Home > Consumer Reviews > Fujifilm Finepix F70EXR 10MP Super CCD Digital Camera with 10x Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R29XSKHD3UO83L The FujiFilm F70EXR follows in the footsteps of the fantastic Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR 12MP Super CCD Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Dual Image Stabilized Optical Zoom as a very compact camera that packs a lot of advanced features into a "Point & Shoot" format camera body. The F70EXR is somewhat less expensive than the F200EXR, having a slightly lower resolution (10MP vs 12MP), a smaller LCD (2.7" vs 3"), and a few less shooting mode options. That being said, the F70EXR also has several improvements over the F200EXR, including double the optical Zoom (10x vs 5x), an improved Auto ERX mode and two new shooting modes (see below), and the ability to zoom while shooting video.

This is somewhat of a lengthy review, so I will summarize my findings here:

The F70EXR is a very powerful and feature rich "Point & Shoot" style camera that can be made to perform well for almost any application. The Auto Modes are very accurate and will almost always produce a good picture. In the manual Modes the user has more control over the settings, but the results are almost always impressive. This camera has a lot of advanced features and often takes better pictures than our much more expensive dSLR camera. The only weak area is in the Movie Mode, which is only VGA quality but does at least allow for zooming while filming (see video and review below).

Now for my overview and full review:

The F70EXR has many advanced features, including -
* 10 Megapixel Super CCD EXR Sensor
* 2.7" LCD Screen
* Wide Angle (27 mm) through 10x Optical Zoom (270 mm)
* Image Stabilization
* Wide Range of Preconfigured Modes (see below)
* Face Recognition with automatic in camera Red Eye Removal
* Support for SD and SDHC cards
* Includes 47 meg of internal memory, which is about 30 pictures in the highest resolution mode
* Long lasting Lithium Ion Rechargeable Battery (NP-50)

What's in the Box -
* F70EXR Camera
* Lithium Ion Rechargeable Battery (initial charge took just under 2 hours)
* Home Battery Charger
* Wrist Strap
* Proprietary USB Cable
* Video Cable (standard video/audio only)
* Printed Basic Manual Booklet (in several languages)
* CD with Owner's Manual (Full) in PDF
* CD with FinePixViewer Software (not bad image management, basic editing, and linking to Fuji web content)
* Plastic Sleeve for Battery Storage
* Miscellaneous Warrantee and Warning Pages

The Controls on the small camera body are generally well placed and easy to use, with a "rose" type interface for selecting and navigating the many menu options, selecting Flash, Macro, Self Timer, Delete, and Exposure Compensation settings. In addition to the Power Button, there are also four small buttons for selecting Play Back, Photo Mode (F), Face Recognition and Red Eye Removal, and Display.

The Photo Mode (F) sets several options that will affect your pictures, like ISO, Image Size, Image Quality (jpeg compression, I turned mine from the default "Normal" to "Fine") , and Film Simulation.

The numerous shooting modes are accessed through the Dial and include:
* "Auto" (Red Camera Icon) mode allows the F70EXR to be used as a "Point & Shoot" and usually produces truly outstanding quality pictures
* EXR Mode (EXR Icon, White Letters with Red Background)
- HR Mode (Resolution Priority), produces very crisp detail of intricate subjects and is useful in product photography - The Camera will display HR when in this mode.
- SN Mode (High Sensitivity & Low Noise), produces low-light shots with minimal noise - The Camera will display SN when in this mode.
- DR Mode (D-Range Priority), takes two pictures and merges them in-camera to provide great detail in highlights and low lights. - The camera will display DR when in this mode.
* Auto EXR Mode, tries to select between several presets (many found in the SP Mode, see below). This is a big improvement over the same mode on the F200EXR and is a good default for the camera. You can still use the regular "Auto" mode or manually set the SP mode when you have time to set up the camera.
* Program (P) and Manual (M) modes are standard modes enabling the user to set Shutter/Aperture priority or to take full control of settings, respectively
* Natural (N) is an interesting option for capturing images with the natural scene lighting
* Natural + Flash (N+ Lightning Bolt Icon) option takes two pictures, one as the "Natural" mode and another with the flash, to ensure a good picture is captured.
* Movie Mode (Movie Camera Icon) is a really useful video (with audio) clip capture mode that allows for 320 or 640 resolution at 30 Frames/Second. The clips are saved in standard AVI format and are decent enough for YouTube. Fuji listened to the consumers so now you can use Zoom while filming, but it does re-auto focus and the motor sound is picked up when changing.
* Scene Position (SP) Mode allows you to select between 15 presets, including:
- Pro Focus, Pro Low-Light, Portrait, Portrait Enhancer, Landscape, Sport, Night, Night (Tripod), Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Party, Flower, and Text
- The Pro Focus and Pro Low-Light Modes are new features that allows for soft background portraits and low noise, high detail pictures in low light, respectively. While these will work free hand, I recommend using a tripod and turning off Image Stabilization since the camera take multiple pictures and combines them in camera to make these effects.

