It's really, really difficult to buy my husband presents! He pretty much has every thing he wants except for a pilot's licence and I can't buy him one of those. So I was really stuck for what to buy him this past Christmas. I did, however, remember him bemoaning the fact that our digital camera, the
Fuji Finepix S304 that I had bought him for his birthday three years ago, was just too bulky to take out on the ski slopes. With that in mind, I went in search of a compact digital camera that didn't cost a fortune (so it could be slipped into a pocket and not matter if it got knocked about) but that had a good to great performance. I settled on the
Fuji Finepix Z3 for two reasons; one, the camera review sites were fairly complementary and, two, we'd had a good experience with the
S304.
The Caveat I am not, nor do I pretend to be, a professional photographer or electronics whizz. Therefore, most of this camera review will be based on my experience of its use in our family situation. There is an excellent review on the
Finepix Z3 here which contains all the information you should consider if you are more of a photographer.
The Stat Rundown Taken from the excellent, inestimable Digital Photography Review - and where I got the information on which I based my purchasing decision * Super CCD HR sensor delivering 5.1 million effective pixels
* RP (Real Photo) Processor II resulting significantly less noise by enhanced double noise reduction and delivering enhanced color reproduction across entire sensitivity range
* Intelligent Flash achieving the optimum combination of high sensitivity and natural skin tones
* Anti-blur button setting up ultra-fast shutter speed to minimize the risk of blurry images
* 14 pre-programmed scene positions including Dual-Shooting mode (Natural Light without Flash & With Flash) which takes two consecutive shots giving the flexibility for choosing preferred picture
* Non-extending refractive optical zoom lens with 3x optical zoom
* Sensitivity range of ISO 64-1600 for low-noise photography in all conditions
* Slim and Stylish body, wrapped by Monocoque rear shell
* High resolution (230K Pixels) 2.5 inch LCD screen with reinforced, scratch-resistant glass
* Continuous shooting mode for action photography
* 10 MB Internal Memory for being ready-to-shoot
* TV-quality VGA movie recording of 30 frames per second with sound
* PictBridge compatible for direct printing without a PC
What I like It is actually very easy to take pictures with this camera. The menu is fairly intuitive and the LCD screen actually shows the picture you're about to take fairly accurately. As I said in my previous review for the
S304, we always have our cameras set to the highest quality and, for this camera, that means 5.2 mega pixels (MGP). Again, the first thing my husband did after Christmas was go on-line and order himself a 1GB XD card for it as well as a hard leather case for carrying it.
I have used many of the modes on the camera and it is the macro that is my favourite. I like to get up close and personal with my children and some of the close up work I have done the the
Z3 has been pleasing. However, the detail I can get with it is definitely less than that of the
S304 but more on that later.
The other thing I like a lot is that for the first time I have used my digital camera to take small chunks of video. Even though I have had this capability with the
S304 I never used it! All you do is flip the switch into video mode and off you go. In fact, it is so easy to take video with the
Z3 that my poor
Panasonic PV-GS300, bought for the specific purpose of filming Son just after his birth, has had two outings and both pieces of film have yet to be downloaded onto the PC. It's too easy to take video with the
Z3 and too easy to download it onto the PC or my Mac. Maybe I shall curse the poor quality of the video (which doesn't seem poor until you put it up next to what we have done on the Panasonic) or the fact we haven't got 'hard copies' of it on film in the future.
I like the camera's portability and that is its great strength for us as a family, hence the title of this epinion. The
S304 can really get in the way while we take one of our 5 mile fall Sunday hikes and has several dinks and scratches on it due to being swung from necks, hands, back of the stroller and back packs. The
Z3 really does slip into a pocket with little or no trouble. Him indoors says that he feels much more comfortable skiing down black runs with the
Z3 in his pocket than the
S304 hanging round his neck!
When downloading the pictures onto the computer, the cradle seems at the outset to be a pain in the rear but I realised quickly that this is because all the software it needs is in the cradle. You just plug and go, Mac or PC, which is marvellous. Also, the cradle allows you to charge the camera. It would have been a nice touch if the camera charged across the USB a la iPod but it doesn't. Maybe that's something to think about in the future, Fuji.
The best bit about the
Z3 is the rechargeable internal battery. It lasts for literally ages. I think we've charged it three times since we got it. Despite the fact that I have come not to like it as a camera and now rarely use it, it has fast become my husband's weapon of choice. So, even though I don't get it out much for taking snapshots of the kids at home, him indoors often has it in his pocket when we go for family walks and outings. So it does get as much use, if not more than the
S304. I have replaced the 4AA batteries that the
S304 takes twice in the last month. The
Z3 hasn't needed charging once.
What I don't like The first really annoying thing about this camera is this. The
S304 has a maximum quality of 3.1 MGP but, sitting pictures taken on both cameras side by side, I can easily tell which camera they have been taken on and it has nothing to do with the fact that a picture file from the
S304 is half the size of one from the
Z3. The quality of the picture from the
Z3 is decidedly less than that of the
S304. It took me a while to understand why, being a complete amateur. It doesn't matter how good your pixel count is, if your lens is of lesser quality, so will you pictures be. The
S304 has a 6x optical zoom, which essentially means the lens it has is twice as good as the
Z3, which has a 3x optical zoom.
I find the lack of a view finder irritating. I know most digital cameras made for the non-professional photographer these days don't have viewfinders in general. My sisters' both have camera phones which produce pictures of similar quality to the
Z3, neither of which have viewfinders and both of which can actually transmit said pictures to anyone with a picture compatible mobile phone or an email address. However, I like to frame my pictures without being able to see the things that won't appear in the picture. Also, my beloved, who really likes this camera, finds it almost impossible to take pictures on really bright, sunny days as you can barely see what's on the screen and are almost entirely reliant on what you see in front of you, rather than what appears on the camera.
The anti-blur mode and the auto-flash are annoying as the pictures often seem to be of even lower quality than normal. However, the lag that occurs when I switch the anti-blur off is interminable and I almost always lose the picture I was aiming for with Son who is now moving pretty fast. Therefore, in low light conditions, I almost always reach for the
S304 now over the
Z3. The amount of light that the lens on the
Z3 lets in seems to be considerably less than that of the
S304 when the flash is switched off. Obviously, the lag when the flash is off in low light conditions is long but the
S304 always takes better pictures in those conditions than the
Z3 - I have had both taking the same set of pictures and had more success with the
S304.
Despite the assertion by Fuji that the LCD screen is scratch resistant the screen managed to get a huge scratch down it within a month of us owning it, Lord only knows how as him indoors won't let the kids touch it! Now, given the fact that we've had the
S304 for 4 years now, it's been used in all conditions and its casing has some major scratches on it, its LCD screen is mostly free of scratches and the viewfinder is absolutely untouched. Given that you have no viewfinder on the
Z3, it's pretty important that the screen stay scratch-free...
The final shake-down Compact cameras are very different beasts than ordinary point and shoots. With this kind of camera it is very much horses for courses. I think if I had bought a less than high end camera, one that Digital Photography Review calls
'little more than electronic jewellery', then I might have a higher opinion of the
Fuji Finepix Z3 than I have. As it is, though, I bought it thinking that it would be of a similar quality to our already owned
Fuji Finepix S304. It isn't and I am disappointed. However, I won't dismiss it completely as it really does have its place in our life, especially for my husband.
However, I am never going to like it as much as the
S304.
