Customer Reviews

Fujifilm FinePix A101 1.3MP Digital Camera

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this camera. It worth every penny!
If you're like me, you don't want to spend more than $500( or even $300) to buy a close to perfect camera. But the quality should be good. Then this is it! Why? (1) You don't see a lot camera below $200 come with flashlight, do you? (2) It's 1.3M Pixels CCD. That means you can print 5x10 pictures. (3) PC Camera feature. (4) Compact size, easy to use.
Of courese, it has some room to improve: (1) It's a battery-eating monster! Buy a lot of batteries or buy rechargebale batteries. (2) No optical zoom.(what do you expect for less $200?) (3) 8M smartcard is not enough. I've upgraded it to 64M from amazon.com for $29.(4) If it has built-in microphone would be convenient while using pc camera feature.
I suggest you can do some research and compare it with other cameras in this price range. It would surprise you.
(ps. if you want a little better quality, it has a sister product A201 which is about $60 more but 2.1M Pixels.)

Very well designed, full feature, really small digital camera at a very low price. 1.3 megapixels great for computer display and good for regular sized printed photos. Has many many high end features. Uses cheap AA batteries (not long lived, however). Available ac converter. Requires USB (with windows 98, 2000 or ME) computer to download to PC. Exceptionally easy to use. Has close-up macro facility (can take photos of regular text on a page). Bottom line - a really well-designed digital camera

This camera seems to have it all for a sub-200 model! Although I am not a novice digital photographer, I am not a professional -- nor do I want to be. I wanted a camera that would take nice pictures of friends, family and the occasional scenery shot that could be printed out or uploaded. The Fujifilm 1.3 does this well, and prints very nice photos at photo size (I do 4x6, 5x7).

The selling points (besides the price) are as follows: 1) its very small -- making it easy to take with you in a pocket, 2) it works on both my Mac OS X and Win 98/ME PC via USB -- essentially plug-n-play, 3) it takes great daylight pictures, 4) it doesn't eat batteries if you don't use the display mode -- ie: operating it like a normal camera using a viewfinder. I have not filled up the 8 MB card that came with the camera yet, although I haven't tried very hard (maybe a max of 20 photos on fine resolution in a sitting). Because I download to a laptop, I don't really need to spend additional money for a bigger card. I've also dropped it a few times, without affecting performance, so its a pretty sturdy little camera.

The only issue I have with the camera is that there is a learning curve for most of the features that may cause you to lose good photo opportunities at first. You have to read the manual to know how the display works, and how to set the camera for different sorts of lighting schemes. I blurred a few photos because I didn't realize the macro switch had turned on while it was in my bag, and didn't discover this until later when I downloaded them. I haven't quite mastered the various flash settings and took a low-light, indoor shot from about 8 feet away that isn't great. If I were to put some time in learning the display functions, rather that setting it on "auto" and using the viewfinder all the time, I might become quicker at changing the settings for different lighting situations. As it is now, the camera is fine for my uses, and I can usually brighten the "mistakes" in Photoshop.

This is a great consumer grade camera. I have 2 SLRs, and 2 Nikon/Olympus One Shot cameras and for quick snaps, and sending pictures online - i'm hooked.

The 1.3MPix will fill a 1024x768 screen with sharp graphics. So far this camera's color accuracy amazes me. It is pocket sized, simple to use, and the price is tuff to beat. Most of my shooting is outdoors and it works well in a variety of lighting conditions - i usually shoot people with the flash.

The finepix PC software is basic. If you don't like it just plug in the Camera's USB port, and open the USB Device in Windows Explorer and use what ever you want. Buy rechargable batteries, you can maybe get 60 or so snaps with disposable's included.

In my opinion the next logical upgrade above this camera would be an optical zoom, and 2-3 MPix.

This is actually my first digital camera, but based on all of its features, I would say that I won't be buying another one for a long time. And, for under $200, it is probably the best camera out there. Webcam feature is fun & easy to use, movie mode is nice, and it takes crystal clear pictures, with different flash modes, self-timer to allow you to get in the shot, and easy USB connection to PC/Mac. The only thing I would suggest is to get some rechargeable batteries and/or an AC adapter when you're at your comp, because it eats up AA's pretty quickly. The 1.6" LCD screen is very nice, because it lets you see your pics immediately, to see if you want to keep them. Also, compact enough to fit in your pocket! GREAT CAMERA!!

