Fuji FinePix F30

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FinePix F30 Prices

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Model Design / Appearance (7.0)

The Fujifilm FinePix F30 has a more modern look than last year’s F10. It eliminates the slight bump of a hand grip and the protruding wrist strap eyelet. These tiny modifications make a sleeker camera with flatter surfaces. The FinePix F30 is constructed of two panels: the front and top are melded from a single dark silver colored panel and the back side has a more traditional silver color. The front panel is all metal, but the rear is a combination of metal and plastic. Despite its more modern look, the Fuji F30 still doesn’t look incredibly sexy. Its features are traditionally placed and it lacks the thin profile that typifies modern cameras. Still, the Fujifilm FinePix F30 has a modest, sophisticated look that may not draw the likes of Kate Moss but will suit photographers’ tastes well.

 

Size / Portability (6.75)

Measuring only a tenth of an inch shorter than the F10, the FinePix F30 still comes in at 3.6 x 2.2 x 1.1 inches. It’s heavier than it looks: 5.5 oz unloaded and 6.9 oz when the lithium-ion battery and xD-Picture card are in and ready to shoot. The hefty weight won’t break a wrist, but will still make the F30 a good candidate for a paperweight when not photographing. The heavy camera is also thick when compared with competing digital cameras on the market. Most are slim enough to slide into pockets now. The F30 can still fit in the pockets of loose pants, but isn’t emaciated enough to slip into those new summer hot pants.

 

Handling Ability (6.5)

The body design of the new F30 is different from the F10, mainly because of handling changes. The older camera has a small hill that serves as a right hand grip. The new F30 flattens the front panel out and adds a pointed, oval-shaped finger grip. The grip is shiny and slippery, which is ironic. However, it does protrude a tiny bit and makes a small lip where the finger can sit beneath it and not slide upward. The polished grip isn’t as helpful as a bumpy hand grip, but now the camera is flatter and more portable. Fujifilm changed a handling feature on that back too. Instead of a bowl-shaped divot below the zoom toggle like on the F10, the FinePix F30 has seven tiny rubber dots that work well gripping the thumb. Despite these features, the F30 needs two hands to support it while shooting. Users can hold it with one hand, but the camera’s weight will make it tip sideways. Overall, handling is about average for a compact digital camera.

The controls on the F30 and F10 are very similar, but Fuji has made a few changes. On the rear panel, the F30 has a designated exposure compensation button, which manually changes the shutter speed and aperture in the priority modes and adjusts the exposure compensation in all modes. On the top, Fujifilm made some changes too. The F10 has a mode switch surrounding the shutter release button: the new F30 separates these features so that mode dial is by itself. Instead of grooved edges like on most digital cameras, the dial has a small bump that users must pry to turn. The mode dial doesn’t stop at individual modes very well; it is easy to stop in between modes or blow right past the desired mode because of the smoothness of the dial’s rotation. Overall, most of the buttons are properly sized, placed, and spaced, though.

Entering the menu system is easy—a designated button gets you in—and exiting is all too simple. Pushing the shutter release button down is one way to do it; that’s not so obnoxious. What is annoying is entering the menu, pressing the central OK button to make a selection, and then having the menu disappear. Users must re-enter the menu to make more than one selection – or they can make selections by scrolling onto an option and then back to the previous selection. The Fujifilm F30 has a split menu system that puts frequently used settings in the following menu, accessed with the ‘F’ Photo mode button.

 

 

The previous menu is available in all recording modes, though the options are limited to size only in the movie mode and the manual ISO options disappear in the scene modes. This split menu system is typical of Fujifilm FinePix digital cameras and comes with the same block capitals text and listed style. The most options are available in the priority modes, with the “Manual” mode only losing the top option.

 

 

The white balance option is the only one that provides a true live view. The other options are overlaid atop the live view and don’t change settings as they’re scrolled through. The Fujifilm FinePix F30’s setup menu is lengthy, but is organized into three tabs. The first tab, on the left, has an icon of a camera on it.

 

The middle tab has an icon of a wrench and the number “1” next to it.

 

 

The third tab has the following options.

 

 

This third tab is slightly different than the one we looked at on the trade show floor. The pre-production model had a USB Mode option that made users select whether they were connecting to a computer or printer; this option won’t be missed.

 

The playback menu shows up as an overlay on the currently viewed image and shows all the options, except for the portal to the setup menu, on a single screen.

 

 

Overall, the menus are well organized and are intuitive to navigate. However, accidentally exiting the menu system happens way too often. There is a designated Back button, but it acts as more of a Cancel button, because it exits out of menus rather than returning to the previous menu. This is only obnoxious when trying to adjust multiple settings in a single menu session.