Fujifilm FinePix V10

I had previously a Nikon L3 5 megapixels camera and I was VERY disappointed (please see my other review about this camera) so I gave it away. Then I did an extensive research about what 5 megapixels camera I should buy. Read a lot and checked a lot of websites.

And the result was that I was very close in buying the much bigger and expensive digital cameras (even I just wanted a point-and-shoot), because I wanted:

- a great shutter speed, so I can capture our 3 years old daughter without telling her “do this again, I just missed it”
- very good quality pictures, without the need for me to manually alter the pictures, one by one, in the professional picture software package I have. Too much hassle.
- Quality flash, so I can get a good picture inside and in low light in a normal room

Almost exhausting the models I looked upon, I just seen this Fuji Finepix V10. How I got to look at it? I said, “let’s see the top sellers in photography on amazon.com” and I have seen it, it was in the 7th place and the only 5 megapixels camera in top 10, all the others were 6,7 or 8 megapixels. But I really don’t need more than 5 megapixels. You can print an A4 size picture at a very high quality for photos taken with a 5 megapixels. Why do you need more ?

After reading the reviews about it, I decided, “that’s the one”. And at 140 USD in US it was just a bargain, so I bought it when I have been to US last month and paid 70 quid on it (hey, 2$ for 1£ is not bad !)

The camera did not disappoint me at all in a month. I have taken 125 pictures and just yesterday I actually recharged it. All the pictures are great, including the one indoor and in low light. I was literally amazed that, left on Auto mode, the camera does NOT use the flash in some indoor pictures and the result is absolutely great. This is because the camera can shot pictures up to ISO 1600 due to its revolutionary “Real Photo Technology” from Fuji.

First of all, the main features are:

- 5 megapixels
- Real Photo Technology, that reduces the “noise” of the pictures and gets more real colors
- 3.4x optical zoom lens
- Metal alloy body - this is a nice feel when you use the camera
- Built-in flash with a maximum range of 4 metres – this is much, much better than my previous Nikon L3, it really lights the room.
- Movie Mode @ 640x480, 30 fps (frame per second) with sound in .AVI format – that makes playing it quite nicely, as .AVI is recognized by default by Windows
- Large 3.0" LCD color monitor with Gain-up functionality – this is the biggest LCD screen of all the super-compact point-and-shoot cameras and the Gain-up functionality literally increases the brightness of the LCD in environments that are dimly lit
- Six scenes modes
- 1.3 seconds boot-up time from turned-off – this is very quick, it really rivals the much more expensive semi-professional cameras
- Real Photo Technology – I already explained that above
- Fast shutter speed – this really prevents the blur in low light
- High-Speed shooting mode
- xD card – comes with 16MB card, this is nowhere near enough for a 5 megapixels camera, you should buy a 1 GB card, I got an original Fuji one on ebay for £10.50 delivered.
- Rechargeable Li-Ion battery – as I said, I took 125 pictures between recharging it
- USB 2 connectivity and PictBridge enabled (you can print straight from the camera to PictBridge compatible printers)
- 4 Games (!!) - Number Puzzle, Break Out, Shooting Game and Maze – fun and you can use them when traveling and want to “kill some time”

What I also noticed is that the camera has a "Natural Light & With Flash" function. This way, you can shoot two images in succession, first without and the second with flash. This provides you with an on-the-spot comparison that helps decide whether the camera will produce the highest quality photo with flash or without. I used this functionality at a party and actually the better, more natural picture was the one without flash

You don’t have an optical viewfinder, but only the huge 3” LCD, but that’s not a problem at all, the LCD has 100% frame coverage. It is just a pleasure using it, the images looks crisp and is like you are watching a mini-TV

All the controls are at the bottom of this huge LCD and pretty easy to use.

What I liked about the camera (among other things) is that it has an F button on top, that allows you to modify the picture resolution and manually adjust the ISO, without the need to go through the menu.

The movie quality is just brilliant at 640x480 resolution and 30 frames per second, the sound is superb and clear and is not affected by external sounds (like wind blowing mildly)

The camera allows you to manually modify the exposure compensation and the white balance, but I just left it on Auto and I did not need to modify them so far.

Another good thing is that the camera allows you to search the pictures stored on the camera by date, rather by the order – this is quite useful when having few hundred pictures. And you can add a Voice Memo of up to 30 seconds to each picture stored. And you can rotate the picture in the camera. You can even trim an image and save it at a different (lower resolution) than the one you used when taking the picture.

The quality of the pictures is absolutely great, I printed the other day an A4 picture taken with this and compared with the one I printed when bought my previous Nikon L3. Is like the difference between a Rover and a BMW ...

When taking pictures, the camera allows you to get one after the other with 1.5 seconds difference when not using the flash and about 4 seconds difference when using the flash, which is very, very good performance.

The camera is an excellent super-compact and by far the best I ever had (this is my fourth digital camera, after 1 Canon and 2 Nikon). If you are after such a camera, there is nothing out there better in this price range. It is ideal for the beginner photographer, but also has functionalities that would allow a more experienced one to adjust the pictures after ones own desire.