Fri, Jul 23, 2010
OK, I think that Fuji Film spent a few years inside of my noggin and actually listened to what I wanted out of a compact camera. You all know it. After spending all week at work with a heavy DSLR, the last thing you want to do is take one home for the weekend or go camping. But then all you hear all weekend from your spouse or family is: why don’t you have a camera? And I’m usually thinking it myself. The answer usually is cuz it’s a pain in the rear, but that doesn’t go over well.
Thankfully, Fuji, I think, has saved me. They’ve just announced, and I’ve already pre-ordered the FinePix F300XR.
Itsy Bitsy
Look at this little beauty. It’s got some huge zoom range, 24mm to 300 and something ish. OK, that is cool. But you know what else is cool? They did some super mumbo jumbo cool thing where the lens elements fold within the lens barrel so the camera can be smaller. When it needs to go long, the telephoto lens pops out.When it needs to go wide, whamo, cool. Look how dang small that thing is.
Uber Cool?
Well, there are a lot of uber cool things here. But what is the uber coolest?
Hybrid AF technology. Have you ever wanted to take your compact camera and throw it on the ground and jump up and down on it because you just missed every shot of your kid trying to blow out the candles on a cake? Why? Because compact cameras totally blow at focus. Totally blow? Why? Because they use contrast focus, where the camera uses the contrast in the scene to focus. Low light? No contrast, no focus. DSLRs use phase focus where they take two views of the image and match them up (kind of like what you see in a rangefinder). It’s faster in low light or precise sports focus. So what the heck did Fuji do? Well they added in extra sensors so the camera can contrast focus in good light and phase focus in bad light. The result? They are promising focus speeds as fast as mid range DSLRs. Wahoo. I’m in right there. You got me hooked.
But wait, there’s more
They have created a way to make natural looking background focus without the expensive lens. We all love shooting at f1.2 or f1.4 and getting that creamy background. Well they take multiple shots with the background going more and more out of focus and blend them together in the camera. How cool is that? Check it out.
Sure it won’t replace the DSLR for pro shoots, but it will sure make those pictures in the park with the kids look a whole lot better.
The super extra bonus?
Fuji Skin Tone=yummy. Before the D700 came out I used to shoot with the Fuji S5. When that camera came out, it was the holy grail for skin tone. It had, by far, the best skin tone and auto white balance of any camera out there. Luckily, I think Nikon traded their camera technology for Fuji’s color technology in that deal and now the newer Nikons have great skin tone. Especially with their Vivid settings. But, the skin tone is rockin’ on the Fuji’s as are the cool film modes. So I’m excited and I’ve got one on pre-order.
Could this be the perfect pro photographer’s point and shoot camera? Possibly. Only time will tell.
Fundy
Ooh, looks nice! We just picked up a Panasonic Lumix GF1 for similar reasons… fixed focal 40mm equiv, but makes for some fabulous shots with such good glass. If you find that this isn’t actually the holy grail of compact cameras, give this little guy a try.
Yeah, I was looking at the GF1, but that looked like an entirely new system and I would have bought even more lenses