Review: Fuji FinePix F10

Fuji FinePix F10 Review

The FujiFilm FinePix F10 digital camera is an amazing compact-sized camera. Amazing because it has extraordinary low-light sensitivity for a compact digicam, supporting up to ISO 1600. Although its ISO 1600 is not perfect, and not quite as good as that of a larger digital SLR, it is good enough to be useful for most people, making it an excellent choice for photographing in a variety of lighting situations. Its compact size makes it a great choice for carrying around when you don't want to lug a around larger camera.

Impressions

The camera is 3.6 x 2.3 x 1.1 inches in size, compact enough to fit in a pocket or purse, though it's not as small as the smallest cameras. Its size is convenient, and weighing in at 5.5 ounces, it's easy to carry. Turning on the camera is fast- the lens extends quickly. Overall, snapping pictures, it feels fast and responsive. The design of the camera is nice, with a combination of brushed metal and plastic, and its nice 2.5" LCD on the back is a good size. Although it doesn't have an optical viewfinder, I don't miss it at all because of the large LCD display. The menus are usable- perhaps not the prettiest or most elegant, but they get the job done. The lens is a 3x zoom, 38-108mm (in 35mm equivalent numbers), and opens as wide as f/2.8 at the widest angle, and as wide as f/5.0 when zoomed to 108mm. The camera has minimal advanced features. Although it has a "manual" mode, that mode only allows for a few things to be manully set, such as the flash, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, and a few other minor items. Notably missing is manual setting of aperture and shutter speed. Nevertheless, for a compact camera, this is not a major issue.

Notable Features

The Fuji Film F10 is a 6 megapixel camera. 6MP is good enough for excellent 8x10 prints. The battery life on this camera is supposed to be excellent, over 500 shots, though I have not tested this myself. The movie mode is also very good, supporting moves up to 640x480 at 30 frames/second.

High ISO Performance

The real reason to consider this camera is the high ISO capabilities. For a compact camera, its high ISO performance is remarkable- far better than any other compact camera to date, and only surpassed by much larger digital SLRs. The Fuji F10 supports ISO 80 to ISO 1600, and ISO speeds up to 400 are very good to excellent. ISO 800 has some noise and some loss of detail but is very usable. ISO 1600 is noticeably noisier and has more loss of detail, but is usable, and allows you to get a shot that would otherwise not be possible. If your prefer natural light pictures (without flash) this is one compact digicam that will meet your needs. Below are some 100% crops taken at a few ISO speeds. In addition, I ran the test through Neat Image using two settings. The first used the Neat Image profile contributed by Stefan Vollebert. I thought that this came out rather unsharp. The second image I just used autoprofiling and did a little sharpening in Neat Image, and, I'm quite happy with that result. In fact, coming from a small pocketable camera with a small image sensor, I think it's pretty amazing.

Fuji F10 ISO 400

Fuji F10 ISO 800

Fuji F10 ISO 1600

Fuji F10 ISO 1600 with Neat Image 5.3 using Stefan Vollebert's F10 profile

Fuji F10 ISO 1600 with Neat Image 5.3 autoprofile + sharpen fine 120%

Other Issues

One of the common image artifacts of digital cameras is purple fringing at boundaries of extreme contrast such as taking a picture of tree branches with a bright sky in the background. The F10 does suffer from some purple fringing, but this is fairly common with compact digital cameras. Overall, though, images look very good- they're sharp and detailed. I'm satisfied with image quality. A few other minor points: The tripod socket on the bottom is plastic. It comes with a charger/usb adapter combo that seems clunky, oddly designed, having too many cables. I'd prefer to just directly connect the camera to the computer with a direct cable. Fuji F10 Back Side

Impression after 10 days

Well, I've used the F10 a lot more now, and some interesting new things have come up as I've gotten to use the camera in different situations. First, I think that in many situations it tends to overexpose, blowing out the highlights. This can fortunately be fixed by the exposure compensation settings. Some of the settings on the camera are not "sticky", for instance, the capture first 3 burst mode or capture last 3 burst mode. These are useful in low light when you want a couple of pictures to be sure you got at least one that's good (usually when shutter speeds are slow, the first picture is more likely to be blurry because pushing down the shutter shakes the camera). Another thing I noticed is that at ISO1600 pictures seem to come out a bit fuzzier than I'd like. In my above controlled test, things seemed quite good, but, in real life, they are not quite as good. I'm not sure, but I think it's a combination of things- it may be the focus is a bit off in low light, and that the noise reduction removes some detail. See image below- the people are so blurry you really can't see any features. The image was taken with the camera resting on a stable surface so camera shake was not an issue.

ISO1600 Sample, f/2.8, 1/30s, 100% crop

Movie mode in very low light (using the same scene as the above concert scene) also was not very good. There was not enough light, so the movie was approximately 1.5 stops too dark.

Conclusion

Overall, the Fuji F10 is an excellent choice for a compact, automatic digital camera. Although it lacks advanced manual features, if you don't mind giving up manual control, you'll get reasonable high ISO performance in a nice package. Consider also, the successors to the F10, namely, the Fuji F11 (unfortunately not released in the U.S. market, but available through importers or eBay), and the even newer Fuji F30. The Fuji F30 in particular is notable because it supports up to ISO3200 at full resolution.