Best Digital Cameras, Customer Reviews

Review by ok4ablonde:

Honestly, I purchased this camera solely for the HD recording feature. It’s a bonus in that it takes pretty darn good pictures, too. I trust the Fuji name and I should have known this camera would deliver on both counts. My first digital camera was a Fuji A205, and even today it takes quality photos as good as it did almost 7 years ago.

Pictures are sharp and the colors are right on target. Response time after taking a picture without using the flash was just about 1 second or even slightly under a second, which is great considering this camera uses AA batteries; response time between pictures with the flash firing was around 2 seconds before ready to take another flash shot…a lot better than some other brands I’ve tried recently. (Specifically the Canon A495 and the Nikon L20, which I tried and eventually returned for a refund. This Fuji AX200 leaves these two cameras behind in the dust.)

A minor complaint I have with the AX200 is the shiny black plastic it is made of – it shows every fingerprint. It looks nice but I wish they would make these cameras with a matte black finish instead. The tripod mount is plastic also and is located in the center bottom, which is good for stability if using a mini-tripod.

The optical wide angle zoom on this camera is 5X (a majority of cameras at this price point have 3X). It uses readily-available AA batteries. The camera comes with 2 alkaline batteries; I was able to shoot around 125 pictures and some short movies with these batteries before they expired. I recommend buying rechargeable batteries; I got double the amount of shots with rechargeables. You also need an SD card, this camera has some internal memory, but not enough to do anything other than take a few pictures.

This camera is so easy to use, anyone from a young child to older people should have no trouble. I handed it off to my 5 year old nephew to use and even he could figure out how to take a picture. It’s larger than an ultra-compact, and easier to hold onto. The measurements are 3.7″ wide x 2.4″ high x 1.1″ thick. It’s thicker on the end where the batteries and SD card are inserted.

You can take the camera out of the box and be taking pictures in no time flat. SR-Auto (the default) automatically senses the scene and adjusts itself accordingly: Portrait, Landscape, Night, Macro, Backlit Portrait, or Night Portrait.

There is no dial to change settings, everything is accessed thorough menu navigation. It’s easy to select the right shooting mode as there is a full description on the screen as you scroll through the settings. For example: on the Portrait Scene, the description underneath says “Portrait with soft overall tone and beautiful skin tones”.

In additional to having Face Detection, this camera has the following Scenes to choose from: Scene Recognition (SR Auto), Auto, P Program AE – where you can change ISO (100 to 3200), white balance and exposure. Natural – no flash – and flash – takes 2 pictures, 1 with flash, 1 without. Natural Light, Portrait, Baby Mode, Landscape, Panorama, Sport (I use this with pets that don’t want to hold still). Night, Night with Tripod, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Party, Flower, and Text.

This camera has Picture Stabilization (somehow built into the camera’s software), but it is NOT optical image stabilization.

Next, you have your movie modes – 3 to choose from – HD at 720p, and also 640 and 320 in the AVI format.

This is IMPORTANT: You can use the optical zoom while recording movies, however, sounds will not be recorded AT ALL during the ENTIRE time the lens is zoomed out……But if you leave the movie zoom setting on digital, not optical, you will record sound the entire time it is on digital zoom. **This is a major complaint of mine for this camera.** I did keep my rating at 5 stars, though, mainly because I won’t be using zoom that often on my movies, and the digital zoom isn’t as bad “quality-wise” as I thought it would be.

If you want to play the movies back on your TV, you will need to purchase an additional A/V cable (AV-C1) if you don’t already own one. If you want to play an HD movie back on your HDTV, you will need to purchase an additional HDMI cable. There is also an optional Model HDP-L1 player available on Fujifilm’s web site, which includes an HD card reader and a remote. Since I don’t have an HDTV myself, I didn’t purchase this so I can’t comment on it.

The AX200 also comes with very basic Fuji MyFinepixViewer photo editing software. It’s compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP and Mac. This is one area where Fuji lags behind the rest; I wish they could come up with software as good as the Canon ZoomBrowser. The Finepix software was finally upgraded from the 2003 version with this camera, but it still doesn’t impress me. Using XP requires a minimum 512 RAM and Vista requires a minimum of 1 GB RAM. Just download Picasa, it’s better – and a free download.

Review by Celina J. Kilburger:

I Have A Low Budget For This Kind Of Thing But I Really Wanted A Camera For Myself. So With My Set Budget I Looked Around At Cameras, Prices, & Features. I Was Getting Disheartened, But I Then I Saw The Fujifilm FinePix AX200. The Description Of The Camera Seemed Great For Its Price, So I Preordered The Camera.

