Fujifilm FinePix F60fd

Noise
Image noise is the annoying visual snap, crackle and pop that afflicts digital photographs, most notably in areas of flat color and when lights are low. For snapshot-sized prints, image noise is rarely a major factor. Start moving up to 5x7s and above, taking a small area of a shot and blowing it up, or applying image editing software functions, though, and those minute imperfections can become significant distractions.

We test for noise by shooting a well-lit color chart at each avaialble ISO setting and analyzing the results using Imatest software.
 

Noise – Manual ISO (5.38)
The F60fd starts out at a reasonable noise level of a compact camera when shooting at ISO 100, but noise rises rapidly, becoming obtrusive as you reach ISO 800 and an eyesore at the top ISO 1600 setting.
 

As shown below, there's a positive chasm between the top performers and the also-rans in our noise testing, with the F60fd firmly in the latter group.

 

Auto Noise (0.78)
This one is frankly less a test of noise performance than digital smarts. We set the camera to Auto ISO, allowing it to choose the appropriate level of light sensitivity, and test the resulting image for noise. Since lower ISO settings inevitably lead to lower image noise, we hope to see the camera set itself at ISO 100 or 200, which works well for our 1700 lux illumination. What we find on many compact cameras, though, is that the manufacturer chooses a substantially higher ISO, presumably to accommodate shooters with shaky hands who'll benefit from the higher shutter speed you get with a higher ISO. The F60fd, in fact, chose to shoot at an astronomical ISO 800, and had already proven itself a noise-prone camera at that setting. Hence the abysmal result in this category.
 

Low Light (5.31)
Flash photography does more than call attention to the photographer (a quick buzzkill when taking candids at a party);  it also changes the look of a scene radically, with harsh shadows and an entirely different color palette compared to available-light shots. This is especially true with compact cameras whose built-in flash doesn't allow the option to bounce light off walls or ceilings to soften the effect. To see how flash-free photography fares for each camera, we test low-light color and noise characteristics in two different ways.

First we shoot a color test chart at four levels of illumination, from 60 lux (about what you'd find in an average household room) down to 5 lux (roughly the light thrown off by a single candle), at a high ISO 1600 setting. The resulting images are then analyzed for color and noise using Imatest software.

 

Color accuracy is so-so here, but image noise is a major problem. with over 3 percent noise at even the brightest lighting level.
 

Next we test each camera for its long-exposure performance -- or at least we try to test them. While the F60fd has more manual controls than a lot of other compact cameras we've seen, it's still stingy when it comes to long shutter speeds, topping out at just 1 second in regular shooting modes, where our standard test procedure calls for exposures running from 1 second to 30 seconds. We experimented with two specialty shooting modes that allow longer exposures, Fireworks and Night, but Fireworks sets focus to infinity, and Night opens the shutter all the way no matter what the lighting, leading to overexposed test images. In the end, our 1-second exposure produced an image that follows the F60fd pattern: noisier than desirable, with adequate color accuracy, and we scored it accordingly.
 

The F60fd performed reasonably well overall in the low light category, with its decent color reproduction performance counterbalancing lackluster image noise results.
 

Fujifilm F60fd Low Light Scores

Still Life
For each review, we shoot two still life images at every available ISO level, to provide an indication of the effect of escalating light sensitivity settings on image quality, and to allow cross-comparision between camera models. These shots are taken  using the camera's automatic exposure settings, under fluorescent lighting. Clicking on the thumbnails below will bring up their full-resolution counterparts, but  be aware that 12-megapixel images can take a while to download.

Video Performance (3.84)
In our never-ending quest to enable our readers to post better-looking YouTube clips of their drunken friends embarrassing themselves,  we test the video function of digital cameras in several ways, assessing their color accuracy, image noise and motion smoothness. For starters, that involves shooting a color test chart, both brightly lit to 3000 lux and dimly lit to 30 lux, grabbing frames from the resulting video and testing them for color and noise. The F60fd offers both 640x480 and 320x240 video resolutions, both at 25 frames per second. As is our custom, we stuck with the higher-resolution setting for our tests.