Fujifilm Finepix F50fd

Fujifilm�s describes the Finepix F50fd as "the pinnacle of technology in a compact camera", and there are some high tech features appearing in a Fujifilm F-series for the first time, notably mechanical image stabilization and automatic in camera red eye removal. The camera also features next generation face detection technology and the ability to shoot at up to ISO 6400, albeit at reduced resolutions for 3200 (6MP) and 6400 (3MP) sensitivities.

Other manufacturers have had optical and mechanical stabilization in their products for some time, and automatic red eye removal has also been done before. Shooting at ISO 6400 is pretty much breaking new ground in the compact P&S ranks, going where no compact digital has gone before.

The F50fd also sports a 1/1.6 inch generation VII 12MP Super CCD HR sensor, 25MB of internal memory, a 2.7 inch LCD monitor and a 3x optical zoom lens with a 35-105mm focal length range (35mm film equivalent).

That 105mm telephoto won�t get you "close" to distant subjects, but those files from the 12MP sensor will lend themselves to more aggressive cropping to help take up some of the telephoto shortcomings.

The F50fd provides a mixed bag of auto and manual exposure options. In addition to auto (which is really a "programmed auto" as we�ll discuss a bit later), the camera offers 16 specific shooting modes as well as aperture and shutter priority settings, and what Fujifilm generously describes as "manual".

Fuji�s touts "full manual controls", but when the shutter button drops it turns out that "manual" is actually "an automatic mode to specify the settings except for the shutter speed and aperture setting". Still, the existence of legitimate aperture and shutter priority controls in addition to the suite of automatic modes gives the F50fd versatility above and beyond the typical compact P&S, and should broaden its appeal to potential users.

Fujifilm provides a Li-ion battery and charger, hand strap, owner�s manual, USB and A/V cables, and CD-ROM software with each camera. The camera will accept x-D, SD or SDHC memory cards.

Camera dimensions are 3.6 x 2.3 x .9 inches with the lens retracted, and a shooting weight (battery and memory card installed) of 6.2 ounces.

JPEG still images may be captured in six pixel sizes: 4000 x 3000 (12M), 4224 x 2816 (3:2), 2848 x 2136 (6M), 2048 x 1536 (3M), 1600 x 1200 (2M) and 640 x 480 (.3M). 12MP images may be captured in "fine" or "normal" quality settings; unless stated otherwise, images produced by the F50fd for use in this review were done at the 12MP fine quality setting.

Movies may be captured in AVI format 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 sizes at 25 frames per second. Movies can be recorded to approximately 2GB size, at which point recording will stop. The user can immediately continue recording by pressing the shutter button again. The camera cannot zoom during movie capture.