There are far too many options and combinations to cover much more deeply, so I'll wrap this up with my major likes and dislikes:

Likes -
+ Great Point & Shoot "Auto" Mode takes impressive 10 MP pictures
+ Very low "Shutter Lag", even when not pre-focused
+ Impressive Wide Angle and 10x Optical Zoom Lens, but controls can be a little "spongy"
+ Clear description of Shooting Modes displayed on LCD when changing dial settings
+ Fantastic EXR Modes allow for capturing outstanding pictures that would have been unusable with lesser cameras
+ Outstanding "Super Intelligent Flash" produces great illuminated scenes without washing out the subject, a feature that is very useful in Macro Mode which we use heavily for our business product photography needs
+ Accurate Face Recognition with automatic in-camera Red Eye Reduction - This feature assures people are in focus, helps with in-camera Slide Show playback, and can automatically remove Red Eye. It is also very cool to watch it work!
+ Ability to Zoom while filming in Movie Mode, but motor noise can be heard on video
+ Large ISO range of 100 to 12800 - I manually limit mine to 800 or lower most of the time
+ Lots of user selectable options - Spending a little time reading the Owner's Manual is a good investment to learn about all of the features packed into this camera.

Dislikes -
- Steep Learning Curve (reading the Owner's Manual is absolutely required to take full advantage of all the features this camera offers)
- No Remote Control - this is important to us since we take product pictures, our workaround is to use the Self Timer
- Movie Mode Zoom - a nice feature but the camera can be slow to refocus and the motor noise is recorded
- No HD video - not too important for me since we have HD camcorders

Like the more expensive F200EXR, this is a very powerful camera that can be made to outperform almost any other consumer grade camera currently on the market if you spend a little time reading the Owner's Manual and do a little experimenting with the extensive options. We have been able to take absolutely beautiful pictures in the standard "Auto" mode and have produced some photos that we would not have been able capture, because of tricky lighting, by using the EXR modes.

The F70EXR is "Highly Recommended"! This is an easy choice for those in need of the advanced features and functionality this camera delivers in a very compact Point & Shoot form factor, 5 out of 5 Stars!

The science of the Super CCD sounds really good. Choosing a sensor arrangement that allows the camera to bin adjacent pixels to increase the effective size of a photosite (at half the number of pixels, of course) is a good idea for reducing both chroma and luminance noise while maintaining a decent shutter speed. The lower noise level should permit raising the effective ISO.

In fact, the Super CCD works pretty well, but not for reducing noise. It is excellent at extending the dynamic range of the sensor (with one half of the photosites capturing bright and one half capturing dim areas). The camera has advanced firmware that allows it to do a number of tricks such as shooting 3 pictures in rapid sequence at the same ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and averaging out the noise. So long as the photog can hold the camera reasonably steady, this works surprisingly well. It also has the ability to provide an apparently small depth of field, again by taking 3 pictures of the scene and somehow identifying the subject (closest object, I think) and making one shot of the subject and two of the distance, which it then blurs together.

Unfortunately this trick is less well executed. The background just looks as if somebody had blurred it uniformly, as putting a damp sponge on watercolors. On one shot the camera even left a hole in the blur through which one could see a fairly sharp background. Anyway, it only works at all when the subject is quite close to the camera.

Even with vibration reduction it is almost impossible to get a sharp image at a 35mm effective "250 mm" focal length using a camera this small. Hand shake and imperfections in the autofocus combine to limit the sharp zoom range to something significantly less, say around "175mm or 200 mm" equivalent focal length, if sharpness is important to you. The lens is also deficient on native sharpness, and when there's a bright background the chromatic aberration (purple fringing) is annoying and not removed by the firmware/software in the camera. Given the innovative firmware used elsewhere in the camera, some CA reduction and distortion correction should have been implemented.

