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Fuji FinePix F60fd

Digital Camera Review

Oct 28, 2008 - By Steve Morgenstern

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FinePix F60fd Prices

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Size / Portability (7.00)
The F60fd is small but has some heft to it, at 3.6 x 2.3 x 0.9 inches (92.5 x 59.2 x 22.9 mm) and 5.7 oz. (163 g). The depth is pushing the comfort limit if tight jeans are your garb of choice, and the weight makes a noticeable tug on your trousers even in looser pants, though it's not a major burden. A jacket pocket or purse would be the ideal stashing spot for this camera.
 

Handling Ability (7.00)
We found holding the F60fd very comfortable while shooting, for the most part. The design works better in landscape mode, where the reasonably deep top and bottom surfaces and the raised finger rest on the front left made it easy to maintain a firm grasp. Shooting in portrait mode (i.e., holding the camera vertically) felt a bit less secure, but that's not unusual for a compact camera design. Holding the F60fd with the control side up and the screen at the bottom, we tended to either block the screen with the right hand or pivot the right wrist uncomfortably to grip the camera, pincer-like, from above. Having the shutter button closer to the top right edge would have alleviated this problem.
 

The depth of the F60fd helps in holding the camera steady.

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (6.75)
Big screen plus small camera equals a control button challenge. Basically, given roughly 5/8 inch (16 mm) to play with between the right side of the screen and the right side of the camera body, the designers had two choices: require the user to access most of the camera controls through the on-screen menu system, or try to shoehorn in buttons and dials that provide direct access to as many options as possible without a trip to the menu. A glance at the back of the camera confirms that they chose Option 2, which works well, except when it doesn't.
 

That half-inch-wide mode dial at the top right,with its eight minuscule icons, could have been treacherous. Somebody had a brainstorm, though: when you turn the dial, a large graphical representation of it appears on-screen, updating with every distinct click of the gnurled wheel (see below). Extra points for the big, legible text explanations for each of the wheel options. Good thinking, Fujifilm!
 

Smart thinking: show the mode dial movement on the big screen

What should have been the biggest problem, then, turned into the best-designed control on the camera. The teeny-weeny buttons and wee little four-way controller, on the other hand... not so terrific. The buttons click crisply when you press them. In fact, the feel and responsiveness of all the camera controls are consistently first-rate. But given the tiny size of those buttons versus the average human thumb, you'll probably have to resort to thumbnails to get the job done, and that requires a degree of delicacy that's bound to slow you down. The same problem holds for the four-way controller, but since you just have to find an approximate spot on a circular surface to push, we found that easier to manage.
 

As for the top-of-camera controls, we would have moved the shutter to the outside edge of the camera (where the dedicated image stabilization control button currently resides), making it far easier to access the shutter when holding the camera vertically. The image stabilization button could have moved left of the shutter or been reoved entirely -- it's not a setting you're going to change very often, yet here it's occupying prime real estate.
 

Controls are well marked
but very small.

Menu (5.25)
The on-screen display of menus is clear and easy to read, but the organizational structure is a bit peculiar. When you're in Shooting mode or Playback mode, pressing the MENU/OK button in the middle of the four-way controller brings up the relevant menu. The Playback mode menu consistently includes seven items plus the Setup sub-menu, which is the same for both Playback and Shooting modes. The Shooting menu varies widely depending on which shooting mode you've chosen: the most extensive version, for the Shutter-Priority/Aperture-Priority mode, includes five sub-menus plus Setup. On the other hand, press the Menu button in the Natural Light plus Flash mode and only the Setup submenu appears. But wait, there's more, in the form of the F-Mode button,

Press the F-Mode button and a different menu appears, again depending on the current camera mode setting. In Playback, the F-Mode menu offers only slide show and DPOF print order creation. When in a Shooting mode, though, the F-Mode key brings up a four-item menu including Power Management, ISO setting, Quality and FinePix Color. At least this menu is consistent from mode to mode... almost. In  six out of seven of the still photo modes, the F-Mode menu offers the four choices mentioned above, even if the ISO choice is permanently locked to Auto. However, in SR Auto mode (the automatic scene recognition feature), the Power Management choice disappears. Why? Don't ask us, we only work here.

Here, then, is an overview of the menu system. We included the Shooting Mode menu for the Shutter-Priority/Aperture-Priority mode, since it's the most complete. And we've included a separate listing for the Setup Menu, which is identical for both Shooting Mode and Playback Mode.