Fujifilm MX600Z 1.5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

Rating:
Summary: I love it, despite quirks and very slow transfer rate
Review: I bought this camera for Turkey day and have used it a lot over both holidays. I made some user errors at first but now I'm getting great shots consistently. I was a bit disabused to find it cheaper but that's life. Amazon has other advantages such as delivering it to my door the next day even though I only requested standard shipping.

The quality of the images is very good and dramatically superior to regular film cameras in many ways. For example, items in the background don't get overpowered by the flash and foreground items. In an interior shot with flash, you can still see things out the window and in the street, very clearly. Reviewing the images on a computer, you find clear stuff in the background that you didn't even know was there, such as cute expressions on the dog's face, etc.

Once you get the images on your PC, the quality is impressive even with the default jpg compression. Compared to scanned photos, they look at least twice as good, even if you zoom in considerably.

I've only used automatic exposure mode so far, and still gotten great shots. Only about 3 have been blurry. My brother tried the manual mode and liked it too.

Don't bother buying it without a spare flash card, because its included flash card only holds about 10 shots (it's 4Mb). I use a 32Mb card now and seem to have plenty of space on it so far.

Transfer rate to a PC via included cables and software is painfully slow, and it virtually locks up your PC no matter how fast its cpu is. It takes nearly an hour to transfer the whole 32Mb flash card over. During that time you can't even read email. I'm actually here right now on Amazon's pages shopping for a faster way to transfer, such as a flash card reader that uses the floppy drive or USB port. Parallel and serial ports terribly effective. Eyes are often still red. Also, there's a long time between the pre-flash and the final flash. My 9-month son blinks after its first flash, so his eyes are often partially closed during the final flash and exposure.

2. It's too easy to confuse the autofocus feature with taking a shot. If you press lightly, it makes a sound as if it were taking a shot, but it's just autofocusing. I have to remind myself to push again on the shutter, or lose the shot because in fact it's not even taken yet. This is at least partially a user error.

3. The flash recovery time is slow.

4. There's no way to tell how low your battery is until it's almost dead. As a result I tend to charge it whenever I can during family events so it'll be ready for fun. Fuji should include a battery meter in the display.

5. The manual is not very clear on image formats and their respective advantages. There are 3 levels of jpg compression available, but when you drag and drop to you PC there's actually only one in-between level (it's between best and standard - go figure...but actually that's what I would choose anyway). Tiff is poorly explained, and there's no help on Windows versus Unix formats, etc. Not everyone knows about that so the manual should help at least a bit.

Overall it's a great camera and I'd buy it again.

Rating:
Summary: I love it, despite quirks and very slow transfer rate
Review: I bought this camera for Turkey day and have used it a lot over both holidays. I made some user errors at first but now I'm getting great shots consistently. I was a bit disabused to find it cheaper but that's life. Amazon has other advantages such as delivering it to my door the next day even though I only requested standard shipping.

The quality of the images is very good and dramatically superior to regular film cameras in many ways. For example, items in the background don't get overpowered by the flash and foreground items. In an interior shot with flash, you can still see things out the window and in the street, very clearly. Reviewing the images on a computer, you find clear stuff in the background that you didn't even know was there, such as cute expressions on the dog's face, etc.

Once you get the images on your PC, the quality is impressive even with the default jpg compression. Compared to scanned photos, they look at least twice as good, even if you zoom in considerably.

I've only used automatic exposure mode so far, and still gotten great shots. Only about 3 have been blurry. My brother tried the manual mode and liked it too.

Don't bother buying it without a spare flash card, because its included flash card only holds about 10 shots (it's 4Mb). I use a 32Mb card now and seem to have plenty of space on it so far.

Transfer rate to a PC via included cables and software is painfully slow, and it virtually locks up your PC no matter how fast its cpu is. It takes nearly an hour to transfer the whole 32Mb flash card over. During that time you can't even read email. I'm actually here right now on Amazon's pages shopping for a faster way to transfer, such as a flash card reader that uses the floppy drive or USB port. Parallel and serial ports terribly effective. Eyes are often still red. Also, there's a long time between the pre-flash and the final flash. My 9-month son blinks after its first flash, so his eyes are often partially closed during the final flash and exposure.

2. It's too easy to confuse the autofocus feature with taking a shot. If you press lightly, it makes a sound as if it were taking a shot, but it's just autofocusing. I have to remind myself to push again on the shutter, or lose the shot because in fact it's not even taken yet. This is at least partially a user error.

3. The flash recovery time is slow.

4. There's no way to tell how low your battery is until it's almost dead. As a result I tend to charge it whenever I can during family events so it'll be ready for fun. Fuji should include a battery meter in the display.

5. The manual is not very clear on image formats and their respective advantages. There are 3 levels of jpg compression available, but when you drag and drop to you PC there's actually only one in-between level (it's between best and standard - go figure...but actually that's what I would choose anyway). Tiff is poorly explained, and there's no help on Windows versus Unix formats, etc. Not everyone knows about that so the manual should help at least a bit.