The Overall Camera Is Great. The Biggest Letdown Is The Battery Life. This Camera Sucks The Life Out Of Batteries. I Like To Use Rechargeable Batteries, If Not At Least Recycle The Others When They Die. Camera Also Comes With Some Great Settings, Features, & Modes:

Image Size – From 2m – 12m

Image Quality – Fine Or Normal

3200 ISO

Exp. Compensation – Auto Or Manually Set

White Balance – Auto Or Manually Set

Continuous Mode – Up To 3 Pictures. Shot Up To 3 Consecutive Pictures

Intelligent Face Detection

Red Eye Removal

Scene Recognition Auto – Automatically Detects Scene Type & Scene Conditions And Sets Camera’s Focus, Exposure, & White Balance Accordingly

Program AE Shooting Mode – Automatic Mode With Programmed Setting. Set Your Own Exposure, White Balance, Features, etc

Movie Shooting Mode – Movie Recoding With Sound. 720p HD Movies With Still Shots In 16:9

Natural & Flash Shooting Mode – 2 Images Shot Continuously Without Flash And With Flash

Natural Light Shooting Mode – Retains Natural Ambience Without Flash

Portrait Shooting Mode – Portrait With Soft Overall Tone And Beautiful Skin Tones

Baby Mode Shooting Mode – Suitable For Babies, For Natural Skin Tone Without Flash

Landscape Shooting Mode – Clear Scenic Shots

Panorama Shooting Mode – Panorama Pictures By Consecutive 3 Shots Or Less. Put 2 Or 3 Pictures Together To Create 1 Image. Example: Landscape With A Structure Focus Point Is Too Wide For A Single Shot. Select The Panorama Mode – You Can Choose 2 Or 3 Shots To Later Stitch Together. You Select 3. (Panorama Mode Works Best With A Tripod, In This Example You Have One.) You Set The Tripod At The Far Left Of The Scene. The 1/3 Of Your Shot Is Taken Here. Like It, Keep It. The Camera Will Show The Cutoff Of Your Shot So You Can Line It Up For The 2nd Shot To Make The Panoramic Shot In The End Match Up And Look Great. Just Repeat What You Did In The 1st Shot For The 2nd & 3rd Shots. The Images Will Then Be Lined Up And Put Together To Create A Single Image

Sport Shooting Mode – Suitable For Shooting A Moving Subject

Night Shooting Mode – Reduces Camera Shake With High ISO Setting For Night Scenery

Night (Tripod) Shooting Mode – Clear Shots Of Night Scenery With A Slow Shutter Speed

Fireworks Shooting Mode – Vivid Shots Of Fireworks With A Slow Shutter Speed

Sunset Shooting Mode – For Shooting Sunsets, Making Colors More Vivid

Snow Shooting Mode – Suitable For Shooting In Snowy Scenes

Beach Shooting Mode – Crisp, Clear Shots When Shooting On The Beach

Party Shooting Mode – Suitable For Shooting Indoor Events

Flower Shooting Mode – Effective For Taking More Vivid Shots Of Flowers

Text Shooting Mode – Effective For Taking Clearer Shots Of Lettering

Silent Mode – Turns Of Flash And Turns Down Volume Of Camera For Places That Require Non-Disturbance

Macro Mode – For Shots Of Up-Close Images

Picture Stabilization: Reduces Blur Caused By Such Things As Shaking Hands By Combining Higher Light Sensitivities And With Faster Shutter Speeds To Stabilize Pictures

Picture Time Delay – Delay Pictures By 2 Or 10 Seconds. Delaying By 2 Seconds You Can Have More Time To Reduce Blur Or Get Your Shot In Focus. If You Have A Tripod, You Can Delay Your Picture For 10 Seconds, Allowing You Time To Get In The Shot

Picture Search – Search For Your Pictures By Scene Mode, Look At 1 Picture At A Time On The Screen Or Choose To Look At 20 Pictures Or As Many As You Want Or Have. Looking At A Picture – When Looking At A Picture You Can Zoom In, A Small Box With The Whole Picture Will Show Up On The Side. That Small Box Will Have A Small Square In It Showing Where On That Whole Picture Your’re Zooming In On.

