Fujifilm FinePix A800 Review

The Fujifilm FinePix A800 delivers great images without sacrificing ease of use and style. This stylish yet sensible camera weighs only 151 grams or 5.3 ounces (without the batteries, memory card and other accessories), it is very compact since it measures only 3.8 inches wide, 1.2 inches thick and 2.4 inches high, yet it delivers powerhouse image resolution for its price range at 8.3 million pixels of image detail. The use of the 1/1.6-inch Super CCD High Resolution technology from Fujifilm, moreover, ensures that not only a lot of image information is captured in every shot; it also ensures great image fidelity due to accurate color and contrast reproduction.

The Fujifilm FinePix A800 has a Fujinon lens that has 3 times optical zooming capability. The camera itself can digitally magnify the subject up to 7.4 times. The FinePix A800 also comes with its own microphone and speaker for convenient audio recording and playback when you record a movie clip. This digital camera records AVI-format movies with monaural sound at 30 frames per second. Movie clips’ resolution is at 320 by 240 pixels. For better storage capacity, the 10 MB internal memory can be increased with either an xD picture card or an SD media card.

At the front of the digital camera, specifically at the upper right portion, you will see the in-built flash. Ordinarily, the flash will be activated automatically during low-light shooting conditions. However, instead of going with auto, intelligent flash, you can specify the flash mode by pressing the left arrow. Every press of the flash mode selector button (found at the rear of the camera at the right of the Menu/Ok button) selects one of the other 5 modes (red-eye reduction, red eye reduction with slow synchronization, slow synchronization, no flash, or forced flash) and the sixth consecutive press will bring you back to auto.

The A800 is special due to its enhanced usability. At the upper right part of the camera’s rear is a Mode Dial for selecting among and navigating through 8 shooting modes. By turning the Mode Dial, you can set the camera on full automatic, activate digital zoom and specify red-eye reduction mode. Aside from that, you can choose to use the picture stabilization mode, which will automatically select a faster shutter speed so that you can take moving pictures with minimum blurring and shake.

Selecting the baby mode, on the other hand, automatically suppresses the flash so you can take baby pictures without blinding the baby with the flash. You can also choose to select the portrait mode or specify any of the 14 available scene positions such as landscape, sunset, underwater, sport, night, flower, natural light, party, fireworks, beach, museum, text, snow, and even manual. To start recording video clips, select the movie mode which is also found on the Mode Dial.

Below the Mode Dial are two buttons, the Display/Back button and the Play button. By pressing the display button, you can change the LCD display mode into the various playback modes (for trimming, image rotation and framing; slide show playback; sorted-by-date playback; and multi-frame playback. The Playback button activates playback view. The 2.5-inch LCD display is ideal for reviewing pictures with its 115 thousand pixels and 100-percent coverage.

Contributing to the digital camera’s ease of navigation is the multi-language graphics menu with text descriptions. Each option has short descriptions that will tell you when a camera setting is ideal to use so even complete amateurs (and people who don’t like reading user manuals) can competently use the A800.

A summary of A800 features:

8.3 megapixels
Optical zoom 3 X
Digital zoom 6.9 X
Super CCD Sensor High Resolution
Improved version of JPEG format for still images
AVI format for movie clips
Maximum shutter speed 1/1600 seconds
Minimum shutter speed 4 seconds
Maximum wide-angle aperture f2.8
Minimum wide-angle aperture f5.2
LCD screen size is 2.5 inches
Movie recording capture speed is 30 frames per second
xD and SD memory cards’ compatible
Audio-video cable and USB (mini-B) connectivity

Pros: This digital camera is extremely easy to use. The Mode Dial makes selecting functions a breeze whereas the menu options with graphics and text descriptions make it even easier to navigate through the various camera settings. The picture stabilization function, moreover, ensure the least shake when taking pictures.

Cons: On the other hand, the FinePix A800 has quite a limited internal memory. The 10 megabytes of storage can only record 2 pictures saved at the highest quality settings and 4 at the next highest level of quality.

Overall: This digital camera is a great starter camera that can deliver amazingly detailed pictures even if you do not know much about matters of balance, lighting and exposure. However, you should make sure to buy a compatible memory card to use with it to offset the limited internal memory.

Attached Images

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