Fujifilm FinePix 1400 1.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

by Fuji

Product Details

Product Manual [2.44mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 4.9 x 2.6 inches ; 8.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TH2W
• Item model number: 1400
• Batteries: 4 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,482 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 24, 2000

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Fuji FinePix 1400 digital camera's sleek design, easy-to-use mode dial, and high-performance 3x optical zoom lens make it the perfect introductory digital camera for the novice who wants high-quality digital images. Its 0.37-inch CCD (charge-coupled device for capturing images) with 1.3 million square pixels make it capable of capturing high-resolution images that look smooth and natural. The FinePix 1400 includes a 4 MB SmartMedia card and a USB port for easy image storage and transfer.

Other features include automatic white balance and 64-zone autofocus that together read the scene and determine the appropriate exposure setting. The Fuji FinePix 1400 can take standard images with a range of resolutions as high as 1,280 x 960 pixels for high print quality and as low as 320 x 240, ideal for e-mails or Web pages.

The FinePix 1400 includes a 4 MB SmartMedia card, hand strap, 4 AA batteries, USB cable, and software on CD-ROM.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

241 of 243 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent value in a general purpose digital, October 29, 2000

By 

Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fujifilm FinePix 1400 1.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

I've been watching the digital market waiting for interchangable lens digitals to fall below that magic thousand dollar price point for some time. Although it's probably going to happen soon, I realized I still needed a simple point and shoot digital with decent resolution that ddn't cost an arm and a leg- with casmera getting cheaper every few months I didn't want to spend too much on a camera I might be replacing in a year. Still, I wnated something with more than enough resolution for high-quality web pictures, and maybe even 4x6 prints, which meant around 1.3-1.5 megapixels.

I also decided I wanted a simple, removable media with no moving parts, and some degree of manual exposure control. It looked like I couldn't find what I really wanted under $500- and then I found the Fuji.

I've been shooting this marvelous package for a week now, and it's lived up to my expectations in every way. Focusing is fast and accurate, with an optional macro range for closeups. Color accuracy is first rate, contrast is superb, and the finished prints need very little, if any, correction. Battery life is the best of any of the digital cameras I've tried- turn off the LCD monitor and a st of 4 AAs will last 450 shots! That's a lot better than my Agfa, which ate a pair of AAs with every 16 shots. The supplied software includes a program to download and manage pictures directly and a copy of Adobe's Photo Deluxe, which is looking moe nad more like Photoshop all the time.

It's a measure of the camera's human engineering that I used it for a full day before I opened up the instruction manual. It's just that intuitive. Turn it on, and shoot. That's it. The zoom control falls right where you need it, under your thumb, and the opticla finder zooms with the lens. No need to turn on the LCD unless you want to edit in the camera or check a precise closeup shot. (You can also zoom in, crop, and do other edits on the image while it's still in the camera). If you want to take greater control, there are menus that let you vary exposure, flash behavior and many other variables as well.

The supplied 4MB SmartMedia card holds 12 high resolution, standard compression shots. You can increase or reduce image compression to get higher quality or more pictures, and you can switch to a low-resolution mode when you need to squeeze a lot of pictures onto one card. The standard compression mode gives such good images that I wouldn't hesitate using high compression for web photos in order to double the card's capacity.

I'd suggest a few accessories that I found made the camera easier to use.

First, another SmartMedia card. A 16MB card (available for around $30) rives you 49 high-res, standard compresion shots- enough for a whole vacation for some. Second, an accessory SmartMedia reader. While you can download directly from the camera to your computer, an accessory reader (around $50 or less) works much, much faster, and saves camera batteries, too. Last, a small well-padded case with a strap, and preferably with multiple compartments. I carry mine in a Domke bag that has room for the camera, a couple of extra media cards, a cell phone, pens, pencils, the instruction book (there's a lot this camera can do I haven't even explored yet) and a set or two of spare batteries. I'm thinking of adding yet another SmartMedia card, too; with a 32MB card I'd have a total of about 160 shots, or the equivalent of between 5 and 6 rolls of standard film. Not bad.

150 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Value for Money!, July 26, 2000

By 

Shafir Ahmad "Infopreneur Coach" (Yishun, Singapore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fujifilm FinePix 1400 1.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

I bought this camera in May'2000 and have been impressed with it from day one. Besides taking great pictures, it is also small and compact (even fits into my pocket) and passes off (to others) as a "cheap snap-snap" (great, now people dont know its a digital camera).

Overall, image quality is excellent. I can hardly see the jaggies in any of the photos except at extreme magnification. As for prints, this does a very good job for most printers. I have the Epson 870, and since the printer is so good, you need to feed a better quality image into it to get rid of the jagged lines. I used Paint Shop pro to upsample the image to double the size and got impressive results. (In my opinion, they are better quality 4x6 prints than I can get at the photo labs here.)

Battery life is good with alkaline batteries. I average between 100 to 130 photos (with the LCD on, some with flash) at 640x480 and about 80+ photos at 1280x960. Overall, much better than i had expected (with all the horror stories of battery burning out so fast with other cameras). With rechargable batteries though, I'm not having so much luck. They seem to get depleted very fast (about 30+ shots). One problem I have with the camera is that after taking a photo, it just shuts down by itself when the battery is low (without any indication). Fuji has to improve on the battery remaining indicator, which does not seem to work well in my unit.

