Customer Reviews

Fujifilm Finepix F100fd 12MP Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Dual Image Stabilized Optical Zoom

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I'm a professional photographer and I've owned a Fuji F10, F30, F50 and now the F100. The F50 was the only dog of that group. The F100 I feel has just as good low-light performance as my beloved F30 but with twice the resolution. You can look at my blog at http://rickleephoto.blogspot.com and click on the "Produce" tag and see that weeks #122 and up are shot with the F100 at ISO800. The color and sharpness are stunning. With the F30, I always had the camera set on minus 1/3 or 2/3 stops to avoid overexposure. I think that problem is solved on the F100. I love the extra wide-angle we have now. That really extends the usefulness of the camera.

As for the pink banding problem... I really don't want to start calling people names, but honestly, I've always found that there will be a group of people who approach photography from an "engineering" standpoint rather than an artistic one. We need the technical nerds to do tests and such, but I've never seen this problem show up in a real-world photo. I've seen a lot of stunning photos by some good photographers done with this camera and none of them suffered because of this problem.

Let me say right off the bat that I'm an owner of a previous F-series camera, the F31fd. I love that camera but I wanted the image stabilization and the wider wide-angle, which the F31 doesn't have.

When I first opened the box and tried out a few dozen shots, I was disappointed. Using the F100 as I had used the F31, I thought the results weren't as good. I wasn't used to the new controls, I missed the Manual-Aperture-Shutter- priority and the top-mounted Mode dial. (By the way I haven't encountered the purple band issue.)

But after several weeks I've changed my mind. The lens is sharper, the zoom is greater (on both ends), the response is just as quick, and I'm finally accustomed to the new rotating 4-way control. I never use Scene Modes, but the new Portrait Enhancer is awesome.

If you're new to Fujifilm pocket cameras, you will LOVE the F100. If you're like me and you previously owned an F31, I say give the F100 a chance.

Hints for those who owned the F31:
* in bright contrasty daytime shots the F100 underexposes where the F31 overexposed. Use "Spot" metering in bright daylight on the F100 and your problems are solved.

* Sunny shots seem a touch more bluish on the F100 than the F31. Use "chrome" or even better, set White Balance to "shade". Works great.

* again in low-light shots, the F100 exposes more accurately where the F31 overexposed. Forget Exposure Compensation, use plain ole AUTO mode (yes!) on the F100, it works fine.

* Miss the Manual mode for very dim lighting? Use "Night" mode, it now works automatically all the way down to 4 or 8 full seconds.

* With the new 4-way control on the F100, does the Menu-within-a-Menu annoy you? Easy fix: just HOLD DOWN the OK button longer and you jump straight to the inner Menu. (This is not in the manual!)

I bought this because I hoped it would be an upgrade from my favorite digital camera, the Fujifilm F30. Unfortunately, it is not better overall.

The F30, which is out of production, developed something of a cult following in techno-nurd circles because it had the incredible sensitivity of ISO 3200 with low noise (speckle). Fuji accomplished this with their "Super CCD" using hexagonally packed, larger sensors for greater fill factor and the ability to capture lower light intensities. (CCD photodiodes typically operate pretty close to the quantum limit of efficiency, so there is no possible improvement except by larger pixels.) The technology was brilliant but worked well only up to about 6 megapixels for the small chip size used in pocket cameras. Unfortunately Fuji's marketing people were not as imaginative as their semiconductor team and did not know how to persuade the buying public that dim light image quality is more valuable to the average photographer than pixel count - which it is. Caving in to the pixel race, later Fuji F cameras had more but smaller pixels, giving up the extreme low noise, low light capabilities. As a result used F30's sell at high prices on eBay.

Now comes the F100, which Fuji advertises as the pocket camera to end all pocket cameras, state of the art in every way, and which is supposed to extend the low light theme to 12MP, offering ISO 3200 for full resolution and up to an astounding ISO 12,800 with pixels reduced to 3MP.