Overall it's a great camera and I'd buy it again.

Rating:
Summary: The Next Era In Digital Photography
Review: It wasn't that long ago that you could expect to pay £600 plus for a "cutting edge" digital camera with a gob-smacking 350,000 pixel ccd and images that looked like they'd been taken through the bottom of a jam jar, and as a qualified photographer I backed away from the digital scene to concentrate on 35mm and medium format. Well, I've spent the last year or so trying several cheap to midrange cameras, and Fujifilm seem to have got things pretty much spot on with this one. The control over image compression and the various file size options, coupled with a very accomplished 1.5 million pixel (mega-pixel) ccd mean this camera is able to to produce some incredibly detailed shots. Colours are excellent with no obvious weaknesses on any particular shade, and the exposure seems accurate on just about every shot taken. Neutral colours stay neutral(e.g. skintones) and primaries are vivid, giving a lovely sense of sharpness and contrast. Even up close, the flash performs well, with output metered through a front facing sensor, any tendancies to burn out are very well controlled. Also, the 1.8" LCD screen is clean and sharp, and when the light levels make it unuseable, there's always the optical viewfinder to fall back on. Battery life is very respectable for a camera of this type, and the option to use a mains adapter is always there for shots near a power supply. The smart card is a bit of a letdown at only 4 meg, but at this price something has to give, and I'd rather it was the smartcard size than cutting corners on features or build quality. transfer speeds to the PC are a little slow, but considering the file sizes this is hardly surprising, and it's still a damned sight quicker than sending a film to the lab. I honestly think that with its features, performance and price, this is the start of an era where digital cameras begin to threaten traditional photographic techniques for supremacy, and though they're not there yet, this is a huge step in the right direction. If you want to publish your pictures in a magazine or produce a professional calendar, then buy a Leica, but if you want top notch digital images that rival most cheap to midrange 35mm cameras at a sensible price, then put in your order now while you're here.

Rating:
Summary: The Next Era In Digital Photography
Review: It wasn't that long ago that you could expect to pay £600 plus for a "cutting edge" digital camera with a gob-smacking 350,000 pixel ccd and images that looked like they'd been taken through the bottom of a jam jar, and as a qualified photographer I backed away from the digital scene to concentrate on 35mm and medium format. Well, I've spent the last year or so trying several cheap to midrange cameras, and Fujifilm seem to have got things pretty much spot on with this one. The control over image compression and the various file size options, coupled with a very accomplished 1.5 million pixel (mega-pixel) ccd mean this camera is able to to produce some incredibly detailed shots. Colours are excellent with no obvious weaknesses on any particular shade, and the exposure seems accurate on just about every shot taken. Neutral colours stay neutral(e.g. skintones) and primaries are vivid, giving a lovely sense of sharpness and contrast. Even up close, the flash performs well, with output metered through a front facing sensor, any tendancies to burn out are very well controlled. Also, the 1.8" LCD screen is clean and sharp, and when the light levels make it unuseable, there's always the optical viewfinder to fall back on. Battery life is very respectable for a camera of this type, and the option to use a mains adapter is always there for shots near a power supply. The smart card is a bit of a letdown at only 4 meg, but at this price something has to give, and I'd rather it was the smartcard size than cutting corners on features or build quality. transfer speeds to the PC are a little slow, but considering the file sizes this is hardly surprising, and it's still a damned sight quicker than sending a film to the lab. I honestly think that with its features, performance and price, this is the start of an era where digital cameras begin to threaten traditional photographic techniques for supremacy, and though they're not there yet, this is a huge step in the right direction. If you want to publish your pictures in a magazine or produce a professional calendar, then buy a Leica, but if you want top notch digital images that rival most cheap to midrange 35mm cameras at a sensible price, then put in your order now while you're here.

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy this camera
Review: This is a really good camera. The image quality is excellent: when this camera is set to "Normal" you get the same picture quality as many other camera's "High Quality" setting. You can choose between three quality levels (Basic, Normal, Fine) and two resolutions (640x480 or 1280x1024).

Using the video-output port with the included cable, you can view images or even do a slide show on any television that has a regular input (RCA composite video). Just think, no more slide trays!

The camera comes with a serial cable and software for both Windows and Macintosh, but as for every SmartMedia camera I HIGHLY recommend using an external card reader, which is much faster than any PCMCIA or Floppy adapter. I use a Feiya USB reader/writer and it works seamlessly. The other item I recommend is a 32MB (or at least 16MB) SmartMedia card. The 4MB card that the unit comes with is not practical. At normal quality/high resolution, a 32MB card will store about 100 images. Using a SmartMedia card reader, it is not necessary to install the software that comes with this camera... you can open the JPEG images directly into any application.