A reasonably sophisticated user will probably find that he or she reaches for the exposure compensation button fairly frequently. I found that the meter just didn't deliver consistent results as you changed from, say, bright sunlight to an interior. In addition the auto white balance was consistently off, and the presets didn't help a lot. Pictures taken on a cloudy day were uniformly too blue, whether engaging the "shade" preset or using the AWB. In compensation, the custom WB mode is very easy to use and works better than on most compacts.

The F70EXR is beautifully built, a delight in the hand, and attractively styled. It's just not as adept at doing bread and butter photography as it should be, even at the pretty low price it's sold for at Amazon. I am mentally comparing it to a 3 year old Canon 710is and the brand new Canon S90, and have decided that I should return the F70EXR and give the S90 a try.

I've been looking for a long time for a point and shoot that does everything I want it to do, and do it well. The F70EXR has met my desires. Is it a 100% perfect? No, but it's superior to most of my other cameras in what it can do, other than it's weak video. My first thought on taking it out of the box was thank goodness they got rid of the strange USB/video combo cable that came with the F200EXR. The F70 uses a standard mini USB cable, and separate AV cable. The camera itself has an all metal body, and feels well made. Size wise, it is the smallest 10X zoom on the market. It's pretty much the same size as the F200EXR which only has a 5X zoom. All controls are well laid out, and the menus are easy to navigate. The 2.7" screen is excellent. It's bright and easy to see even in sunlight. After charging the camera up, I ventured out and took about 100 test pictures under various conditions and settings. All in all, the camera performed exceptionally in most areas. There are some minor issues with camera choosing a higher than needed ISO in low lighting using auto mode, but it's not a big deal. Also, some shots came out better by lowering the exposure setting a notch or two. Video is fair at best. It's basic VGA. Nothing more. Nothing less. The battery still shows a full charge after all the testing, so at the least battery life is good. All in all, this is an almost a perfect point and shoot. 10X Zoom. Wide Angle Lens. Manual controls. Well Built. Small size. Excellent results. The only negatives are its mediocre VGA video, and its Image Stabilization is "fair". As is the case with the F200EXR, the F70EXR gives better results when "EXR Auto" mode is avoided. The Fuji F70EXR is a keeper, and I recommend it.

Pros:
Great results under most conditions.
Less noise than most cameras at higher ISO.
Wide angle lens w/ 10X Zoom.
Excellent 2.7" screen.
Well designed and built.
Manual controls.
Small size.

Cons:
Image Stabilization is fair.
No HD Video. Basic VGA Video.
Camera sometimes chooses higher ISO than needed indoors.

It's a small well built camera, all metal including the tripod mount. Overall pictures are nice but a little on the cool side when put in Auto White balance. I will upload samples on this (compared to canon which is a little on the warmer side on Auto). Auto mode is probably fine for bright outdoors.

The EXR mode which is advertised the most has 4 sub-modes. EXR Auto, EXR High ISO Low Noise (S/N), EXR High Dynamic Range (D/N) and High Resolution (H/R). I haven't yet figured out the difference between EXR H/R and normal large size Auto. Try to avoid the EXR Auto mode since you cannot limit the max ISO.

The firmware can definitely use some updates. It tends to pick too high an ISO in all Auto modes. On some modes you can control how high it will go. Try to set it at Auto(400) wherever possible. In full EXR Auto I have a number of shots full wide angle at 1/80 and ISO 800 where 1/40 and ISO 400 (or even 1/20 ISO 200) would have been fine. The direct SUNLIGHT white balance is for some reason called FINE white balance. The Manual seems to talk about a "if AUTO Image size is selected" (page 34 of the full PDF), but there is no AUTO image size option. You select the image size you want, the camera overrides it as needed. The EXR D/N mode is the most useful of all EXR modes since it gives a 800% Dynamic range boost and you can limit the max ISO.

There is also a Pro Light Mode which does a hash of 4 pictures and it seems to do a better job at reducing noise then EXR S/N. Considering that it takes 4 frames, you need a Tripod and a still subject (if you have a Tripod and still subject why do you need pro-light?). It is limited in use in scenarios where you really need to use this - dark days, shady areas or indoors - because it will pick ISO 1600.

