Thanks to Dave Chiew from kommies, I came across an F31fd and decided to find out exactly how good this point and shoot camera is.

This is the good old Kyocera Finecam S3. The smallest, lightest, highest pixel count point and shoot circa 2001.

This is a Casio Exilim EX-Z4.

The latest in collection - Fujifilm Finepix F31fd.

Here are some important/unimportant features that I have compiled based on these three cameras.

A lot of noobs pay a lot of attention on pixel count, thinking that the more pixels one gets, the clearer the photo or more powerful the camera is. But as you can see from the above, although the pixel count has doubled in comparison to my >5 years old S3, both the horizontal and vertical resolution has only increased by 39%.

I don’t use the full range of megapixels available. Although you can get a bigger image by using full resolution, so will the amount of flaw that comes along with the bigger image, especially during low light high ISO operation. In a medium range P/S camera, by meaning of one pixel, that pixel can only detect one kind of colour from either red, green or blue. Due to the arrangement of the colour sensors, only a group of four sensors (two green, one red and one blue, IINM) will give you the correct colour to a particular point on the image.

A 6-megapixel camera actually only have 3 million green photosensors, 1.5 million red and 1.5 million blue. How then, can you get a 6-million-pixel photo? It’s by a trick called ‘interpolation’ used by the software in the camera.

So I tend to go for the medium resolution that the camera can offer. For example 1024×768 from S3’s 2048×1536 and 1600×1200 from F31fd’s 2848×2136. Not only the photo will look smoother, you will get less noise when you go high ISO.

Even with this F31fd, the noise at ISO3200 will only be tolerable at its lowest resolution : 640×480.

With the camera in fully auto mode, it will automatically chooses ISO1600 under low light. As a result, you’ll get noise all over the person’s face.

Cropped from 2848×2136 fine. 1/42sec, f2.8, ISO1600.
Thus you may want to opt for semi-auto under such condition where you can limit the ISO.

Another big feature is the face detection function in F31fd. It is able to detect up to 10 human faces simultaneously in less than 5/100th of a second. While holding the LCD with the face detection function on, you can actually see little green/white boxes tracking people’s face. This will ensure that the faces of the people in the photo get the optimum exposure. This works when the camera is either horizontal or vertical but not when inverted or at any other angles. It may not work on subjects wearing shades, tilting their head or do not have a recognisable human face. Face detection only works on fully auto mode and in a certain programmed mode.

It doesn’t have hard or soft image stabilisation. It actually pushes the ISO higher than necessary in order to lessen the blurring. The camera will, however, warn you of impending blurring when the shutter speed falls below 80.

Another feature that impresses me is the ability to review the photo taken at an (almost?) pixel-to-pixel level on the 2.5″ LCD. There’s also this autofocus-assist light that comes on during low light condition so that you can focus properly even when it’s dark.

It has no optical viewfinder. That’s okay for me since I’ve never used this on a point and shoot.

With its 1800mA Lithium Ion battery pack, it boasts a 580 shots at one go.

Verdict:
It has more than good enough features for a price of around MYR1,000. Ability to go up to ISO3200 and ability to review photo at a pixel-to-pixel level have long been awaited. And it is capable of taking photo at 640×480 resolution, more than enough for viewing over the internet. My old Kyocera S3’s lowest resolution is 1024×768 which I commonly use. With this higher megapixel camera, I can actually take photos with lower pixel count. And with 640×480, it maintains its clarity even under ISO3200. Yahoo!

Taken with F31fd using resolution of 640×480. 1/250 sec, F/2.8, ISO3200.
Original file size : 119KB, compressed to 56KB before posting.