Exposure wise, it takes good photos in the day or night. If you use the flash, some of the photos get under or overexposed frequently, especially in closer distances. I tend to get more red-eyes often, cos I forgot to turn on the red-eye mode on the camera. The camera also allows forced-flash, forced no-flash, red eye and auto modes.

The 3x optical Zoom is good if you need to zoom in closer. I can't seem to find any use for the digital zoom though, as it only zooms x2 in one step, ie either you get 1x or 2x, which can easily be done using software like Photoshop or PSP.

The best thing about this camera is that its easy to use. No fiddling around with hundreds of settings etc. It only has a play mode and a record mode. In record, thats where you take pictures and set options such as image size, quality, macro mode etc. In play mode, you can view the pictures (and zoom in and pan around) and erase if recessary. Also provided is a mode where you can view 9 pictures at a time.

The EXIF viewer software that comes with the camera is excellent for a post mortem look at what settings the camera used. Since the camera is automatic, you cant make any adjustments to the shutter speed or apeture, but after downloading to your computer, you can see what settings were used for a particular shot.

In the Asian edition, There was no image software included, but I think the American edition comes with Adobe Photo Deluxe.

One of the things you really need to buy is more memory! The camera comes with just 4MB of memory, which can only hold 6 images at the finest resolution at 1280x960. I'd recommend getting at least a 32MB card, which will allow about 50 pictures. (The camera actually takes slightly more or less photos depending on the complexity of the subject). I have sometimes gotten just 5 pictures using the 4M card.

Data transfer to the PC is excellent. Very fast, and no trouble at all. Just make sure you have Windows 98, as it doesn't work on Win 95.

Overall, Value for Money!

161 of 163 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Value in this Entry-Level USB Digital Camera, June 16, 2000

By 

"ratewolf" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fujifilm FinePix 1400 1.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom (Electronics)

The Fujifilm FinePix 1400 Zoom digital still camera is a sleek and handsome device styled with a familiar "point-and-shoot camera" sort of design. Controls are reasonably well laid-out and fairly easy to handle, even for middle-aged hands and thick fingers like mine.

For the record, this is my first digital camera. I regard myself as an "intermediate" amateur in 35mm film photography, and desktop computer operations.

Though I have not yet made any prints from the digital images I have taken with this camera, I am very well satisfied with the color and sharpness in the daylight macro images taken in my rose garden as I view them on my iMac. The attempt to photograph my nephews' graduation from the bleachers of a high school gymnasium, however, revealed the limitations of the modest built-in flash, and the lens' ability to pick up "ghosts" of the overhead lighting.

The camera can take pictures in your choice of three quality levels (basic, normal, or fine) and one of two pixel sizes (640x480 or 1280x960). A 320x240 file size can accomplished by editing a recorded image using the "resize" function. Indeed, any larger size can be reduced to a smaller size (to the minimum 320x240). This can save space on the SmartMedia card, or reduce transmission time over internet email, for instance.

The camera comes with one 4MB SmartMedia card. According to the owners manual, the "standard" number of 1280x960 images which can be recorded in 4MB ranges from 6 "fine" to 12 "normal" to 23 "basic;" and the number of 640x480 images ranges from 23 "fine" to 44 "normal" to 69 "basic". The manual goes on to say that actual capacity "varies slightly depending on the type of subject."

The highly recommended purchase of a 32MB card increases 1280x960 "standard" capacity to 50 "fine," 99 "normal," and 180 "basic" images; and 640x480 "standard" capacity to 180 "fine," 330 "normal," and 496 "basic" images.

An indoor flash picture of a furnished room revealed some barely detectable "jaggies" along the edges of a lamp shade in the "normal" mode. Switching to "fine" eliminated these altogether. (BTW, in a normal-size room, the flash exposure was ample.)

I must agree with the many reviewers who have written that the LCD display is a bit too small and not bright enough to see easily in full sunlight, but I have found that a "banker's visor" or "big bubba" billed cap can help.

The optical viewfinder is another solution, and is especially useful because it actually "zooms" along with the lens in pseudo-SLR fashion. But unlike a true thru-the-lens viewer, the parallax error in this camera is significant. Because the "film" does not "see" exactly the same "frame" as the optical viewfinder, you might end up cutting off Aunt Mildred's head in that next photo if you don't take care.

The camera manuals, though they still sound a bit "translated," are actually very informative, well organized, and well thought-out. The installation of the software drivers, and downloading over the USB interface to my iMac with MacOS 8.6 went without a hitch.

Besides a larger SmartMedia card, other recommendable additions include one (or better yet, two) full sets of rechargeable batteries with recharger. And, if you plan to spend time using the in-camera editing features, consider getting the AC adapter, too.

Playback functions include a nice nine-image LCD "thumbnail" display mode. And those with advanced interests might want to take advantage of the camera's ability to edit various Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) settings.

My verdict on the Fujifilm FinePix 1400 Zoom is that it is a very good value as an entry-level digital camera capable (within reasonable limits) of capturing excellent images for computer viewing. In today's marketplace, there are but two or three that can directly compete with it for price and features - especially for owners of USB equipped computers.