Fujifilm FinePix F470

Once the camera is in SP mode, the user can press the menu/ok button, which opens the on-screen menu. The shooting mode sub-menu allows users to select from the following; portrait, landscape, sport, night, beach & snow, sunset, museum, party, flower close-up, and text modes. Sub-menu options are displayed as semi-transparent overlays in the center of the LCD, and display the setting symbol within the menu structure while simultaneously listing each mode’s title in a horizontal bar at the top of the screen. While this isn’t the full text description found with digital cameras that have more elaborate preset shooting modes, it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone being confused about when the sunset or night mode would be appropriately used, and the user manual does provide extensive explanations.

Settings like museum mode are great for when photographers are looking to quietly capture photos. The text mode also worked quite well, producing usable results even when capturing at an angle. Modes like flower close-up combine the range of a macro mode with a more saturated image that, while not necessarily accurate, will produce a more vivid palette.

With cameras offering 20 or 30 presets, the modes often become redundant and eventually both impede functionality and confuse the user. The Fujifilm FinePix F470 offers a list of options that consistently work and, while not fully manual, allow customization in numerous situations.

Drive / Burst Mode (6.25)
The continuous shooting mode is available to users when shooting in both automatic and SP modes that include manual mode. The continuous shooting option is listed within the shooting menu that is opened once the menu/ok button is pressed. We clocked the F470’s burst mode at just about 2 frames per second. The camera captured 5 continuous shots at this pace. This is competitive for the price point and camera styling, but is not fast enough to shot action or sporting events.

Playback Mode (5.25)
Pressing the playback button on the back of the camera enters and exits playback mode. The shutter button also exits playback mode, a shortcut which normally saves time.
At times, this was true with the F470, but occasionally the camera seemed to get hung up between modes and actually took longer than it would have if the user had just pressed the playback mode.

When in the playback mode, the initial display is a full screen of the last captured image with an overlay informing users of the image size, ISO setting, exposure compensation level, white balance, and time and date captured. The problem with this is that the information disappears after a couple seconds, and retrieving it involves pressing the disp/back button three times in order to cycle through all possible display options. This is absurd: the information is important and should be accessible without a time limit. Perhaps the lack of a histogram is forgivable on an economic point-and-shoot model, but the disappearing information feature is just pointless and irritating.

The F470 can display images in a number of formats, including single, 9-up, and 12-up. The twelve-up view includes a side bar that allows users to move through photos by day of capture. This can be a helpful shortcut for people who shoot with the same memory card for a number of days without printing or downloading images to PC.

When viewing individual images, the user can engage the zoom controls for playback digital zoom capabilities. With this feature, it is possible to view high resolution images with up to 4.4x digital zoom and use the four-way control to navigate the viewing frame through image. Users can also trim images during review by selecting the trim feature from the playback menu, then making adjustments with the zoom toggle and frame placement through the four-way control. Once the appropriate frame size and position are in place, the user must press the menu/ok button to save this image to memory. This process saves the new image without overwriting the original: users can choose to discard or save either copy at any time. While cropping and zooming with digital zoom will lead to degraded image quality, this feature will allow for some in-camera image tailoring.

Other in-camera options are: erase, image rotation, print order, protect, playback, voice memo, trimming, copy, and setup menu. The playback menu allows users to view photos in a slideshow format in either normal, fade in, multiple, or clock modes. Clock mode displays the time in the upper right corner and nine squares in the upper left corner which change color and pattern with successive images. While we’re not entirely sure why anyone would want or need to use this feature, it does exist.

Movie Mode (6.5)
The movie mode for the Fujifilm FinePix F470 is accessed by turning the mode switch ring that surrounds the shutter button to the movie mode position. When in movie mode, the camera can shoot video files in resolutions of either 640 x 480 or 320 x 240. Both resolution settings can be captured at a frame rate of 30 fps. The resulting footage was both smooth and clear, and should be satisfactory for the point-and-shooter looking for basic video functionality.

Audio recorded in movie mode wasn’t anything to write home about. Audio and video are recorded simultaneously when shooting with the Fujifilm FinePix F470, and the monaural microphone located beneath the lens tended to pick up handling noise when shooting. Monitoring audio is possible when viewing footage in playback mode, thanks to the monaural speaker positioned on the bottom of the camera.

When recording video, the user won’t be able to adjust the focal length of the lens or enter the menu structure. Menus for movie mode are drastically truncated from the options listed during still capture: the menu/ok button will only display a sub-menu for the camera’s overall setup menu, while the F button allows the user to select between two image sizes.