Once I got my Fuji FinePix F450, I was immediately stunned by its compact size and nice looks. The camera is very small and well-made, yet sports 5.2-Megapixel resolution and 2-inch LCD screen. Unfortunately, the performance is not all there.

Pictures

The pictures of the Fuji FinePix F450 as well as sample photos I took using it are available at the address below:

Click here to see the sample photos I took with this Fuji F450 camera and photos of the camera

What Is Fuji FinePix F450?

The Fuji FinePix F450 is a compact 5.2-Megapixel digital camera with a 3.4x optical zoom lens (38-130 mm equivalent), 2-inch LCD screen, optical viewfinder, powered by a supplied rechargeable lithium battery.

The camera stores images on an xD-Picture memory card (16 MB card supplied) and uses a PictureCradle to charge the battery and connect the camera to your computer using USB.

Getting Started

The camera comes with a PictureCradle, which you use for connecting it to your computer and to the AC power outlet. I attached the supplied USB cable to the cradle and to my computer. I also attached the supplied power adaptor to an AC power outlet and to the cradle. Then I inserted the battery and the memory card in the camera and placed it on the cradle to charge.

About an hour later, the battery was fully charged and I was able to start using the camera. The camera is miniature, yet has a good LCD and well-located controls.

The Camera

The camera is very small and can fit even in a shirt pocket. The F450 is mostly made of metal with some plastic elements. It seems to be very well made. The camera has good, solid feel and its controls are well-located, with one significant exception. Just as on Fuji FinePix A345, the zoom control is an unusual one. It is a little joystick-like control that can be twisted/shifted up or down. You push it up to zoom in or down to zoom out. You also use it to control menus (to move up or down within them).

The zoom control is flanked by a macro mode button on the right and flash mode adjustment button on the left. There are three other buttons on the back of the camera: F button (controls resolution, ISO and color mode), MENU/OK and DISP/BACK.

The front of the camera has a little panel that you can move aside to turn the camera on or off. The panel does not cover the lens, but the lens has a lid that opens automatically. I like this system.

Usage

I have not read the manual but was able to operate the camera and all its functions easily. The problem with the camera's menus is that you have to use the zoom control to navigate them as the proper menu control buttons were removed to reduce size, weight and costs. So you have to use the zoom control to move up or down and the buttons on the left or right of it (macro and flash mode control) to move left and right. It feels pretty awkward.

The menus are easy since the camera does not have much manual control, but they are awkward to navigate. Not only you have to use the zoom control, but the MENU/OK and DISP/BACK buttons are poorly located. In general, the menus and menu controls are much better implemented in Panasonic, Kodak, Canon or Olympus cameras.

The camera has no dedicated DELETE button. If you want to delete a picture, you have to use the MENU button and then select Delete or Delete All. I find it annoying.

Aside from that, the shooting is rather easy. You point the camera where you want, position the center of the viewfinder or LCD screen (it has a clearly-marked focusing area in the center) where you want the camera to focus, push the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus, then (if you want) recompose the image and press the shutter release button all the way to take a picture. The picture then is displayed on the screen so you can confirm that it looks like what you intended.

The camera has a full automatic mode, where you just point and shoot. There are also scene modes like Portrait, Landscape and others.

The camera lets you adjust sensitivity (Auto or ISO 80-400), white balance (Auto, Manual, Incandescent, Fluorescent Day/Warm/Cool, Fine, Shade) and has exposure compensation in so-called manual mode that lets you make your pictures brighter or darker.

LCD

The camera has a 2-inch LCD screen that has good resolution, is fluid and works well in the dim lighting (gains-up). There is also an optical zooming viewfinder.

Some Specifications

The camera has 5.2-Megapixel resolution, 3.4x optical zoom (38-130 mm equivalent, f/2.8-f/4.9 maximum aperture). The image sizes available are 2592x1944, 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1280x960 and 640x480. The F450 lets you select between normal or fine JPEG compression for its highest resolution setting.

The shutter speed range is 2-1/2,000 sec.

PictureCradle

I found the PictureCradle stable, convenient and nice-looking. It has a switch between USB and PLAY (review) modes. It has a large Power button, which lets you turn the camera on for USB file transfer in USB mode or to review your pictures on the camera in PLAY mode.

The cradle has a plastic tripod mount as does the camera itself.

Computer Connectivity

Despite the warning supplied with the USB cable that stated I should not use the cable until I install the software that came with it, I attempted to because I know that Windows 2000 SP4 that I am running normally works well with digital cameras with no need for additional software. It worked.

The file transfer was average at about 500 KB/sec. I took pictures at full 5.2MP resolution in Normal mode and the files were about 1.3 MB each. Figure 2-3 seconds per picture.

Performance

The camera takes between 2 and 4 seconds to power up. Strangely, if you have not used it for a while, the power-up takes about a second or two longer that if you recently turned it off (4 seconds versus 2 seconds). The shutdown is fast at about 1 second.

The camera can take pictures at about 3-second intervals (with or without flash). The 3-second flash recycle time is fast! The focusing is pretty quick and happens in under a second, but the camera sometimes fails to focus in low light at all. It has no focus-assist light either.

Overall, the camera has good performance for its size and price.

Image Quality

Among the most important things in a digital camera is the picture quality. And here, the F450 slightly disappointed me. Although the 5.2-Megapixel number sounds impressive and should, in theory, let you print big enlargements, the end result was not as good.

The images (see the sample below) do not have the sharpness you can expect from a 5MP class camera, even at the lowest ISO of 80. If you enlarge them on the computer screen pixel-per-pixel, you will see that the edges of objects are a little blurry. In the pictures I took, the yellow fire hydrant looks like somebody painted it with yellow paint that moved beyond the edges of the hydrant itself. This is the same phenomenon I saw in Fuji FinePix A345 and Fuji A350.

Sample: Wide angle, standard color mode - 5MP (click for full-size image)

The lack of edge sharpness is not significant and will only be noticeable on large prints (e.g. 13x19).

Aside from it, the photos have good color, pleasing saturation and contrast. The bottom line here is: do not expect the 5MP-class resolution from this camera and do not expect to be able to make sharp large prints. I would say that 10x8 inches is the highest I would go to get sharp printout.

Noise

The camera produces some noise, even at ISO 80, but it is largely invisible at ISO 80 with print 10x8 or smaller. The noise grows with higher ISOs and gets very pronounced at ISO 400 and the detail level suffers too. I would only recommend ISO 400 for 6x4 prints or, better yet, not at all.

Battery Life

The proprietary rechargeable Li-Ion battery is rather compact. I have not measured how many pictures I can take on one charge, but I have taken about 60 pictures (some with flash) and the battery display still shows full battery.

Bottom Line

The Fuji FinePix F450 is a compact, stylish and inexpensive camera. It is well-built and has good feature set. If you do not intend to print anything larger than 10x8 inches, this camera is an excellent choice. But if you are going to mostly use it indoors in dim light, you might want to get a camera that focuses better in the dark, e.g. Canon SD300 or Canon SD400.

Recommended
Yes

Product Rating
(Above Average)

This review is also available at Epinions.com: Fuji FinePix F450 5.2-Megapixel Digital Camera Review on Epinions.com

My Reviews of Other Digital Cameras