Fujifilm FinePix F470

Viewfinder
The F470’s elder sibling, the F450 of 2004, had an optical viewfinder with only 78 percent accuracy. While the Fujifilm F470 has improved upon that – it still doesn’t achieve 100 percent accuracy. This digital camera uses the 2.5-inch LCD screen as a viewfinder; the screen displays 97 percent of what is actually recorded to an image file. This slight inaccuracy, as well as the poor screen resolution of 115,000 pixels, impairs the viewfinder’s ability to perform. When users snap photos, the screen blacks out for about a quarter of a second. The viewfinder display can be switched from a pure view to a view with shooting info, or to a view with shooting information and grid lines. Overall, the viewfinder is good enough to look at and capture pictures and movies, though it’s not as competent as we’d like.

LCD Screen
While the slightly raised 2.5-inch LCD screen on the Fujifilm FinePix F470 takes up quite a bit of room, the big screen is easy on the eyes. It does well in bright or dark lighting because of its manual gain-up function that is activated by pushing the top end of the multi-selector. If that’s not enough, there is an LCD Brightness option in the setup menu that lets users adjust the brightness in ten steps. The amorphous polysilicon TFT LCD would have a gorgeous view, except for the fact that its resolution is sub par. It has only 115,000 pixels. Another slight disappointment is the frame coverage; it is only 97 percent accurate. This won’t bother most users, but it will sure annoy the few who like to tightly crop their subjects. The LCD is good enough to view and play back photos, but not good enough to proudly show off the finished product.

Flash
A rectangular flash sits toward the left side of the camera, but it’s not so near the edge that fingers will wander in the way. The Fujifilm FinePix F470’s built-in flash is thick; not one of those skinny flashes that yields a bunch of red eyes.

The following flash modes can be scrolled through with the right side of the multi-selector: Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Slow Synchro, and Red-eye Reduction and Slow Synchro. The red-eye reduction modes fire one pre-flash before the bigger flash; this seems to work quite well. Surprisingly, the tiny flash provided even coverage of the frame despite its placement to the left of the lens. The flash reaches from 2.3-15.1 ft. at the lens’ widest focal length and from 2.3-8.5 ft. in telephoto. In the macro mode, the flash can reach from 1-2.6 ft., but it blows out subjects – especially if they are reflective. Still, this flash range is pretty decent for a compact digital camera. Most flashes on comparable ultra-slim models reach to ten feet at most.

Zoom Lens
The Fujinon 3x optical zoom lens has a focal length of 5.8-17.4mm, which is equivalent to 35-105mm in 35mm terms. The Fujinon lens extends in two segments and has polished silver rims to add some interest to the otherwise plain camera body. This zoom lens is slightly shorter than the F450’s 3.4x optical zoom lens. Still, the F470’s lens has a wide maximum aperture of f/2.8 at its widest focal length. The aperture closes significantly to f/4.9 in telephoto.

The lens isn’t super-high quality. The edges of the frame show that there is some barrel distortion. The zoom control is nice and wide, so even large thumbs can distinguish between the ‘W’ end and the ‘T’ end of the toggle. A bar appears onscreen when the zoom toggle is pushed; it shows approximately where the focal length is at but doesn’t show any numbers like "35 mm" or "1.5x." There are approximately five focal length stops in the zoom range, which is a little disappointing. Most compact models with 3x optical zoom ranges are a little more sensitive and offer 6 stops. The Fujifilm FinePix F470 also has 4.4x digital zoom, but it degrades the picture quality and should be avoided unless users want to blur faces à la Witness Protection Program.