Auto Mode (6.5)
The Z1's Auto mode will probably be its most popular setting, which specifies all the camera settings except for Quality, ISO, and the “Color” option, which can boost saturation. The camera determines aperture and shutter speeds in all modes and produces even exposures. With flash, ISO, and white balance set to auto as well, the camera can take over just about everything. The camera also offers five automated scene modes: Natural Light, Portrait, Landscape, Sport, and Night.
The Z1 turns out well exposed, sharply focused images in Auto mode, though we found that the automatic white balance settings couldn't match our tungsten testing lights. The camera is much better attuned to dim tungsten bulbs in homes.
Custom Image Presets (4.5)
The FinePix Z1 has five custom image presets. The are: Natural Light, which shuts off the flash, automatically selects a white balance, and raises the ISO in dark places; Portrait, which allows the user to set the flash mode; Landscape, which shuts off the flash and saturates colors; Sport, which biases exposure toward faster shutter speeds; and Night, which allows shutter speeds of as long as 4 seconds. Fuji recommends that you rest the camera on something stable when the camera is in Night mode.
Drive / Burst Mode (0.0)
The FinePix Z1 does not offer a separate burst or continuous shooting mode, making it far slower than most similarly-styled cameras. Even among cameras that don't offer a burst mode, it's far slower than most users would like. On the Z1, speed is provided in boot up time and shutter lag, but in terms of consecutive shots, the Z1 is way behind the competition.
Playback Mode (7.0)
The playback mode is accessed from the Playback button located just to the right of the LCD screen. Once in playback mode, users can either watch movies or view images through a variety of methods in addition to manually scrolling through images on the 2.5-inch, 115,000 pixel screen. When viewing images by scrolling through, the camera displays the name, date, time, ISO setting, resolution, exposure compensation, and white balance mode for about two seconds; the option to view images without any information is also available. Users can zoom in on images up to 16x and scroll the zoom box around the image using the navigation dial.
A nine thumbnail view is available by pressing the DISP/BACK button. Similarly, a thumbnail view by date captured is available by pressing the button again. While playing back movies users can pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind clips using the navigation dial. The playback menu also includes these options: Trimming, Automatic Playback, Image Rotate, and Voice Memo, in addition to access to the Setup menu. The voice memo option lets users add up to 30 seconds of audio to each image file. Users can listen to their memos and even adjust the playback volume in the Setup menu. The slide show feature offers a number of controls over fade types and image display duration. Users can choose between long and short display along with long and short fade-ins. A slide show that displays four images on the screen simultaneously is available, as is a slide show that displays the current time, in the upper right corner, and a set of nine blinking squares, in the upper left corner, on top of the image. When the F button, to the right of the Playback button, is pressed in playback mode, it becomes the Print button.
Movie Mode (7.0)
The Z1 has a fairly standard movie mode that records clips up to the capacity of the memory. It offers 30 frames per second recording in two sizes: 640 x 480 and 320 x 240. Zoom can be set before a movie is recorded, but no zoom controls are available during video capture. Color modes aren’t available in movie mode either. The camera focuses relatively well during video capture, as long as subjects are about five feet or more away. The camera records sound, but it picks up sound from nearby subjects much better than sound from those at a distance.
Video recorded with the Z1 can be of any length, up to the capacity of the memory card. While recording, the camera also displays the amount of time remaining that can be recorded onto the available memory. Movie files are saved in AVI file format.
