Fujifilm FinePix F60fd review

The F60fd is designed for ‘perfect pictures' and ‘stunning portraits', but does it succeed?

The F60fd joins Fujifilm’s range of high-tech, high-quality compacts and replaces the F50fd. The new camera has a 12-megapixel sensor and, for the first time in a Fujifilm camera, Automatic Scene Detection (we looked at a quartet of Auto Scene Detection cameras last issue). In this mode, the F60fd can automatically differentiate between Night, Landscape, Portrait and Macro shots. This feature may not be as clever as it sounds, though, because the camera’s light meter, autofocus and Face Detection system probably tell it everything it needs to know. These are the only four modes that can be selected out of the total of thirteen available, so it seems as if the Fujifilm and other cameras with this feature do have a little way to go yet.

    Fujifilm is now up to version three of its Face Detection system, and this does appear to work well in this camera. It’s claimed to be able to recognise up to ten faces in a scene and to be able to recognise faces at angles of up to 90 degrees (in profile, in other words). In our tests it locked on to our subjects really quickly, though it wasn’t always easy to spot the difference between portraits taken in this way and ordinary shots.

    This camera’s ‘intelligent’ flash system is interesting, too. Fujifilm claims it offers the advantages of conventional slow flash, balancing the flash against the available light, but without the blurred backgrounds slow flash often produces. The results are very good. Most cameras produce pretty ugly flash shots in dark conditions, but it proved nigh on impossible to take a ‘bad’ flash shot with this camera. It will also remove red-eye from your images too, using the information from the Face Detection system to make sure it doesn’t remove any other similarly sized red objects from the scene at the same time.

    Fujifilm has long extolled the virtues of using available light rather than flash, and there’s a Natural Light mode on the main Mode dial for situations where you want to properly preserve the atmosphere of the scene. The camera has a Dual Image Stabilisation system based around increased ISO and a sensor-shift anti-shake device. Or, if you don’t know whether you need flash or not, you can switch to the Natural Light plus Flash mode, which takes two shots – one with flash, one without.

    Fujifilm was the first maker to introduce a compact camera capable of shooting at ISO 1600, but other makers have since caught up and this is no longer unusual. The F60fd does actually go up to ISO 3200 and ISO 6400, but only at reduced resolutions.

    But the ability to shoot at high ISOs is no guarantee that you’re going to find the image quality acceptable. Like other compacts, the F60fd uses pretty strong noise reduction to smooth out high ISO shots, and this does produce images with quite strongly smudged fine detail. You might not notice in small prints, but you will if you make enlargements. The F60fd does have a slightly larger sensor than average (1/6-in), which should theoretically offer a better signal-to-noise ratio, but if it does have an advantage here, it’s a small one.

    The picture quality is good for the most part, but not perfect. Fujifilm cameras always produce rich, vibrant colours, and that’s certainly true of the F60fd. There’s a Chrome mode if you want stronger colours still, but the contrast can be a little too high for some subjects, particularly in bright sunlight.

    The metering is very good. Some of our shots were slighly underexposed, but only where there were very bright areas in the scene. You do seem less likely to get highlight blow-out with this camera than with the average compact.

    And the definition is excellent. Fujifilm cameras seem to produce a slightly gritty look to their fine detail compared to the glassy smoothness of other cameras, but this does give the detail extra ‘bite’ which will become obvious when you zoom in or produce A4-sized prints. It’s best to stick to low ISOs where possible, though.

    It’s the lens that’s perhaps the biggest disappointment. So many compacts now offer a wider zoom range or a wide-angle zoom, but the F60fd sticks with a very ordinary 3x zoom, and it can be difficult to get far enough back from subjects to squeeze them all in. It does produce a fair amount of chromatic aberration, or purple fringing, too. This won’t be obvious in every shot, but it’s an annoyance when it is.

    The LCD isn’t the best, either. It’s a good size, and the resolution is well up to par, but it’s very high on contrast indeed, and it’s hard to evaluate whether the shot you’ve just taken is acceptable or not. Very often they look as if they’ve lost shadow or highlight detail, but when you get them on the computer they’re fine.

    The F60fd is a nicely made camera, and the matte grey finish really does give it a bit of style. But despite this, its clever Face Detection and flash technology and the above-average definition, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. The limited zoom range, its tendency towards chromatic aberration and that contrasty LCD all take the edge off its appeal. It’s good, but it’s not great.