So, how does it work? I've just spent the better part of a spring day comparing the F100 images directly with my F30 under various conditions.

Unfortunately, no, they did not manage to repeal the laws of physics. At ISO 3200, the 12MP F100 with its necessarily smaller pixels gives rougher images than my 6MP F30. And as for the ISO 12,800; forget it, it's a gimmick. The images are so rough as to be useless. This irritated me; borders on deceptive advertising.

The higher pixel count does stand up better to higher magnification or cropping. In good light where it is possible to use ISO 200, the F100 gives wonderful photos which can be cropped or blown up significantly more. But for the unique higher ISO range for which people look to Fuji, the F100 is actually a bit worse in image quality. Disappointing.

Otherwise, the F100 gives the impression of a pile of disconnected features There are worthwhile features in the F100 over the F30; one is the wide angle lens, the equivalent of 28mm, uncommon on pocket cameras; another is active image stabilization which allows slower shutters. Also F100 accepts SD memory cards whereas the F30 only took oddball proprietary xD's. In my tests however, the benefit of the Wide Dynamic Range feature seemed hard to discern. The battery seems to discharge pretty quickly. The nice aluminum case of the F30 has been replaced with Chinese plastic. (By the way, I read about a "pink banding" problem with the F100 but did not observe this.)

Otherwise, some of the annoyances of the F30 remain; a strange USB connector which won't work with your non-Fuji cables. The movie mode, for me one of the really cool features of a pocket camera, has not been improved at all; it is still not possible to zoom the lens while capturing a movie. The zoom itself is too hard to control, always overshooting one way or another - Hey guys, what would be wrong with a simple manual ring to zoom the lens?

Most Japanese cameras and all Fujifilm cameras including this one are marred by byzantine, obscure, hard to remember menu systems, packed with a plethora of "scene modes" certain to be ignored by the type of user who would buy an advanced digicam in the first place. They serve no purpose except to clutter things up. The other day in a store I saw a digicam that boasted of "Fifty Scene Modes!" Fifty?? Hey folks, what happened to the idea of a POINT AND SHOOT camera??

Overall, I admire Fujifilm which is one of the world's premier imaging technology companies. But as with many large corporations, its products are designed by uneven committees; brilliant CCD people, me-too market people, and an interface team who muck things up based on false assumptions. Companies which produce really great products, like Apple, do so because one person with excellent design sense governs the whole development.

Bottom line: I was disappointed because the F100 was not a clear advance over my two year old F30. It does have a nice wide angle lens, and if you don't mind the high price you may love it. In good light the photos are superb. But overall it does not give the sense of a well integrated product. Once the dim light capabilities are compromised, the F100 is just another camera which competes with many others.

I think overall this is one of the better compact digital cameras (that is pocketable) in its class. Other cameras that I would consider in this class are: Panasonic TZ5 and Canon SD870IS.

OK, first of all, the issue of pink banding. Out of 200+ test images that I made, I noticed 2 of them have minor pink banding, and these are shot at ISO1600. I am guessing some batches of F100fd do exhibit this problem worse than others. I've seen samples on the web where pink banding is obvious even on ISO400 and ISO800. On my ISO400 and ISO800 samples, which I took in various low lighting conditions (outdoor dusk, indoor incandescent lighting, indoor daytime in dark room), there is no noticeable pink banding. Fujifilm will release a firmware in May 08 to fix this issue, so this could end up as a non-issue in the future. For me, pink banding is not an issue since I will never use ISO1600. And I only print less than 0.01% of all my pictures, I can crop the pink banding out if necessary.

I think F100fd is a moderate improvement over F50fd. With F50fd, ISO800 has too much noise. But with F100fd, ISO800 is quite usable. In fact, I think F100fd might have the best low light performance in its class. F100fd also has a very good edge-to-edge sharpness performance in wide angle.