My first camera was along the same lines as far as price. It only lasted about 6 months and just quit working. I was lucky enough to have purchased a 1 year replacement and got this one instead. It is also a 1.3 Megapixel but for some reason the pictures are just plain better. This camera is smaller and more attractive then the Sipix I had before. It's very simple to use and the the controls on the camera are pretty much self explanatory. Downloading is a snap with the provided software. You just plug your camera into the USB cable and it launches the software for viewing/downloading. The LCD screen on the back lets you view pictures and video taken by browsing one by one or viewing in a thumbnail mode. The camera takes 20 second videos that are a bit grainy and without sound but I have spliced them together and added music and made some cute movies to send to the family. I'm very please with my Fuji FinePix camera and would suggest to those who are looking for a good digital camera.

For less than $170 (July '02) this camera is a solid performer at a sensible price. Normal resolution is more than adequate for the web and e-mail. Fine resolution results in quality good enough for at least 4*6" prints at your local Kits Cameras or similar.

The non-audio 20 seconds of video is a bonus IMO.

With WindowsXP (Home or Pro) on your PC you'll find this camera very easy to use, it is very straightforward to publish pictures to the web or automatically shrink and e-mail them instead.

Only 2 downsides that I've found;
1. The appears to be a tendency for dust to creep into the LCD disply area. Cosmetic only.
2. Battery life w/ LCD use is relatively low. So, don't use the LCD for every photo or get the latest rechargeable AA batteries.

I strongly recommend this camera for those seeking excellent value for money.

I bought this camera six months ago and I take it everywhere with me. The picture quality is good for near distances, though the limit of the resolution will show up when photographing a distant object. I also use the camera for taking short videos. Check out ... for short videos of Leapfest 2002 - a parachute comptetion.I found it helpful to buy several 64mb smartmedia cards, and for [$$$], pick up a usb card reader. It works with both my laptop and desktop computers, so you do not have to worry about using up your batteries or buying an ac adapter to transfer the images and video. Beware of cheap smart media though - I had a 64mb PNY card quit after just two uses. The Fuji card I bought has worked constantly for 6 months and a couple thousand pictures.

This is a very nice and affordable digital camera. As for my experience with the battery life, If you don't use the display, the battery life is pretty good. I do recomend rechargable batteries and a power adapter. Use the power adapter ESPICALLY when you hook the camera up to a PC or use the video mode. I still have not tried the web cam function, but if it's like the other features, functions of this camera, it will be very nice.

My ONLY complaint with this camera is the self-timer. Once you set the self-timer and take a picture, you have to set the self-timer again if you want to take another picture using the self-timer function. I have owned another digital camera (Polaroid) and while the pictures it took are NOT as good as this camera (FujiFilm). The Polaroid camera had a self-timer setting that would stay on while you took as many self-timed pictures as you wanted to, then all you did was to turn off the self-timer function and go about your business.

OVERALL I do recomend this camera to EVERYONE!

I have owned several 1 megapixel cameras before. And so far this one is the best. It gets good battery life compared to other cameras. The people that complained about battery life have obviously not tried the competition. This camera also takes good pictures, is easy to use, easy to download pictures to computer, and this camera is very small! Not quite as small as the Canon Elph, but close! and for less than half the price. The only negative about this camera, is problems with indoor pictures. Without fail, at least half of my indoor pictures have random white spots in them. They range from pinhead to quarter sized and are randomly placed throughout the picture. I called Fuji and they said it was normal and it was caused by the flash reflecting off of dust and airborne particles. They told me it happens to a lot of digital cameras. I have owned several digital cameras, and so far this is the only one that has done this. Upon further research, I found an article linking this problem with the distance of the flash to the lens. As you can see from the A101's picture, they are only a few millimeters apart on this camera. The problem is so bad, that now I take 4 pictures of everything so I can make sure once will not have white spots in it. I guess in the end, you always get what you pay for.