Zoom – 5x Wide Angle Optical Zoom

LCD Crystal Screen

There Are A Lot Of Great Things About This Camera. I Think It’s Made Pretty Well. I Accidently Dropped A Heavy Battery Right On The LCD Screen. Thought I Broke It. I’m Clumsy…But The Camera Remained Unharmed And The Screen Was Still In Perfect Condition. It’s Built Great And The Images Come Out Great As Well. I Definitely Recommend It.

A Couple Of Cons:

Battery Life – Like I Said Above, Sucks The Battery Life Right Out Of The Battery. I Suggest Rechargeable Batteries, You Won’t Have To Buy New Ones For A Little While. The Camera Comes With A `Discharge’ Feature That Drains The Rechargeable Batteries Life Out When You’re Done Using The Camera . This Saves The Batteries Overall Life Span. Draining A Rechargeable Battery Completely And Then Recharging Them Makes Them Last Longer.

Sound – The Camera Makes A Lot Of Sound. It’s Noisy When On The SR (Scene Recognition) Mode. The Sound Comes From It Constantly Scanning What’s In Its View And Adjusting The White Balance, Selecting A Mode, Etc. But I’ve Gotten Used To It When I Want To Use The SR. If You Don’t Want The Noise, Just Choose The Program Shooting Mode Or One That Fits The Environment Your In.

Besides That Other Things Are Minor. Depending On What Type Of Memory Card You Choose, Movies Can Last Up To Around 28min. I Have A Fujifilm SDHC 8GB Class 6 Memory Card. I Recommend It.

Review by Gail Kaku:

This camera replaces a Canon Powershot 400, which started to flake out. The J20 has an easy interface and is quite intuitive. Can’t believe the price of this camera.

My camera is tucked away in an IPOD case and fits like a glove. Maybe I won’t need a camera case. I cut a little hole in the case and wove the camera strap through it. At the end of the strap,I attached a blackberry cleaning pad to it and use it to wipe away smudge marks.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the size and weight and performance of this camera. Recommend using the flash indoors – colors are more natural. I’ve been wanting something ultra thin for a while now and finally found what I want.

Review by L.G.F.:

I got the camera for my mom when her old one started to mess up. I haven’t really looked into any of the advanced features, but from just messing with it for less than 5 minutes I realized that this is the perfect camera for her. While I need something a little more advanced, this is one of the closest digital cameras that I have seen to a simple point-and-click camera. It doesn’t have a lot of fancy buttons, which is great because they tend to confuse my mom. I was able to show her rather quickly how to turn it on, zoom, take a photo, and view photos. This is all someone with her skill level needs to know how to do.

Now I’m sure this camera has some advanced features that I haven’t had a chance to see yet, but that’s not why we bought it. I have my own fancy camera that does cool stuff that my mom could never figure out how to use. Trust me, she’s tried.

So if you just want a good quality, simple camera for someone who doesn’t need to fool with features, then this is a great option at a wonderful price.

Review by ok4ablonde:

NOTE: I have this camera in black. Other than the color, they are the same.

Honestly, I purchased this camera solely for the HD recording feature. It’s a bonus in that it takes pretty darn good pictures, too. I trust the Fuji name and I should have known this camera would deliver on both counts. My first digital camera was a Fuji A205, and even today it takes quality photos as good as it did almost 7 years ago.

Pictures are sharp and the colors are right on target. Response time after taking a picture without using the flash was just about 1 second or even slightly under a second, which is great considering this camera uses AA batteries; response time between pictures with the flash firing was around 2 seconds before ready to take another flash shot…a lot better than some other brands I’ve tried recently. (Specifically the Canon A495 and the Nikon L20, which I tried and eventually returned for a refund. This Fuji AX200 leaves these two cameras behind in the dust.)

A minor complaint I have with the AX200 is the shiny plastic it is made of – it shows every fingerprint. It looks nice but I wish they would make these cameras with a matte finish instead. The tripod mount is plastic also and is located in the center bottom, which is good for stability if using a mini-tripod.

The optical wide angle zoom on this camera is 5X (a majority of cameras at this price point have 3X). It uses readily-available AA batteries. The camera comes with 2 alkaline batteries; I was able to shoot around 125 pictures and some short movies with these batteries before they expired. I recommend buying rechargeable batteries; I got double the amount of shots with rechargeables. You also need an SD card, this camera has some internal memory, but not enough to do anything other than take a few pictures.

This camera is so easy to use, anyone from a young child to older people should have no trouble. I handed it off to my 5 year old nephew to use and even he could figure out how to take a picture. It’s larger than an ultra-compact, and easier to hold onto. The measurements are 3.7″ wide x 2.4″ high x 1.1″ thick. It’s thicker on the end where the batteries and SD card are inserted.