The ISO 1600 which all Auto mode prefers by default should be avoided. The camera also has perfectly unusable ISO 3200, 6400 and 12800. The reason for the existence of these speeds escapes me. An analog TV tuning to a non-existing station would have less noise. Fuji should really limit the max ISO to 800.

I have a old Canon A610 (5MP with a larger sensor 1/1.8, Fuji has 1/2). The Fuji is better in many ways; its smaller, compact, more zoom. But purely from an image quality point of view, there is not much observed difference. There is no quality difference between this 5 year old Canon and the Fuji EXR S/N Mode at upto 400 ISO (The Fuji EXR SN mode results in 5MP) at comparable focal lengths. The ISO 800 in Fuji is actually usable which is unusual for p&s. Chromatic Aberrations are more visible in Fuji than in Canon at comparable focal lengths. Either the Canon lens is better or its firmware is removing this.

While I do not have a modern p&s to compare the image quality (e.g. all the newer Canons use a much smaller 1/2.3 sensor), the addition of all the new technologies is not necessarily able to overcome the sensor size reduction.


PROS:

1. All metal well built
2. Extremely usable zoom range
3. Very useful EXR D/N range
4. Very usable Auto mode if you limit the ISO to 400.

CONS:

1. Fuji - Please remove ISO 1600 and higher, reprogram the firmware to select smallest usable ISO in the Auto modes.
2. Like lots of newer p&s, there is only 1 aperture size + a simulated aperture using neutral density filter. So much for changing depth of field.
3. Some learning needed with all the modes,scenes and film options.
4. Lens chromatic aberrations are visible, this can be removed in software.

OVERALL:

Extremely usable camera, however be aware of the limitation. Try to work around Auto modes to select small ISO if needed, use custom white balance for really critical shots.

I am a complete photography novice and I like to approach my reviews with that in mind. There are a lot of technical bits of information that I have to lookup just to understand. One thing is for sure, Fuji was never my first choice for a digital camera. I always thought I would be a Canon girl ... but that has changed. This is the second Fuji FinePix camera that I have owned and the other FinePix is very similar sans some small photography trinkets like various "scene modes", more optical zoom capability and a wider "wide angle" lens. Wide angle is what this new Fuji is all about

I am comparing two cameras in my review: the Fuji FinePix F70EXR (this one) and the Fuji FinePix F200EXR Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR 12MP Super CCD Digital Camera with 5x Wide Angle Dual Image Stabilized Optical Zoom . If you look at both of them, the differences are minimal and only slightly cosmetic from the outside. You will notice a beautiful metal body on both of them. This is what steered me away from some of the Canon PowerShot cameras and I currently own the Canon PowerShot A590IS 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom -- and the body is primarily plastic. This Fuji camera is so well constructed that even in heft (yes, it is heavier than plastic and will weigh down a shirt pocket) you feel like you are getting your money's worth. It really is remarkable for the money!

The greatest differences between the F200EXR and the F70EXR have to do with optical zoom, focal length, digital zoom and wide angle. If cost is an issue, compare the features you want and need and make the plunge. In fit and finish they are both very similar except the F200EXR has a slightly larger LCD screen (not much). Both cameras are so similar that it is worth researching them both and deciding what you want. The camera you are looking is currently cheaper in price. So if price is what you are after, this is the camera to grab. For me, research and comparison works :)

With the F70EXR you are getting 10 mega pixels of sheer beauty. The ability to adjust settings easily (it's the same on the F200EXR) while shooting is one of this camera's high points. The menus and buttons are very logical and durable. Since this is a small camera, the notations on and around buttons is small but appears to be well contrasted to the silver knobs and buttons. There is only one exception to this rule and it has to be the playback button which is written in green on gray and is very difficult to see. But this is no deal breaker in my eyes. You are getting a beautiful camera.

The paper manual is great and will get you going in no time. The camera also comes with a manual on CD that is much more in depth and will help get you through troubleshooting

This camera takes it's own special battery (no AA's which should be something to think about before buying). You can purchase an extra Fuji battery and can happily exchange them while recharging. I find that the charges hold quite well. The charger is a small device that fits directly into the wall. No heavy AC adaptors to have to lug around.

I love this camera for what it does and what it will do as I delve deeper into the manual. It's gorgeous!