With FujiFilm looking at providing affordable cameras to users and bringing in higher end specifications in the devices, they have come in with the FujiFilm FinePix AX250 and FinePix AV100 under the A series of digital cameras. The reason why we chose to review both the devices together is simple. They are twins with the slight difference being in the pixels and zoom.

The review pieces that came to us look exactly the same! Black, glossy and have a silver band around the sides as well as around the lens, which is again glossy. The front of AX250 hosts the 14 MP Fujinon lens and 5x zoom and it was a 12 MP lens with 3x zoom in the case of AV100. The back hosts the 2.7-inch LCD monitor with the other controls to its right. The zoom rocker is at the top, with a bunch of LED light displays and the display/back and playback button below it. The d-pad is at the bottom hosting the menu button in the midddle with the macro, delete, flash and timer buttons. The right side hosts the connector slot and the top has the on/off along with the shutter button. The device switches on and gets ready to click pretty fast and operating the cameras is quite simple once you get used to it. Image quality during the day time is quite good but is average at night.

There are various modes that help one work the photographic senses. There is quite a good bunch of shooting modes in the device. The SR Auto mode automatically chooses the best mode to shoot in and selects the necessary settings for a good and clear image. The Program mode allows you to play around with the Exposure, ISO and White Balance.

An interesting mode is where two images are clicked one after the other in natural light, but one with and the other one without flash. This helps the user avoid the manual effort of switching the flash on and off a number of times. There are two night modes, the night mode that is normal and night tripod mode where shots are taken by reducing the shutter speed and hence need a tripod.

The panorama mode is quite well deviced with 3 frames punched into one. Each shot will have the previous frames end, so that you can link it for the next shot. These shots are best done on a tripod or monopod, but it even works out fine without it.

The HD video mode, which is the highlight of the devices, takes videos at 720p @ 30fps and can be set in both NTS and PAL formats. There is no stutter while shooting and one can zoom in and out in the optical zoom mode smoothly at the same time. However, we faced a problem that the video recording in 720p goes on a stand-by every 12 seconds. This was with both the cameras.

Another good feature is image editing in the device which allows cropping, size reduction. Its in-built memory not that high, so one will have to use a memory card, preferrably an SD HC card. Image transfer from the device is also easy. The device connects via USB PTP and acts as a USB device and the images can be copied directly to the computer.

Now to come to the quirks in the device. Firstly, the AX250 is quite noisy. Starting from the moment it is switched on, there are noises from the lens zoom as well as the shutter. Then the processing speed is low and it takes sometime to be ready for the next shot.The cameras are good performers that provide HD video recording at their price and a bunch of shooting options, which will worthily capture the moments you would want to.

? CyberMedia www.LD2.in

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