My husband is a gadget fanatic but has the common sense to ask me before he buys anything new. I like gadgets but always like to research them before I invest in them. So when he started bugging me about a digital camera, I got to work.
I've loved my traditional 35mm Olympus Stylus for 10 years and didn't think I needed anything else. It's small, light, and easy to use. I love the red-eye reduction and the zoom. So at the bare minimum, these were the qualities I was looking for in a digital camera.
THE BASICS
The FinePix E510 is just that and more. It is the mid-range camera in Fuji’s E-series (E500, E510, E550). It has a 3x zoom and 5.2 megapixel resolution. It's compact and fits comfortably in the palm of my hand. It measures 4” x 2.4” x 1.3” in size. Given it’s small stature, it does have a bit of weight to it, though that’s mostly due to the two AA batteries it requires. This camera comes with a 16MB xD storage card, which holds under 10 high-resolution photos (128MB and 512MB cards can be purchased separately). I purchased mine at Best Buy for $350. I’ve seen it at a few other electronics stores as well as at Target.
QUICK SPECS
5.2 megapixels
12.5 total zoom--(3.2x optical/3.9x digital)
28-91 mm lens focal length
80-400 ISO sensitivity
prints up to 20" x 30" [requires special printer]
2 inch LCD monitor
movie recording with sound
picture cradle ready
PictBridge home printer connection
MY THOUGHTS
I love the simplicity of the FinePix. I hate to read instruction manuals and for the most part I didn’t need to with this camera. There were a few things I looked up after the fact, but for my first use I didn’t even open the manual.
The viewing screen is clear and relatively large. This is great for those times when grandma or grandpa want to borrow the camera to take a family shot. My father-in-law has had problems using the screen on his own digital camera, which he’s had for about five years, but hasn’t had any difficulty using ours. The menu is easy to understand. There is a dial on top that allows the user to change the setting (i.e. from auto flash to portrait to night mode to movie, etc.), a small power button (that's slightly difficult to push with long nails), another button to click and shoot your photos and films, and a third button to pop up the flash. There's also a zoom in/out button and the requisite tiny image viewer for traditional cameraphiles, but I gave up on squinting through it after the first day.
Next to the display screen, there's a switch to change from photo/film taking to viewing mode, in which you can view and delete the shots you have stored by clicking the circular menu button and using the directional keys and back button. The USB cable fits into your PC USB port and allows you to save the data and publish it online.
This camera is not as small as I’d like it to be. I originally wanted something that would fit in my pocket or be easily crammed into my purse. That’s not the case with the FinePix. It is compact but the protruding right hand grip gives it an odd shape that is wider than most tiny special-occasion purses. It does fit comfortably in my hand but its weight makes it sag in even my jacket pocket.
That said, it is a fairly hardy piece of construction. My toddler often gets a hold of it and clicks buttons and sucks on the lens. It has even rebounded after a couple of falls on my hard-wood floor. Fortunately, these mishaps have not caused any permanent damage. In fact, the batteries didn’t even pop out when the camera landed on the floor.
The E510 takes remarkably good photos of my baby daughter both indoors and out. With indoor pictures, it is necessary to have good lighting. The flash helps a lot, but some shots still come out dark in my living room when we just have one light on. With natural light, this camera excels. I take incredible photos at the beach and the park. The largest size photos I’ve printed were 8” x 10”s, which all looked professionally done when I printed them out on my Epson photo printer.
The video feature of this camera is nice and has allowed me to send short one-minute films of my growing baby to family and friends. Indoors, even with a lot of light, the films usually end up pretty dark. But in natural light, they’re great. The sound quality is remarkably good. Unfortunately this means I have the voices of passersby on my films.
The FinePixViewer software included with this camera is very basic and is really only good for organizing. I’m still in search of some easy-to-use, cheap photo editing software. I downloaded a couple types and am currently using one that comes with one of my e-mail accounts.
The chip that the camera comes with is much too small. It will only allow you to store about eight pictures. I bought the 128 MB chip and it’s been more than adequate for my needs. I haven't yet figured out what the maximum number of photos I can store on it is, but I've easily had eight one-minute movies and about 30 photos stored at once. There is a button on the back of the camera to select the resolution quality (5M=94 photos, 3M=149, 2M=188, .3M=919). This feature allows you to vary the number of photos that can be stored. I generally keep it on the second to lowest setting (2M/188 frames). But when I think I have a winner shot (one that I’ll want to use in a photo calendar at the end of the year), I reset it to either 3M or 5M. I learned my lesson last year when I tried to purchase a calendar online and discovered that the 2M setting I was using didn’t provide a high enough resolution for that gift item. So there were a lot of really nice shots of my daughter that I couldn’t include in grandma’s Christmas gift.
My one big gripe about the camera is the reload time. It takes much too long for the camera to reload for the next exposure. It's very disappointing to know that you've finally got the perfect picture (my daughter's smiling and the lighting is right) set up and and then look at the camera screen and see it's not ready yet. I never actually timed it, but I'd guess it takes about 10 seconds for it to reload with the flash, slightly less than that without the flash. So sequential photos are out of the question. Other than that, the only other problem I've encountered is the darkness of the videos and I still haven't quite worked out the red eye thing. There is a portrait option that is supposed to reduce red eye, but it doesn’t seem as effective as my old 35mm camera.
OVERALL
For the price, the Fuji FinePix E510 is a great camera. It's not high end, but it allows me to take great photos and decent super-short movies.. I was a little weary at first to buy a Fuji digital camera because I’ve always heard that the regular ones are unreliable. But I've had my Fuji FinePix for about three years and I'm happy with it. The 5.2 megapixels are more than enough for me to take high-quality photos.
ADDITIONAL PURCHASES
As with most electronics, one gizmo is hardly ever self-contained. There are several items you will need or want to optimize your digital photo taking experience.
Rechargeable batteries—I bought a 4-pack AA charger set at Target for about $30. That was about three years ago. I’m not sure how fast this camera eats up batteries, but the rechargeables are definitely a necessity.
Photo-quality printer—When I bought the E510, I knew my old ink-jet printer wouldn’t cut it when printing out high resolution photos. I bought an
Epson Stylus Photo R200 for about $100. It’s printed out beautiful pictures but it eats up ink like there’s no tomorrow. But there are online stores that sell high-quality ink for decent prices. 101Inks.com is one I’ve used.
Photo paper—I’m afraid I fell prey to the sales pitch on this one. I’ve been buying Epson photo paper (to go along with my printer) for a while. But there are plenty of companies that produce comparable photo paper.
128 MB/512 MB xD card—Like I said in my review, you will need one of these cards unless you don’t mind stopping after taking eight pictures. I bought the 128MB and I’ve only needed to store/delete films/photos once and that was because I hadn’t in about two months. I can't remember how much I paid for my chip but I think it was in the $75-$100 range.
Carrying case—I tend to just jam this camera into one of my medium-size purses but it would’ve been nice if it came with a case. If you’re not of the purse-carrying persuasion and you don’t have deep pockets, you’ll want to invest in a case. I think you can get decent ones for about $20-30.
CP-FXA10 Picture Cradle—This is something I did not purchase and haven’t even bothered to look into. It is an optional docking station for E-series cameras that is used for transferring photos, viewing photos on a TV, and charging batteries. It runs about $50.
www.fuji.com
