Digital Camera Review

Digital Camera 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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Front
The Fujifilm FinePix V10 is very square-shaped and constructed of two different colors of silver metal. The main face plate on the front is a dark brushed silver. The framing plate is a lighter silver and the lens rims are a nicely polished silver. The 3.4x optical zoom lens is off-center to the right side. The labeled Fujinon lens extends outward in 3 segments. In the top right corner is the Fujifilm logo. The top left corner is a little folded backward and there is a self-timer lamp on that sloped surface. To the right of the LED on the flatter portion of the front is the built-in rectangular flash. Along the left side of the front is the FinePix logo, which is vertically printed. Below the left side of the lens barrel is the built-in microphone. To the right of this feature is a Super CCD logo and the words, “5.1 Mega” to indicate the number of pixels available on that CCD.

Back
The 3-inch LCD screen takes up a huge portion of the back. There is a single row of buttons and controls that are lined up horizontally along the bottom edge of the digital camera. The Fujifilm V10 has a navigational control in the center of the bottom and is flanked by two oval-shaped buttons on each side. On the left side is a playback button with a tiny LED on its left. To the right of the playback button is a button with sun and trash can icons on it; this is used to delete photos in playback and to brighten the LCD screen in the recording mode. The navigational control is to the right of this feature. It consists of three buttons: a wide rectangle in the center that can be pushed up and down and a small half-oval-shaped button on each side for scrolling left and right. There are icons printed next to each button. The left side of the navigational control also accesses the macro mode. The middle button accesses the self-timer and the button on the right changes the flash modes. To the right of the flash button is the Menu/OK button and to its right is the Display/Back button. The LCD screen is flush with the rest of the camera body, making it extremely flat.

Left Side
The left side is almost featureless. At its bottom is a small, square rubber cover that hides the socket for the power adaptor.

Right Side
The right side of this FinePix has a mode switch at the top and a large eyelet in its middle. Below the eyelet is a rubber cover over the AV/USB jack.

Top
The top of the Fujifilm FinePix V10 has a few features on its right end. The shutter release button is on the far right. It is a smooth inverted bowl-shape surrounded by a zoom toggle that moves side to side with a tab at its front. To the left of the shutter button is the small power button, which is recessed slightly in the camera body. To its left is a button labeled ‘F’ for the Fujifilm Photo Mode; this accesses the image size, ISO, and color mode options.

Bottom
The bottom of the camera has a door to the battery and memory card compartment on its left, a tripod socket in the middle, and a speaker on the right.

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