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Doug Harman is the author of the bestselling Digital Photography Handbook and one of Britain's leading reviewers of digital cameras. Here he picks five of the very best
Click to view Top 5 Digital Cameras.
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Best For Families (Fuji FinePix F30) |
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 An award-winning compact, the Fujifilm FinePix F30 is a real all-rounder. It has great design and superb build, excellent image quality, fast operation and a "world first" of 3200 ISO light-sensitivity at full resolution - ideal in low light. Quite simply, this 6.3-megapixel compact makes a stunning family camera. (Compare Prices) |
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The FinePix F30 won the Technical Image Press Association’s Best Compact Digital Camera in Europe award - the "Oscar" of the photo and imaging industry - and the Digital Imaging Marketing Association’s Innovative Digital Product Award (among other more recent prizes) and it’s easy to see why. The neat handling, design and great specification enhance that “world first” in terms of its high ISO capability.
The camera comes equipped with a nicely designed all-metal body and Fuji’s proprietary imager technology, a 1/1.7-inch sized, 6.3-megapixel Super CCD HR sensor, a a light-sensitive chip for image gathering, that is renowned for its noise-control capabilities ("noise" is when pixels in an image are misinterpreted and appear as random red, green or blue "speckles"). The image processing power of the F30 means it’s fleet of foot in both capture and start-up and it is also a camera of great flexibility thanks to a very sharp 36-108mm, 3x optical zoom lens, and that high-sensitivity performance.
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 The F30 is the first digital compact with an ISO 3200 setting usable at its full resolution, and its sensitivity range includes ISO 100 through 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200, with two additional auto presets of ISO 400 and 1600 for quick settings to help reduce the effects of camera shake.
Fuji has pioneered the low-noise and high-sensitivity approach to reducing camera shake. Rather than using an anti-shake system, the camera uses higher sensitivities to bring otherwise unusable shutter speeds into play, but crucially without the problems of image noise. This camera provides class-leading performance in that respect, making it ideal for indoors and low-light shooting.
Handling is superb thanks to thoughtful placement of the controls and the addition of both shutter and aperture priority modes as well as the “usual” and some not-so-usual shooting modes for this level of camera.
These include a Natural Light mode that can be combined with flash to create two shots (one with and one without flash) each time you press the shutter button - you then pick the best one and delete the other.
You’ll also find 13 other scene modes such as portrait, landscape, and night scene modes for example. There’s a full auto point’n’shoot mode too and the movie mode allows 640 x 480 movies at up to 30 frames per second with sound.
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 Alongside these controls is a large 2.5-inch colour screen, which is one of the best examples of such a screen I’ve used, it’s bright and its anti-reflective coating makes it usable in most lighting conditions.
Overall, image quality is great, the focusing is fast and accurate, the 256-segment "through-the-lens" light-metering works a treat, and the white balance control (which prevents unrealistic colour casts on images) is very accomplished. And the camera adds class-leading battery performance to the mix as well.
In short, the F30 provides an almost perfect balance of control and automation, sensitivity without noise problems and high image quality yet it retains ease of use and pocketability; the F30 really does provide a remarkable performance that’s ideal for any family.
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Good For Beginner And Pro |
Reviewers of this camera have raved about it. DP Review’s Simon Joinson writes: “The F30 is far and away the best low-light compact camera on the market today, bar none. It's the perfect 'social' camera capable of superb results. Highly Recommended”.
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 What Digital Camera magazine’s reviewer wrote of the F30: “A great camera with few bad habits - great images, fast, hi-res screen.”
The website Photoxels notes in its review of the F30: “The Fuji FinePix F30 is a beautifully crafted digital camera with low-light capability that most closely matches that of a digital SLR. Beginners, as well as seasoned pros, will find it a compact take-anywhere digital camera that is fast and responsive - and be impressed by its excellent image quality…” (Compare Prices) |
Minor Omissions |
There are some minor specification omissions; serious amateurs and professionals might lament, for example, the fact that there's no RAW capture (for unprocessed image data) and that it lacks a histogram display (an analysis tool used when manipulating images). There is no optical viewfinder either (though its large screen is a cracker), which may deter some, but the power consumption control is so good any worries over the battery failing are groundless.
In terms of image quality, there’s some detail loss at the highest ISO settings from noise reduction processing but otherwise, this camera shoots images at ISO 800 other cameras would be proud of at ISO 200. (Compare Prices) |
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For an explanation of technical photographic terms click here
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