Fujifilm Finepix F200EXR Digital Camera – Black 3 inch LCD

D. KNIGHT

at 7:13 am

This is the camera that the vast majority of us have been waiting for, in a sensible package it crams a high resolution advanced sensor with some extra tricks up its sleeve, a respectable 5x zoom lens, a shorter than average wide angle start point and last but not least a fully automatic mode that seems to do what it should……..take the best possible picture in the circumstances.

It is the Extended Range Function that makes this camera what it is.

In normal to good lighting conditions it functions as a conventional 12mp camera.

However should the lighting conditions have a large difference between light and dark, then the camera shifts into the Extended range function. The 12mp sensor is now split into two 6mp sensors, one taking a slighty overexposed image and the other to take a slighty underexposed image. These are then combined to make one 6mp picture but with all the detail in both the dark and light sections of the image (and by god it works).

Should the lighting conditions be very poor and/or there is a risk of picture shake. It will shift to its high ISO – Low noise mode. Again it splits the sensor into two 6mp sensors and takes identical exposures and then combines the two images, cancelling out the majority of noise artifacts from such a high ISO setting. The high ISO also allows for a faster shutter speed and therefor less shake. This function can also allow you to take pictures without flash for a more natural balance or where flash is prohibited.

A small point to note that these last two functions result in 6mp image output from the camera, so excessive cropping/zooming/large print size could result in a slightly lower picture quality than expected.

The camera can be forced into using either of the two functions described above or can be switched off to function as a normal 12mp camera all the time (plus all the other usual modes).

Also to note is that battery life is awful in the EXR mode, as all the processing functions are fully active all the time including constant focusing

The 28mm start point on the lens helps, you know when your stood in the corner of a room trying to get as much in as you can. This camera (like any other with a similar start point) just gets so much more in the frame than those with the classic 35mm start point.

The zoom is also a revelation, whilst limited to a 5x limit it has lots of steps (15!) through its range. So its never a case of to close or not close enough.

Could go on for ages its brill….

Remeber plenty of memory (especially if you are going to use fujis amazing video mode, so much better than the rest at 30fps). A spare battery or two…… they dont last long. Watch out on the replacement front have seen some very low capacity batteries marked as high capacity (look for at least 900 – 1000 mha, have seen one as high as 1200mha which should help). The battery is not unique to fuji, i have a Kodak Klic 7004 battery (equivalent by Uniross 1000mha £11) that works fine.

Any niggles ..well yes i find that i keep jogging the function dial, but thats probably me just being clumsy when i get it out the case.

Buy and enjoy… you never knew you where that good at taking pictures!

N.B. I have noticed alot of people complaining about noisy pictures at iso 1600 setting. This (and iso 3200) is available at full 12mp resolution and will be noisy. Switch to EXR High/Low noise mode – problem solved.
Rating: 5 / 5

N. Sexton

at 9:48 am

Originally I was looking for a video camera that could take pictures, but since I would be mostly taking pictures I came to the conclusion that what i really needed was a digital camera with good picture quality that could also take video. The FujiFilm F200EXR certainly provides excellent picture modes for my simple point and click requirements and the video quality is almost as good as my last video camera.

Although this camera was more than I had originaly wanted to pay, I was more than happy with the end results. It was also very recently confirmed as best buy on the gadget show, which just confirms to me its capability.

The only downsides that I have so far with it, is that when shooting video by turning the camer 90 degress (to make the picture taller) there isn’t the option to turn the video back around the right way when viewing it later (either on the camera or PC). I suspect I will need to buy speacialist software to do this.

Also the Fuji Finepix PC software (to manage your photo collection and camera downloads) didn’t seem to want to work with my PC (Windows Vista, with all the latest patches on), so I had to resort to manually bringing accross camera video/pictures myself and then deleting the images (this seemed to be a general issue with the software if you look at all of the google items relating to others users comments). This wasn’t an issue or me, since I am quite capable on the PC, but for others this might be enough to discourage them.

Zoom on the video once it had started would have been nice, but I can live without it since taking pictures was the main purpose of it.

As with other reviewers comments, I would agree that a second battery is a must, especially since you need to remove the battery from the camera to charge it.
Rating: 5 / 5

Great Expectations

at 12:39 pm

I previously owned a Fuji F31Fd, a camera renowned for its low light ability. The F200EXR is better than that camera in that regard. It is pocketable, snappy to focus, and takes great images. The EXR function appears to work well 75% of the time, to choose the best mode. Only slight negatives are the limited manual controls (which are buried in the menus), and not brilliant video, and the battery life which is not as good as the 31Fd. I thought about the Canon G10, but this camera has far better noise levels at high ISO, and is much smaller (though doesn’t have an optical viewfinder).
Rating: 5 / 5