While I think F100fd is overall a very good compact camera, no camera is perfect. Here are some of its weaknesses:
- Overpriced. I think $299 is the fair price for this camera.
- No manual control (A/S mode). F50fd has it.
- No flash compensation. To be fair, not many compacts have it either.
- No Auto Exposure Bracketing. Panasonic TZ5 has it.
- No histogram. Useful to check over/under exposure.
- 5x zoom vs TZ5's 10x zoom.
- Controls are not user friendly.
- Short battery life. F30/F31 can shoot more than 500 pictures with one charge.
- LCD screen size. Panasonic TZ5 has a 3" and 400k resolution screen.
- Pink banding? Unless Fujifilm can fix it 100% with new firmware.

UPDATE:
After two weeks of use, here're more observations:
- 300+ shots in one charge (about 30 shots or less using flash).
- Generally fast auto focus performance, unless in low light which sometimes it hunts a little bit.
- Zooming in and out is too fast, almost have to try a few times to get to the desired zoom distance.
- Acceptable LCD performance in daylight, at noon, the LCD is still visible, so framing under bright daylight should not be a problem.
- Shot to shot time is respectable, generally about 1 to 2 second. But if flash is used, it could go up to 3 to 4 seconds.

I was contemplating getting the Panasonic TZ5 due to its superior features, but I think for now I am sticking to F100fd, and wait for the next TZ6 or TZ7. Panasonic has been improving the TZ series, so the next TZ could be a great one.

I tested the F100fd I received through Amazon for the pink banding problem described by the previous reviewer, and it does not appear to have that problem.

Also, I compared shots with this camera in moderate daylight to my Canon SD950 (both are 12MP and similar in size). I shot the same scenes at ISO100 (ISO80 on the Canon) and at ISO400. In terms of noise levels, the results were practically identical. The automated exposures and color turned out to be quite similar as well. At ISO400 on these cameras, fine details and textures are largely blurred out relative to the lowest settings, which produce a very fine-grained noise. I would tend to avoid using ISO settings beyond 400 on these cameras.

Before receiving this camera I was concerned that the very useful 5x lens zoom range (28mm-140mm) might be compromised by distortion and softness, but the results are impressive for a camera of these dimensions. Over the middle range, the sharpness was slightly better than that of the SD950 (zoom range 36mm-133mm), especially near the frame edges.

Recently, Canon released a 5x zoom model (SD890IS) with the relatively less useful range of (35mm-180mm). It has a 10MP sensor of smaller dimensions (1/2.5" vs 1/1.6").

On the basis of my (so far, very limited) experience with this camera, I would rate it one of the best in its category. The minus one star is for the lack of manual shutter/aperture controls (available on the F50, F30 and other earlier Finepix models) and for apparently not controlling noise any better than Canon at ISO levels up to 400.

I assume anyone who's reading this review already has looked at the specs, so I won't regurgitate them. I did a lot of research and finally settled on a top 3 list of point-and-shoot cameras in August 2008, which were the Fujifilm F100fd, Canon SD770-IS, and the Panasonic TZ5.

My main criteria were:

1. Picture quality
2. Low-light performance
3. Speed (boot up, focus speed, etc.)

This is how the F100fd stacked up against the other two.

The F100fd's main selling point is its low-light performance. I found that although the low-light performance was good, it wasn't as good as it was hyped up to be. ISO 400+ pictures were a bit grainy -- much better than my previous Canon, but not near as good as I had expected. In decent light, the picture quality was superb, the best of any point-and-shoot I've used. 5X zoom was great, and although cumbersome the menu system was acceptable. I also loved the feature where it takes two photos when you press the shutter - one with a flash the other without, to see which one comes out better. However, the killer was speed. The time it takes to actually snap the photo after you press the shutter button is just too long. Focus and time-to-shoot was too slow, and by the time it actually took the picture the moment was gone most of the times.