Another great thing about the camera is the internal lithium rechargeable battery. A single charge of this battery can last for 100 shots when you use the 1.7" LCD to frame your pictures, or over 500 shots if you use the traditional viewfinder. This battery will save you $$$ compared to other cameras that just eat up Alkaline batteries and pollute the earth.

I have only two issues with this camera, both of which some people might not care about...

1. After you take a picture, it takes 5 seconds to write the image onto the card before you can take another picture. 2. Occasionally, indoors, when you press the shutter release it doesn't take a picture just when you want it to, you might have to let go, move the camera, and then press the button again because the camera doesn't like the exposure/lighting conditions (unless you're using the manual exposure mode, where you can set your own white balance, exposure levels, flash brightness, and aperture depth).

Other features are 3x optical zoom (equivalent to 105mm), additional 2x digital zoom, filter functions (soft focus and 4 cross filters) and an external flash sync. Although this camera costs more than your average digital camera, you get what you pay for... in terms of image quality, features, and ease of use.

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy this camera
Review: This is a really good camera. The image quality is excellent: when this camera is set to "Normal" you get the same picture quality as many other camera's "High Quality" setting. You can choose between three quality levels (Basic, Normal, Fine) and two resolutions (640x480 or 1280x1024).

Using the video-output port with the included cable, you can view images or even do a slide show on any television that has a regular input (RCA composite video). Just think, no more slide trays!

The camera comes with a serial cable and software for both Windows and Macintosh, but as for every SmartMedia camera I HIGHLY recommend using an external card reader, which is much faster than any PCMCIA or Floppy adapter. I use a Feiya USB reader/writer and it works seamlessly. The other item I recommend is a 32MB (or at least 16MB) SmartMedia card. The 4MB card that the unit comes with is not practical. At normal quality/high resolution, a 32MB card will store about 100 images. Using a SmartMedia card reader, it is not necessary to install the software that comes with this camera... you can open the JPEG images directly into any application.

Another great thing about the camera is the internal lithium rechargeable battery. A single charge of this battery can last for 100 shots when you use the 1.7" LCD to frame your pictures, or over 500 shots if you use the traditional viewfinder. This battery will save you $$$ compared to other cameras that just eat up Alkaline batteries and pollute the earth.

I have only two issues with this camera, both of which some people might not care about...

1. After you take a picture, it takes 5 seconds to write the image onto the card before you can take another picture. 2. Occasionally, indoors, when you press the shutter release it doesn't take a picture just when you want it to, you might have to let go, move the camera, and then press the button again because the camera doesn't like the exposure/lighting conditions (unless you're using the manual exposure mode, where you can set your own white balance, exposure levels, flash brightness, and aperture depth).

Other features are 3x optical zoom (equivalent to 105mm), additional 2x digital zoom, filter functions (soft focus and 4 cross filters) and an external flash sync. Although this camera costs more than your average digital camera, you get what you pay for... in terms of image quality, features, and ease of use.

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy this camera
Review: This is a really good camera. The image quality is excellent: when this camera is set to "Normal" you get the same picture quality as many other camera's "High Quality" setting. You can choose between three quality levels (Basic, Normal, Fine) and two resolutions (640x480 or 1280x1024).

Using the video-output port with the included cable, you can view images or even do a slide show on any television that has a regular input (RCA composite video). Just think, no more slide trays!

The camera comes with a serial cable and software for both Windows and Macintosh, but as for every SmartMedia camera I HIGHLY recommend using an external card reader, which is much faster than any PCMCIA or Floppy adapter. I use a Feiya USB reader/writer and it works seamlessly. The other item I recommend is a 32MB (or at least 16MB) SmartMedia card. The 4MB card that the unit comes with is not practical. At normal quality/high resolution, a 32MB card will store about 100 images. Using a SmartMedia card reader, it is not necessary to install the software that comes with this camera... you can open the JPEG images directly into any application.

Another great thing about the camera is the internal lithium rechargeable battery. A single charge of this battery can last for 100 shots when you use the 1.7" LCD to frame your pictures, or over 500 shots if you use the traditional viewfinder. This battery will save you $$$ compared to other cameras that just eat up Alkaline batteries and pollute the earth.

I have only two issues with this camera, both of which some people might not care about...

1. After you take a picture, it takes 5 seconds to write the image onto the card before you can take another picture. 2. Occasionally, indoors, when you press the shutter release it doesn't take a picture just when you want it to, you might have to let go, move the camera, and then press the button again because the camera doesn't like the exposure/lighting conditions (unless you're using the manual exposure mode, where you can set your own white balance, exposure levels, flash brightness, and aperture depth).

Other features are 3x optical zoom (equivalent to 105mm), additional 2x digital zoom, filter functions (soft focus and 4 cross filters) and an external flash sync. Although this camera costs more than your average digital camera, you get what you pay for... in terms of image quality, features, and ease of use.