The Fujifilm's common strenghts are:
- 10 megapixals offer good quality images even up to 10x zoom
- Very good wide angle
- Very good zoom
- Lot's of shooting modes including 480p video and low light mode
- Comfortable to hold and transport (you can carry it in your pocket)
- Good mode dial ring

The Fujifilm's common weaknesses are:
- The camera doesn't memorize the photo you were just viewing. (example: You are viewing photo #54 out of 100, and you take a picture, then if you want to view IMG54 again, you need to click the button all the way to that photo, so it bascially doesn't memorize the picture you were viewing.
- The zoom ring can get stuck and not work properly
- It doesn't have very good Image Stabalization
- Doesn't shoot RAW
- Doesn't have very good results at night without a tripod
- No HD video and zoom makes a big noise once filming, also temporarely doesn't focus when zooming in
- No lens hood, leads to backlit photos often

Introduction:
The Fujifilm F70EXR is the smallest Point & Shoot camera out there with a amazing 10x wide angle zoom! This camera offers a 10MP censor, ISO from 100-12800, 27mm wide angle lens with a 10x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom, CCD sensor, shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/2000 seconds, Aperture from F3.3 - F5.6, built in flash that is effective up to 4,2 meters, and takes SD/ SDHC cards. This camera is very good for beginners as it is compact and gives you good results.
My use of it:
I am using this camera for Aviation Photography, Macro/Nature and Sunsets. The best option for Aviation is the Sports Mode, I use it when I go spotting because it focuses on my subject and does often not give blurry results. For Macro I often use the Flower mode in the Sports section mode which works 1cm away from the subject, and the Manual Mode with Macro on. As for Sunsets I use the Manual mode with different shutter speeds, the Landscape mode and Sunset mode. The Sunset mode is not always the suitable choice as the pictures are often too dark and do not show the real colours. A big weakness for the Fuji is that no lens hood exists for it, this leads to many backlit shots when shooting against the sun or in very bright conditions.
Shooting Modes:
Fujifilm offers a lot of shooting modes on this camera. One of the main features of this F70EXR is the low-light mode. This is a mode for when you have very little light coming into your lens. So what this does is that it takes 4 pictures by clicking the shutter button once, and combines them altogether. The effect is that you will not have such a noisy/dark/pixalated image. The defect of this is that if your subject is moving then you will have a blurry result. Another mode is the Natural Light mode, this mode offers pictures with the right light, but usually you will have some noisy results. A very good mode is the Night mode. This is pretty much effective once you have a tripod or something to hold the camera still. If you do not have anything to support it, you can forget about having a decent picture at night.
Battery:
The battery on this camera is pretty good, it is a Lithium-ion battery which lasts for about 400 shots. I recommend buying a second battery pack if you are using the camera for 3 hours straight or more.
LCD Screen:
The LCD screen on the Fujifilm is rather good. It is 3 inches large and offers quite high resolution.
Recommended Accessories:
I recommend getting a extra battery or two (if necessery) and a good effective tripod.
Overall:
Overall this camera is very good for beginners. If you are planning to get involved more into photography then you should probably start looking at stuff like a Canon G9/10/11/12 or even a DSLR. If you are looking for a camera to use for sports, then this is quite suitable for it, if you need it for nature/landscape/sunsets etc. then is also the right choice. I have been using this for about a year now, I like it a lot, except it is starting to malfunction in certain area's. I also need to upgrade to a DSLR because I will get much better results with one of course and it is suitable for me.
Price:
I have bought mine in December 2009 for 250.00CAD$ (50$ off) at FutureShop. Currently you can probably buy one for under 200.00CAD$.

I hope my small review has helped you a bit for what to buy as your next camera.