By comparison, the Canon SD770-IS speed was superb, it took photos almost instantly, and was the much lighter and smaller than the other two cameras. Overall an excellent point-and-shoot. It takes very nice pictures, almost as nice as the F100fd. However, it does very poorly in low light, and you basically have to plan on using the flash all the time. My camera also did poorly in bright light, most of the pictures in sunlight were over-saturated. (The front panel of this particular camera was popping out a little, a manufacturing defect, which may have affected the light meter on the camera).

The Panasonic TZ5 had the best of both worlds (almost). It did much better than expected in low light - almost as good as the F100fd. There is more noise than the F100fd, but the overall picture tone and sharpness are still excellent. In terms of speed, it was almost as good as the Canon, and much better than the Fuji. It also had some nice features like continuous shooting (at about 2 frames per sec), 720p video (but which records similarly to a decent 480i camcorder), the nicest LCD screen of the three. The flash isn't very good, and it's the bulkiest of the 3.

So overall the Fuji had the best picture quality overall and had good low-light performance, but was just too darn slow. The Canon had great overall picture quality and was the fastest but with sub-par quality at low and bright lights. And the TZ5 was in between, good overall picture quality, decent at low light, and with good speed. So I ended up choosing the TZ5 because it was a good compromise and my kids can't sit still. But if shooting speed is not a major concern for you, the Fuji will give you wonderful quality pictures.

I recently picked up this camera and could not be happier. It's not going to win any style awards and it does not have all the controls some of its competitors have (though it has most of what I want). The thing that sets this camera apart is the image quality. And, quite frankly, nothing matters more to me than the quality of the image coming out of the camera. I do not make this comment in haste. I initially purchased a Sony W170 based on some of the reviews I had seen of this camera. I was not at all happy with the results. I then found a good deal on a Panasonic DMC-FX37. I did a bunch of test pictures (both cameras, same settings, multiple ISO values). The Panasonic proved slightly better but not much. The amount of noise in both was quite high. I was not expecting a point and shoot to match my Nikon D40x. However, the quality of image for these two cameras was making me question by decision to try to get a point and shoot for travel. I decided to give the Fuji F100fd a try before abandoning my search for what I consider a usable point and shoot. I am VERY glad I did so. The images from the F100fd are much better than those from either the Sony or the Panasonic. I repeated the test pictures take with both the Sony and Panasonic using the F100fd. High ISO values create challenges for all three. However, I find the 800 speed quite usable on the Fuji. Not so with either the Sony or Panasonic. And at 400 ISO, the Fuji is much better than either the W170 or the FX37. The pictures are sharp. Noise is not an issue and both color and contrast are great. The quality of image allows you to enlarge and crop your pictures significantly. This is not possible if the quality of image is lacking. The F100fd is surprisingly close in performance to my Nikon D40x at lower ISO values. It may be missing a couple of the key features that other cameras include. However, if image quality is at the top of your list, I doubt you will find a point and shoot that outperforms the F100fd. As for the pink banding issue, my understanding from reading posts is that this was fixed some time ago with a software upgrade. I've done a fair amount of shoot with this camera at night and have not had any problems whatsoever. I see this camera as a great choice for someone looking for a point and shoot but is primarily concerned about image quality. I'm very happy I decided to give this camera a try.

I am being very open and honest when I say this is the best compact on the market. Please note when I say this I am specifically refering to image quality. Things like looks, feel, menu layout, options, weight...ect are a mater of personal preference and who can judge that for you. I will admit I am not a professional photographer but I don't need to be to see which pictures are more pleasing to the eye. Isn't this what it is all about?

