I got a Fuji F30 for my 40th Birthday and for £200 I'm really impressed with the camera - especially the low light capabilities.
There is a review at dpreview.com http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fujifilm/fuji_finepixf30.asp
It's a fantastic little compact IMHO
Also am I the only one on this forum playing with Adobe Lightroom?
Happy Birthday Richard, I'm sure you'll get to grips with it :)
Hi Richard,
I am also playing with (and enjoying) Adobe Lightroom. Sure is a nice piece of code to get to use for free, well at the moment anyway.
Cheers John
Richard,
I had a Fuji compact up until earlier this year when it was stolen on a holiday in South Africa (lost all my pictures). I was really impressed with the camera, an old 3mp Fuji A303, that I was going to replace with the Fuji F11, but found out the F30 was due for release mid summer. I still haven't got around to replacing it, but read all the reviews I could about the F30, and liked what I read apart from one criticsm of purple fringeing. Given the great features of the camera, have you noticed excessive purple fringeing and if so, is it acceptable to you given the otherwise fantastic performance of the camera?
It looks like it's already been updated with the F31fd, which is the same camera apart from the addition of face recognition hardware and the use of an IR port. See below:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06092501fujif31fd.asp
Rick
I could go for that camera Rick but would prefer something better that a 3x optical zoom.
I am at present using a Fuji S300 which has a non working internal battery.
Cheers.
I now seem to spend a lot of time arguing with inanimate objects
The purple fringing is probably the result of optical diffraction when the lens is stopped down too far. It's a common "feature" of small sensors.
Ive noticed the fringing on one out of 300 photos - trees in distance against bright sky - small price to pay for low light performance if you ask me.
Yep, that's the effect, it's when the lens stops down too far for comfort. To avoid this, go to shorter exposure or use neutrals. You've also got that effect on some of your HD shots of the pier, structure against the sky (and I've got it on A1 shots of swans on the ice on Walton pond).
Any interested Lightroom users - presume you've seen Michael Reichmann's intro and tutorial materials at http://luminous-landscape.com/? Good stuff. Looks a very interesting program for busy photographers looking to manage, catalogue and process lots of RAW photos ... shame I haven't had time to get very far in understanding how best to use it!
Richard, I'm happy to hear you like the camera and that the purple fringing problem is of little significance.
Alan, once again thanks for the explanation. When electronic products are reviewed on certain websites or magazines, it appears to be the case that when ever a good product is given the thumbs up, any slight flaw in that product can seem to carry more weight than is actually deserved.
Fergie, I remember having the internal battery problem discussion with you earlier this year. Every time you open up the battery compartment to put a freash set in you lose the time and date. Apart from that, the camera would still perform perfectly.
Any interested Lightroom users - presume you've seen Michael Reichmann's intro and tutorial materials at http://luminous-landscape.com/? Good stuff. Looks a very interesting program for busy photographers looking to manage, catalogue and process lots of RAW photos ... shame I haven't had time to get very far in understanding how best to use it!
Thanks for the tutorial link - I hadn't seen that. I'm finding my way around Lightroom by playing. I like being able to tweak photos without changing the original and fiddling around inside the histogram display is a great way of changing the exposure.