Fujifilm FinePix A500: A nice entry level digital camera

I bought the Fujifilm FinePix A500 because it was the best deal I could get at the time among entry level digital cameras, such as the Olympus FE130, Nikon L3 and Sony S600. I’ve only had the camera for a few days and have taken a couple dozen shots. I will update this review accordingly as I gain more experience with the camera. I use my camera to take a variety of pictures, although I tend to take a lot more scenic/not so scenic background shots as well as close up detail shots over portrait/people shots, especially with a digital camera. I also don’t print many photos but I like to save high quality pictures digitally. I’m by no means a camera expert but perhaps more technologically minded then some.

My mother bought a Sony Cybershot DSC-P52 almost three years ago and this is the only digital camera I have a lot of experience using. I also tested out several comparable models in the store before settling on the 5.1 mega pixel FinePix A500.

The A500 is much smaller and lighter then the Sony of three years ago, which looks ridiculously huge now. Unlike the Sony, which was awkwardly shaped with a protruding lens piece, the newer camera is a standard rectangular shape with a lens that retracts flush into the camera. The size and weight are comparable to most other entry level cameras I’ve seen on the market.

The camera has a nice chrome trim wraparound and overall is very attractive. However, I can’t say it feels as durable as the Sony camera (although the Sony is dead now, go figure). For example, the Sony had robust feeling battery and memory covers, while the Fuji battery cover feels like it may break off if roughly handled.

Although far from “bad” I didn’t find the controls on the A500 to be the most intuitive to use, especially compared to the controls on the Sony and Olympus cameras. While both the Sony and Olympus cameras I’ve seen had both a dial to change modes and an obvious set of cursor style navigation buttons, the Fuji camera has neither. Instead the A500 has one single button to jump to the preview pictures mode, while all other modes and options must be selected by navigating through menus. The camera does feature standard left and right control buttons, but the zoom control, which doubles as the up and down navigation is quite unorthodox. The control is actually a single mini-joystick style button which can be pushed up or down. My main gripe with this is that it feels too tight, and it requires an uncomfortable amount of effort to use, particularly considering it is a commonly used control. In all, the A500 only uses six control buttons, compared to the eleven inputs on the Sony P52. While I do admire Fuji’s attempt to streamline, overall, the lack of buttons means a longer (although still not unreasonably long) learning curve and a more cumbersome process to perform some common functions. For example, changing from picture to movie mode on the Sony Cybershot cameras takes the flick of a dial, while on the Fuji camera, the operation takes on average 4 button presses.

Unlike its predecessors, the A350, the FinePix A500 uses the same sensors as Fuji’s more expensive models. However, I can’t say I was particularly impressed with this cameras picture quality. Outdoor scenic shots are not what I’d consider the A500’s forte. Examining pictures at full size on my computer, I saw that backgrounds are not particularly sharp and far away trees and shrubbery can appear grainy and washed out. I also noticed some noise, or a few scattered pixels that appeared to be the wrong color.
However, the camera works well for short to mid distance indoor shots and portrait style shots. Here, noise is not apparent and images look sharp. Exposure looks appropriate in all conditions. In addition, the flash is stronger then I expected. I was able to light up a dark room standing about 15 feet away. Overall though, to my untrained eyes, besides the higher resolution, the newer Fuji camera does not seem to take better quality pictures then the three year old Sony model.

Like most cameras on the market now, the A500 has a macro mode, which allows you to take close up detail shots. On the old Sony camera without a macro mode, objects under a foot from the lens turned up blurry. With the A500, I can take shots of objects inches away from the lens, and they turn out perfectly sharp and in focus, at a level of detail better then my own eyes! This is something I find very useful.

The auto focus on this camera also works very well and is pretty fast. I have not taken an out of focus picture yet. This is truly a point and shoot camera. In most conditions, I can quick draw point and shoot in about a second. Darker exposures seem to take more time to focus. Shutter lag is about average, it takes over a second after taking the last shot until the camera is ready to take another one. With the flash, the camera takes about three to five seconds to recharge and take another shot. Besides macro mode, I have not found the need to venture out of the standard auto mode or use the advanced settings yet.

However, the camera’s movie mode is not one of its strengths. Maximum quality is only 320 x 240 resolution at 10 frames per second, which is less then most comparable cameras. The camera also does not record sound. Movies I recorded turned out reasonable and exposure and focus changed relatively quickly with changing conditions. However, movies were obviously not up to the quality of the Sony P52, which recorded at full VGA resolution with sound.

The camera does not come with rechargeable batteries which from my research, are a ten to fifteen dollar value. Battery life does not appear to be great, as I’ve already gotten a low battery warning, although I have been playing with the camera quite a bit in the past few days.

A major downside to the A500 is its relatively small 1.8 inch LCD screen, while many other entry level cameras sport at least 2 inch screens. The LCD does not seem to display outdoor natural shots perfectly, as it revealed a lot of pink and other neon colored pixels in high contrast areas when previewing. Like most LCDs, it is also hard to view the picture under bright sunlight. A bigger LCD would definitely be much better for previewing.

I’ve only briefly used the ‘FinePix Viewer’ software that comes with the camera. The software is comparable to the Sony software I used before. Interfaces are generally easy to use and I didn’t have much trouble transferring and viewing pictures from the camera. Although Fuji claims that their software must be used to transfer images, I also used the windows built in USB transfer utilities and transferred my pictures onto my computer just as easily.

Although I’ve tried to make my review pretty critical, overall I do think the FinePix A500 is a good camera for the casual user. Pictures display brilliantly at normal VGA and SVGA resolutions, and the camera is overall easy to use. I’m sure that most of my friends would be perfectly happy with this camera. Considering its reasonable price, I think the FinePix A500 is a solid buy.

Update 7/15/06: I've taken about 650 shots with this camera now. Battery life has been rather short. Taking pictures a few at a time over a period of a few weeks in auto mode, I got 50 shots on one set of batteries. After this, I started taking more pictures without flash, and I got 185 shots in 90 minutes on a fresh set of batteries. About 20% of these shots were with the flash. I'd definitely recommend a set of rechargeable batteries, which I plan to get soon. I've also found that this camera can compensate well in low light shots, so the flash is usually not necessary, although exposure times are longer so they require a steady hand. Overall I'm still happy with the camera and I've had no problems. I'm willing to share a few sample pictures; if interested email me.

Update 1/11/08: 2400 pictures taken, no problems yet.