Fujifilm FinePix F40fd

Reviewed April 2007

Interface & Software

Interface

The F40fd is very compact, and most of the real estate on the back of the camera is taken up by the large sharp screen, leaving only a 2 cm (3/4 inch) strip into which to fit the mode dial, the 4-direction control and 4 buttons. While the resulting configuration is useable, the proximity of many of the buttons can easily lead to errors.

Aside from this, the interface of the F40fd is quite efficient. The large screen allows for a colourful and very legible display of the settings, all of which, with the exception of the AF brackets, are aligned along the top and bottom of the screen.

The menus, the FinePix menu called up by pressing the button and the shooting and playback menus which are displayed when the MENU/OK button is pressed, are all superimposed on the image, be it the one coming from the lens, or an image on-screen in playback. Their legibility is made possible by a design that places the text on top of a gray graphic that highlights each line of the menu, but is still sufficiently transparent to show some of what is behind it, and the colour of the background can be selected in the Setup menu from a selection that ensures a high contrast.

The Setup menu, the most extensive menu of the F40fd, is spread out over 4 screen pages. Access to any particular section is quickened by having tabs at the top of the screen making it possible, for example, to reach the Format option in as little as 6 steps. The Setup menu contains a total of 18 settings:

• Image Disp.: specifies whether or not a just-captured image is displayed on the screen for a brief period after it is captured (3, 1.5 seconds or Zoom, which displays the image enlarged so sharpness can be ascertained).
• Frame No. provides two possible settings: Cont. which numbers each new image sequentially, or Renew which restarts numbering frames from 1 after the memory card has been formatted, or a new card has been inserted in the camera.
• AF Illuminator: controls whether or not the AF Assist light comes on when the ambient light is too low for the contrast detection AF system to operate reliably.
• Illuminator: On or Off. Controls whether or not the small red LED buried behind the top of the black plastic stripe that is on the front of the camera near the grip comes on when the camera is powered up, and immediately after a shot is captured, letting the subject know that the photo has been taken.
• Digital Zoom: turns On or Off the digital zoom.

• Date/Time: serves to set the F40fd's internal clock and calendar.
• Beep Volume: serves to adjust the operation sound (Off, 1, 2 or 3).
• Shutter Volume: serves to adjust the shutter sound (Off, 1, 2 or 3).
• Shutter Sound: offers a choice of 2 sounds.
• Playback Volume: serves to adjust the playback volume for movies and voice annotation (10 steps).
• LCD Brightness: sets the brightness of the LCD monitor over ± 5 increments.

• Format: serves to format a memory card, or the internal memory of the F40fd.
• Language sets the interface language: Japanese, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish.
• Auto Power Off: to decide the delay until the camera shuts down automatically when there is no activity (5, or 2 minutes or Off).
• Time Difference: to set the time difference between a "Home Time" and a "Local Time" — a travel destination — useful when traveling.
• Background Colour: selects the colour that will appear as the background to the menus.
• Video System: selects the AV out signal, either NTSC or PAL.
• Reset: returns the camera to its factory defaults, with the exception of the date and time, time difference, background colour, interface language, and the video out signal.

A usual, Fujifilm includes a printed Owner's Manual with the FinePix F40fd. The manual is generally clear and easy to understand, covering all aspects of the camera's operations and shooting modes, and includes a section on installing the software bundled with the camera.

Software

In North America, the FinePix F40fd is bundled with Software for FinePix (version 5.3h) that contains FinePix Viewer (v5.3 for Windows and version 3.4 for Macintosh), USB drivers, Fujifilm's RAW File Converter LE and ImageMixer VCD2 LE for FinePix, a program from Pixela.

FinePix Viewer is an image browser that shows either tasks that can be accomplished with the program on the left side or the computer's folders, while images from the selected folder in the right side. Photos can be seen in any of three ways: as thumbnails of adjustable size with the file name below; as thumbnails in a film strip format that appears at the bottom of the window while the currently selected image is presented at a larger size; and as lists file names with some of their details.

Although primarily an image viewer, FinePix Viewer allows modest editing. Photos can be cropped, rotated, resized, have text added, be readied for e-mailing, or have red-eye corrected. Furthermore, photos can adjusted for sharpness, brightness, saturation, hue and contrast manually, or be automatically adjusted, and if desired, converted to sepia or black and white.

Whatever the correction, a before and after view is available, making it easy to see if the change produced the expected result.

Once adjusted, the image can be saved into another format (TIFF or BMP), or re-saved as JPEG.