You can take the camera out of the box and be taking pictures in no time flat. SR-Auto (the default) automatically senses the scene and adjusts itself accordingly: Portrait, Landscape, Night, Macro, Backlit Portrait, or Night Portrait.

There is no dial to change settings, everything is accessed thorough menu navigation. It’s easy to select the right shooting mode as there is a full description on the screen as you scroll through the settings. For example: on the Portrait Scene, the description underneath says “Portrait with soft overall tone and beautiful skin tones”.

In additional to having Face Detection, this camera has the following Scenes to choose from: Scene Recognition (SR Auto), Auto, P Program AE – where you can change ISO (100 to 3200), white balance and exposure. Natural – no flash – and flash – takes 2 pictures, 1 with flash, 1 without. Natural Light, Portrait, Baby Mode, Landscape, Panorama, Sport (I use this with pets that don’t want to hold still). Night, Night with Tripod, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Party, Flower, and Text.

This camera has Picture Stabilization (somehow built into the camera’s software), but it is NOT optical image stabilization.

Next, you have your movie modes – 3 to choose from – HD at 720p, and also 640 and 320 in the AVI format.

This is IMPORTANT: You can use the optical zoom while recording movies, however, sounds will not be recorded AT ALL during the ENTIRE time the lens is zoomed out……But if you leave the movie zoom setting on digital, not optical, you will record sound the entire time it is on digital zoom. **This is a major complaint of mine for this camera.** I did keep my rating at 5 stars, though, mainly because I won’t be using zoom that often on my movies, and the digital zoom isn’t as bad “quality-wise” as I thought it would be.

If you want to play the movies back on your TV, you will need to purchase an additional A/V cable (AV-C1) if you don’t already own one. If you want to play an HD movie back on your HDTV, you will need to purchase an additional HDMI cable. There is also an optional Model HDP-L1 player available on Fujifilm’s web site, which includes an HD card reader and a remote. Since I don’t have an HDTV myself, I didn’t purchase this so I can’t comment on it.

The AX200 also comes with very basic Fuji MyFinepixViewer photo editing software. It’s compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP and Mac. This is one area where Fuji lags behind the rest; I wish they could come up with software as good as the Canon ZoomBrowser. The Finepix software was finally upgraded from the 2003 version with this camera, but it still doesn’t impress me. Using XP requires a minimum 512 RAM and Vista requires a minimum of 1 GB RAM. Just download Picasa, it’s better – and a free download.

NOTE: Check back in the next couple days I will have some pictures uploaded here.

Review by M. Liu:

Got delivered in 7 days, nicely packaged with two AA batteries, manual + CD and cord to plug into computer.

I bought an 8GB sandisk memory card and rechargeable batteries with it.

I was very pleased with the design of the cam and the nice 5x zoom with decent quality.

The functions are very easy to learn and get used to, my only hassle is that i have to select for the video option and its not just a switch of one button b/w video and pic… (more like 3 buttons and it really matters when i wanna switch quickly b/w the two to take a pic or opt for a video!)

My major concerns: when sound is off, the flash and self timer is off as well…

WHen i was recording a video in HD for 60seconds+ and i pressed stop to save, it spazzed out and froze, after a minute it self shutdown and when i start it again, there was an error message for the video. This happened TWICE out of the ten times that i was recording, i have no idea what happened.

BTW: the two AA batteries lasted me ~6 hours (total ~200 pictures + 3 vids), battery life depends on how often you use the cam but this is just an estimate if it helps..

Lots of shooting modes: Scene recognition, auto, programmed, movie, natural light, portrait, baby mode, landscape, panorama, sport, night, fireworks, sunset, snow, beach, party flower, and text.

Overall it takes great pics and HD videos (its only 0 too!)

Review by V. Ylonen:

I bought three of these cards in February for my Canon PowerShot (my backup camera for when I don’t want to drag around my DSLR and all its lenses). I chose them because Fuji is a name I felt comfortable with and the price was very good for the size and class 6 rating. Though I have only used them a few times, two of the three have given me memory card errors, and I lost a few hours worth of pictures that couldn’t even be retrieved by two different recovery programs. I won’t be buying more of these cards…I’m going back to SanDisk, which have never failed on me.

Review by William B. Smock III:

I think that this is by far the best memory card I have ever had . A real must have for those who like to take alot of pictures. Also for those who like to take video .