Digital Camera Review

First Impressions Review

Jan 07, 2006 - By Emily Raymond
At a time when multiple consumer electronics are being converged into single devices Fujifilm announced the FinePix V10, a digital camera that has many of the same imaging guts of the Fujifilm F10 but adds a video game feature. The V10 has a 1/2.5-inch, 5.1-megapixel Super CCD – the same type of 5th generation sensor in the F10. The Fujifilm FinePix F10 was released last year and turned in some excellent test scores – beautiful color, hardly any noise, fast startup and burst times – but came in a fairly unattractive package. The V10 fixes that problem. It comes in a durable metal housing with a 3.4x optical zoom lens that extends from the camera body. The back of the compact model is completely dominated by a large 3-inch LCD screen that has 230,000 pixels. The Fujifilm FinePix V10 will begin shipping in March for a retail price of $349.
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Manual Control Options
There aren’t too many manual control options despite the Manual Mode listed in the shooting modes. There is an ISO option in the ‘F’ Photo mode. Users can choose white balance presets, but there is no true manual mode. Users can also select the auto focus mode. The traditional shutter speed and aperture settings are not manually controllable on the Fujifilm FinePix V10. This digital camera is automatically oriented for those point-and-shoot users.

Focus
Auto Focus 
The auto focus mode is selectable in the menu between Multi AF and Center AF options. The Center AF remains just where it says it does, but the Multi AF seems to favor the center as well. Yellow brackets indicate where the camera is currently focused. The V10’s focus ranges from 2 feet to infinity in the normal mode and from much closer in the macro mode. In the wide angle of the macro mode, the camera focuses from 3.5 inches to 2.6 feet. The telephoto macro mode focuses from 1.3 to 2.6 feet. Overall, the auto focus worked quite well, especially in the movie mode. The V10 did have a hard time focusing in low contrast situations, but did fine otherwise.

Manual Focus 
The Fujifilm FinePix V10 does not have manual focus.

ISO
Fujifilm highly markets the low light capabilities of the V10 because it is able to perform well without use of the flash; this is due in large part to the high ISO sensitivities. The V10’s ISO settings are the following: Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600. Most compact models have a 50-400 range, so to see two higher sensitivities is a nice upgrade. Higher ISOs normally bring more noise. And while this camera’s ISO 1600 probably has more than the ISO 64, its ISO 1600 noise is probably still considerably less than competing cameras’ equivalent ISOs. We can’t test the noise output of the Fujifilm V10 at the convention center, but because it has the same Super CCD-HR technology that the Fujifilm FinePix F10 has (we did test this one for noise output and it did very well) we can speculate that the V10 will also do well. Stay tuned for a full review when the camera comes out in March, but we expect good things from the V10.

White Balance
The white balance presets are found in the shooting menu. Auto, Fine (daylight), Shade, Fluorescent Daylight, Fluorescent Warm White, Fluorescent Cool White, and Incandescent options are available. Scrolling through the options yields a live view behind the menu; this is handy in selecting the proper setting. This camera wasn’t made for studio lighting because it doesn’t have a Tungsten light setting. The most missed mode will be the manual mode though.

Exposure
There are six scene modes, a manual mode, an automatic mode, and a movie mode. The shutter speed and aperture are automatically controlled, but there is exposure compensation that can be tweaked +/- 2 exposure values in the typical 1/3 increments. There is a live view as users scroll up and down the exposure values.

Metering
The Fujifilm FinePix V10 employs a 256-zone metering mode that cannot be changed. There are no center-weighted or spot modes, so backlit subjects will look darkened. If shooting in extremely high contrast, pictures may take a turn for the worse. The camera meters in those 256 points and adjusts the frame accordingly, which isn’t always good for every part of the picture.

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed ranges from 4 seconds to 1/2000th of a second, although it cannot be manually adjusted. Users can choose the shooting mode, which has some indirect control over choosing the shutter speed. The Sport scene mode certainly uses faster shutter speeds than the Landscape or Night modes. Overall, the camera must choose appropriate shutter speeds because it stopped action quite well. When taking pictures of people walking by, some of the legs were slightly blurred but most of the picture was quite crisp. So while the V10 won’t produce magazine-quality action shots, it will stop most of the action which is better than most compacts.

Aperture
The Fujinon 3.4x optical zoom lens ha a maximum aperture of f/2.8 when it is at its widest focal length. This is excellent, as it allows a lot of light through the lens to hit the imaging sensor. The aperture closes considerably when in telephoto though. The maximum aperture there is f/5.5. The aperture cannot be controlled manually.

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