In short the Fuji F100 take beautiful, sharp colorful high resoloution pictures. I specifically compared it against Sony's DSC W170 & Canon's SD870 IS. The only reason I ever tried these other cameras is because I currently own a Fuji F31FD and wanted something with a real image stablizer. After reading all of the raving reviews I purchased the Sony DSC W170 and the Canon SD870 IS. I took various pictures with both cameras around my house on a sunny day,, inside and outside. To my suprise they were not even close to my Fuji F31FD or the Fuji F100FD. The descrepancy is such that it makes me wonder if Sony and Canon pay reviewers to give them great reviews. The reality is that the Fuji blows them both out of the water. Don't get me wrong, both Sony and Canon will take nice pictures outdoors, (Pictures on par with the Fuji) but as soon as you come inside the difference is day and night. The reason is very simple. Fuji cameras have a larger sensor that capture more light with less noise. This makes pictures taken indoors brighter and sharper with an overall look that is much, much more pleasing to the eye. Not to mention pictures taken indoors with Fuji never have the white spots that both the Cannon and Sony would have at random. This alone was a deal breaker. Since these spots are totally random you never know when your photo was going to be ruined by them. Never an issue with the Fuji! I realize most people think Sony and Canon's are great but it just make me think they don't really know the difference, or that they value something other than image quality about their cameras, hince giving them great reviews. Both the Canon Elps series and Sony DSC are very popular and are the cameras most people will buy, but remember in most cases the crowd is wrong and this is definatietly the case here. The Fuji takes excellent pictures outdoors and the best of any compact indoors. Don't let these so called professional reviews cost you a 15% restocking fee. Just go buy the Fuji and know none of the other compact even come close. Highly Recommended!

I have a Nikon SLR, but like many dragging a big camera around can be a pain!
I own an older Canon Elph SD-450 which actually takes rather GOOD pictures..except in low light and well..it's just too old now. I was trying to update my Canon with the newer technology out there..Face detect,image stabilization,better movie mode. From a lot of research I initially wanted to buy the Fuji F100fd but kept getting scared off about the pink banding issue, so I bought a Canon SD 950. The Canon IS a very good camera but I was finding the face detect worked less than 50% of the time and anything shot at 200iso or above looked rather noisy and the pictures were rather washed out. Flesh tones with the Canon tend to be TOO pink overall.To fast forward I did buy this Fuji camera..and overall I feel it's a bit superior to the Canon 950. Pics come out with a bit less saturated colors BUT now I realize colors, especially skin tones look more natural with the Fuji. Face detect works much better with this Fuji as well. That being said, at full 12 megapixels I can see a bit of noise in pics 400 iso and above rendering face detect a bit useless in some cases. To sum up, OVERALL this Fuji is VERY good. A little messing with some of the settings and this Fuji takes GREAT pics overall. I like many, wish "they" could make a point and shoot with a bigger sensor and maybe no more than 8 megapixels..but till then to me..this Fuji is about as good as it gets till then. Also I should mention I have seen NO NO pink banding in any pics..and for those who shot pics in total darkness in a drawer LOOKING for pink banding?..well isn't that a bit crazy??? I recommend this Fuji...great camera overall!

UPDATE: All I wrote above I still feel. But after coming back from vacation and analyzing the Fuji pics at full resolution I now realize most pictures are just too noisy,..and all lack detail..like for example seeing hair as hair instead of cotton like hair. Long story short I returned this Fuji...got a Panasonic TZ5 and I like it MUCH better and though the TZ5 is suppose to be a bit noisy above 200ISO it's MUCH more quiet and detailed than the Fuji 200 iso-800. I still feel the Fuji IS one of the better tiny cameras out there..but you may want to try a Panasonic TZ5 with 10 times zoom..and NO purple fringing...you may be surprised just how good the TZ5 is compared to the Fuji.

Yes, under extreme circumstances and with some effort you can create a picture showing a slightly blue / purple speckled black in dark objects or shadows. This is at the extreme left 2% of the photo, visible when artificially enhanced in Photoshop, and difficult to see when printed.

The Fuji seems to have less noise and better resolution at ISO 400 and 800 than other cameras in it's class. It is a wonderful little point and shoot camera with limited manual control. Would prefer 4 1/2 stars but not an option.