Auto Mode (8.75)
The Auto mode is the only colored icon on the mode dial, making it easy to find. The F-mode menu is nearly the same except it truncates the vast ISO options to the three automatic ISO options (ISO 400, 800, and 1600) only. The standard Shooting menu is shortened to include only the Continuous shooting mode and a portal to the Setup menu. Above all, the F50fd’s is easy to find and use, as it should be.
Movie Mode (6.0)
Some digital cameras’ Movie modes are buried in a menu, but the Fujifilm FinePix F50fd’s has a prominent position on the mode dial. This makes it easy to access.
Don’t get too excited; the Movie mode isn’t that great. There isn’t any exposure control - no white balance, ISO, or exposure compensation. The only option that can be changed in the F-mode and Recording menus is the video size, which can be set to 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 pixels.
Both operate at 25 frames per second (fps), just short of the F40fd’s 30 fps that is also the standard for most digital cameras. Motion recorded by the Movie mode is jerky, although the mechanical image stabilization system makes clips bump-free.
The optical zoom can’t be used, a downer because more and more compact digital cameras are offering it. The Sony T100’s 5x optical zoom is functional in its Movie mode – and it has image stabilization, too. The Casio V8’s 7x optical zoom lens is also enabled in the Movie mode. Many compact digital cameras that don’t offer optical zoom in the Movie mode at least offer a bit of digital zoom – the Fuji doesn’t even allow that.
The Motion JPEG files don’t render colors realistically and the resolution isn’t fantastic. Monaural audio is captured, but it sounds muddled. Overall, the Movie mode is not great.
Drive / Burst Mode (7.0)
The F50fd’s Continuous Burst mode is quicker than its predecessor’s, a serious feat considering it shoots 12-megapixel files. The older F40fd’s burst snaps 1.3 frames per second (fps) for only two pictures. The F50fd improves upon this by lengthening the burst to three pictures and speeding up the rate to 2 fps.
There are several burst options available in the Shooting menu: Top 3, Final 3, Long Period, Top 12, and Final 12. The Top 3 is the standard full-resolution Burst mode, while the Final 3 allows users to snap long strings of images but only saves the last three. The Long Period mode shoots an image about every two seconds, and can do so for quite awhile. The Top and Final 12 modes shoot quickly – about 5 fps – but only at a 3-megapixel image size. Using both xD-Picture and SD media, the F50fd takes about 12 seconds to write the burst of images to the card.
Photographers who wish to hop in the portrait or eliminate the possibility of hand-shake from pushing the shutter release button can activate the self-timer. Pushing the bottom of the multi-selector brings up 2 and 10-second self-timer options that fire out a white beam from the front of the camera to alert subjects the camera is about to snap their picture.
Playback Mode (7.0)
The Fujifilm FinePix F50fd has a 2.7-inch LCD screen with smooth resolution that provides a good medium for the Playback mode. The Playback mode isn’t located on the mode dial. Rather, it is accessed by pushing a button on the back of the camera. This makes it easy to enter the Playback menu and then resume shooting.
Users can scroll through pictures and videos individually and magnify them for a closer look. Users can review faces in an image by pushing the face detection button, which automatically zooms in on faces that it recognized while recording. Users can also scroll around the magnified portion of the image while viewing a smaller full-screen image that shows what portion of the selected image is being viewed.
There is a long delay when scrolling through individual pictures – and it only gets worse the longer the camera is turned on. The Fuji F50fd has a serious problem with processing delays; it thinks long and hard before it does anything. This is annoying because users push the multi-selector to scroll, but there is a delay before the image appears.
If users push the zoom toggle a few times, an expanded thumbnail view appears. Two large thumbnails appear in the center of the LCD screen and are flanked by two smaller thumbnails, one on the top and another on the bottom. Users can scroll through thumbnails this way or by pushing the “W” side of the zoom ring to view nine thumbnails at a time in the more traditional view. A calendar view is also available. And if users keep pushing the “W”, eventually they’ll end up on a screen with 100 thumbnails, which are so small they can hardly be seen.
Many features are outlined in the Playback menu.
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Playback Menu
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Erase
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Frame, All Frames
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Red-Eye Removal
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Yes, Cancel
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Image Rotate
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Right, Left, Set, Cancel
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Protect
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Frame, Set All, Reset All
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Copy
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Internal Memory to Card, Card to Internal Memory
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Voice Memo (30 sec)
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Start, Cancel
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Trimming
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Face Trimming, Yes, Cancel
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Setup
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(portal to Setup menu)
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Many recent digital cameras are including red-eye fix features. The Fujifilm F50
fd jumps on the bandwagon with a version that operates in conjunction with the face detection system. There is a problem with this: if the face isn’t initially recognized then the eyes can’t be fixed, either. “Cannot detect” appears on the image when users attempt to activate the feature. After taking a few hundred images, only three of them were marred by red eyes. Unfortunately, the system only recognized one picture as having a face and it didn’t fix the red eyes even after the few-second delay of supposedly fixing the red-eye.
Deleting pictures isn’t the most streamlined process. Users can delete them one at a time or all at once. Most digital cameras allow users to delete batches of pictures at a time, but this camera only allows users to delete them one by one in a laboriously slow process.
If the F-mode button is pushed, another small batch of menu items appears: IR communication, trimming for blog, slide show, and print order. This is where the IrSimple wireless image transfer process begins: the camera can send and receive pictures. The trimming for blog mode allows users to trim pictures and then send them via Ir in the same menu option. The slide shows aren’t very elaborate but allow a few transition effects: normal, normal face detection, fade-in, fade-in face detection, multiple, and IrSS. The print order can be selected with or without the date printed on the pictures, and the order can be reset from here, as well.
Overall, the LCD screen provides users with a nice review of their images. There is a good amount of options to view and manipulate images, though the red-eye removal tool is pretty much useless.
Custom Image Presets (8.0)
The Fujifilm FinePix F50
fd has 16 Scene modes. There are two scenes accessible directly from the mode dial: Natural Light and Natural Light & With Flash. These modes are related, of course. The first disables the flash and increases the ISO to keep illumination and reduce blur. The second fires two pictures, with the first image using the Natural Light mode and the second firing the flash instead. The two images are then displayed next to each other on the LCD screen while the camera saves them (unfortunately this takes way too long).
Besides those two positions on the mode dial, there are two scene positions labeled “SP1” and “SP2.” These allow access to the same list of Scene modes, but by having two positions they save the last mode accessed and therefore two more scene modes are directly accessible from the mode dial.
The following scenes are found in the F-mode menu when a scene position is chosen: Portrait, Portrait Enhancer, Landscape, Sport, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Underwater, Museum, Party, Flower, and Text. When the modes are scrolled through, a brief explanation describes the selected mode, along with a sample picture. For instance, the Sunset mode comes with this explanation: “For shooting sunsets, making colors more vivid.” There is a picture of a sinking orange sun reflecting over a calm body of water.
The Portrait Enhancer mode is a new one to the list. It reduces the appearance of blemishes – useful for everyone’s portraits.
