | |
** | Optical (tunnel) |
Sensor | 1/1.6" SuperCCD HR |
Effective Pixels | 12 Megapixel |
**ISO Sensitivity | |
** | Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 |
Optical Zoom | 3x |
**Digital Zoom | |
** | 8.2x |
Shutter Speed | 8sec - 1/2000 sec |
Aperture | F2.8 - F8 |
Format | JPEG Exif v2.2, DCF / DPOF, AVI (Motion JPEG) |
White Balance | |
Automatic scene recognition, Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light: Daylight, Warm | |
White ,Cool White, Incandescent light, Custom | |
Flash | |
Auto, Red-eye reduction, Forced On, Forced Off, Slow Sync | |
Self Timer | |
2 or 10 sec | |
Video Resolution | 640 x 480 @ 25fps, 320 x 240 @ 25fps |
Sound | Yes |
MRP | |
Rs. 17,999 |