Ok, lots of whinging on the Fuji Talk Forum over this camera's image quality. One of the more ludicrous charges is that this camera is *much* worse than the Fuji F30 or F31fd ... the two best Fujis ever made ... until now that is.
In fact, I think it's a step up from those cameras in many ways. And surprisingly, one of those ways is its high ISO. At 1600 and 3200 ISO, this cam can hold its own. In fact, shot properly, it does not throw up much chroma noise at all. The luminance noise is there, but hardly significant.
Images look smooth, and yet detailed. Binning works. Yes, at 100%, it can look a little disconcerting. There is a kind of circular grain that simply looks strange ... but that is actually quite fine-grained and very smooth. So it works out beautifully.
So ... examples .... the following are 800px renderings with embedded 100% crops. No processing at all on the images other than downsizing and cropping with yellow borders to isolate the embedded parts.
1600 ISO
The following 1600ISO image has a hint of camera shake. But note the smoothness of the grain and total lack of chroma noise.
So those look awfully clean and pretty detailed ... so how badly do things deteriorate at 3200 ISO?
That's not too bad at all if I'm honest. Reasonably low grain, still no chroma noise showing up, and details are preserved adequately.
Finally ... how about pro low light mode? At 1600 ISO that is ...
Well now ... that's kind of astounding. That's cleaner than some other brands with tiny sensors can do at 100 ISO ...
This cam is perfectly capable at these ISOs ... and I would bet that it is easier and far more fun to shoot than any previous Fuji compact. Those who doubt it should really try it out.
4 comments:
Kim
Excellent and thorough, as usual.
I find my F200EXR does FAR better than even my F31fd did.
Again, more grain like and less like watercolor or stained glass mosaic.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2626/3943272497_15c37d11fd_o.jpg
ISO 1600, straight jpeg
I may yet add the F70exr, if only to have a travel camera.
May my copy be as good as yours!
Good Review.
Thanks Lili, and anonymous :-). Your image looks pretty good ... a bit of chroma and grain, but well controlled. I get grain sometimes, especially when the light is pretty bad. But I also get images with almost no grain. Remarkable for a 1/2" sensor. The trick now is to figure our the difference in exposure or settings, if there is one.
I, for one, don't doubt it :-)
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