Slick performance, good build quality and excellent handling, but the biggest bonus is the remarkable high-ISO performance, which produces virtually noise-free pictures in all lighting conditions. FujiFilm FinePix F10 is a real breakthrough, and makes the FinePix F10 a unique camera. Although it is not without its faults, there isn’t another camera on the market that can match its low-light performance.
This is a camera for which I have been waiting with some interest for several months, ever since a marketing executive from Fujifilm told me that the company was working on a camera which eliminated image noise at all sensitivity settings right up to 1600 ISO – that’s like hearing about a car that goes at 200mph and gets 200mpg. Image noise is the bane of digital photography, so fame, fortune and glory awaits for the company that can conquer it first. The official press release that accompanied the review sample was a little less boastful, but still mentioned a “low noise” ISO 64-1600 sensitivity range, so I was keen to see what it could do.
The screen is specially toughened to resist scratches, and I can attest that it definitely works. The review sample that I was loaned by Fuji had already been used by one of the camera magazines, and it looked like part of their testing procedure involved kicking the camera down a flight of concrete steps. The corners of the case, the lens surround, the handgrip and the top panel were covered in scratches and scuff marks, but despite this the monitor screen was completely undamaged. Perhaps Fuji should have made the rest of the camera out of the same stuff it uses to coat the LCD.