14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Great pocket camera
Date of Review: Mar 21, 2009
The Bottom Line: If you need a good camera that is small and low cost, buy it.
I bought this camera for use as a pocket camera since I am not satisfied with my cell phone pictures and I can't pocket my Fujifilm S6000fd.
Upon receiving the Fujifilm J10, I proceeded to put it through a benchmark of tests that I do with all my cameras. First off, I took an outdoor picture on a sunny day of a brick building approximately 500 feet away in auto mode, with the 3:2 widescreen mode. A close inspection of the picture showed very little noise in the blue sky, low enough for any camera to be proud of. The Auto selected 64 ISO. The color was average to above average, and detail was adequate, not quite as much detail as my S6000fd but still good, especially considering the tiny size of this camera, much smaller than I expected.
Next I wanted to test indoor pictures, from experience with every other camera I tested, I set this camera to Manual and set the ISO to 200. This camera doesn't really have a manual setting, it is more like program settings, it is not full Manual, but that is a good thing. At ISO 200, taking indoor shots with and without the flash, I was very surprised with the pictures. The subject turns out virtually noise free, and just a bit of noise in the background shady areas as expected, but still very good. Detail of the subject looks good. Color may need a boost on some shots in post processing. I kind of like them untouched, they look natural. So far I have not needed to post process any pictures, although some may benefit by a color and brightness boost.
The flash is decent, but not as powerful as a larger camera like the S6000fd. The zoom works great, with full 3x optical zoom, no need for any IS or tripods.
The only bad thing I can see on this camera is that the video audio has a hissing sound "ssssssssssss". The 640x480 at 30 fps quality is good, equal to my last camcorder that I sold. I don't own a camcorder anymore since I am more than satisfied with video from my picture cameras. I just transfer all videos to DVD and then delete them from my camera. You can live with that hissing sound though. I ran some video tests and when you video a room full of people or have a tv in the background making noise, the hissing is not noticeable. It records sound ok, but when you video in a totally quiet room, the hissing is pretty bad. I would say that if your video has no sound anyway, you should either turn down the volume or if transferring to DVD, disconnect the audio cable. When you video and there is plenty of sounds, you don't really have to worry about the hissing that much since it is not noticed, it is only noticed in the quiet periods.
The build quality looks decent, but you should get used to using the strap around your wrist, as any camera can break if dropped.
I have found that using a card reader to transfer pictures to my computer using the finepix software included with this camera is the best way to go, much smoother.
I found this camera to be so good, I would have no problem if this was my only camera. That is a pretty good statement for a sub $100 camera. If you need this for a pocket or purse camera that also needs to be low priced so you don't have to worry about it, I say buy it. If you are looking for a camera that is ultra low cost and will be your only camera and camcorder, I say you can make it work for you, although it is asking a lot out of such a small and low cost camera.