Similar Products Used:

-FujiFilm F80EXR

-unique exposure system
-wide dynamic range
-wide angle and 10x zoom
-small and good quality
-can zoom during movies
-excellent low light abilities, high iso low noise
-very useful pro low light mode
-responsive
-some manual control

- the lens, though i love its range 27-270mm, it looks a little soft. Its not as sharp as my g7 but fine for family photo.
- it does not actually have a proper iris, the aperture is changed using an internal neutral density filter.
- focusing in dim light often not successful which takes away many points from its otherwise excellent low light ability.
- Leaving it on auto sometimes may NOT yield the best image quality, even auto exr mode selected iso much too high.
- no manual focus which would have solved any inconsistencies in low light focusing

My F70EXR REVIEW

So far after almost 2 weeks use, i must say i like it. I bought it during my trip to tokyo last week for 32,000 yen tax free no SD card. its a unique general purpose pocket mega zoom but with many contradicting qualities. Image quality is good though not best-in-class, build quality is very solid, size is perfect in hand, screen is very sharp, zoom range is excellent though a little soft, I.S. is more effective than expected, excellent dynamic range, excellent low light abilities yet low light focusing not always sharp and no manual focus to help, specifications is excellent but a little steep learning curve.

Its exposure flexibility is so unique; my pictures taken in glaring midday sun retained details in the highlights on the ground and grass, then able to get many usable shots in dim lighting at iso 800 shutter 1/10th of a second hand held, and even took very dimly lit shots hand held iso 1600 in image stacking mode which looked surprisingly good with little noise (about the same as iso 400 on other cams). Its ability to take a picture under almost any lighting condition handheld (except the very dark, long exposures) is simply amazing. As unique as it is, I don't think this cam is suited to absolute beginners because there are so many solutions (all the diffrent exposure modes) available for any one situation, which means if you want to get the best image for that situation, you may need to choose the right solution yourself because though the automatic system tries hard, it can miss such as choosing too high an iso or choosing exr-high-res when should have chosen exr-high-dynamic. i don't think it suits the pro either because the image quality is not best in class. Anyone else in between these two groups though could find it fun to use and appreciate the images which can not be taken with any other pocket cam on the market at this time.

To help new users get started with this camera i have summed up what i have found so far to be most useful. It may sound complicated, but if you have it in hand, all should be apparent (i hope).

TIPS:
- for shutter priority in low light situations and hand held photo, the aperture should be set to widest (f3.3), then set shutter to 1/10th of a second because this has proven (for me) to yield the best ratio between most amount of usable shots and the slowest possible shutter speed. Then i simply change the iso between 200 to 800 to fine tune the exposure. This has worked very well for me as a sort of a shutter priority exposure mode. Another way to use shutter priority is to select the Scene Mode and set it to FIREWORKS. You are then able to set the shutter freely between 1/2 a second and 4 seconds. This is useful if you have a tripod.
- if you want wide dynamic range then use the exr d-range priority mode for best image. I don't recommend you use wide dynamic range in other modes such as program exposure full resolution because your image will show noise in the shadows. This is not actually the same as the exr mode and it shows.
- for very dim lighting, switch to image stacking mode (Pro low light), hold your breath and ask your subject to stay completely still for 3 seconds as the camera takes 4 multiple shots. The effect of other people walking around your subject or cars passing by actually look beautiful, like capturing a long exposure light streak while your main subject remains sharp!
- for slightly dim lighting and hand held, i use iso 400 or iso 800 program exposure and medium resolution which helps reduce chroma noise.
- for sharpest daylight image possible, i use full resolution and dr100% dynamic range and low iso such as 100 or 200.
- set iso to auto 400 for general photo
- in exr d-range priority mode, settings between dr100%-dr400% the minimum iso is 100, but choosing dr800% will increase minimum iso to 200 automatically. Image quality looks the same but dr800% retains more highlight.
- I don't actually see that much difference in noise level between full resolution, medium resolution, and exr-low-noise except that full resolution has more chroma noise but the noise is actually much smaller in pixels, so this is up to your preference.
- for EXR exposure i leave it on wide dynamic range. This is because in exr low noise mode i don't see much difference (as mentioned above), and for auto-exr mode it selects iso 1600 in low light which looks awful. So i just leave EXR at d-range priority.
- for Scene mode, i leave it set to pro-low light all the time now for easy access because it has proven its usefulness in more than just a few occasions.
- The Natural Light mode always sets the iso too high so i don't use it.
- if you want the best image from this cam you should NOT leave it on auto, a little learning and understanding is necessary so please experiment.
- Pro focus looks artificial, i don't use it.
- to bring out its excellent dynamic range, use HDR programs. I used the free Photomatrix. there are tutorials on the web you can look for which shows you how to make a simulated hdr image from one jpeg photo. This camera is ideal for this job because it retains so much information for you to post process.

Similar Products Used:

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