Fujifilm FinePix F40fd

Reviewed April 2007

Test Photos

STILL LIFE PHOTO

This subject is photographed in a room that has a mix of fluorescent and incandescent light, but which is not brightly lit. The camera's flash is used to add fill light. The backdrop is 1.95 m (6.5 ft) from the camera.

The F40fd yields a better image when set to 100 ISO than when set to Auto ISO (400). At a sensitivity of 100 ISO, the image is bright and contains very little noise. While when the Auto ISO setting is used, the camera increases sensitivity to 400 ISO, resulting in a slight increase in noise, and an image that is slightly more yellow, reflecting the influence of the mixed lighting.

ZOOM PHOTO

Now we zoom in on a specific area. The intent is to test the sharpness of the image at the zoom's maximum setting. The camera remains at the same distance as with the preceding photo.

At the telephoto end, the F40fd has a maximum aperture of f5.1. And this combined with the lowest sensitivity of 100 ISO results in a fairly dark image. Changing the sensitivity to Auto ISO (400), allows the camera to capture a bright image, however, the camera boots the sensitivity to 400 ISO, skipping over the 200 ISO setting, which results in a small increase in shadow noise.

As with the wide angle shot, the image shows a bit of grain, possibly due to the in-camera sharpening.

When the Macro mode is used, the F40fd can focus on a subject that is between 7 and 80 cm (2.8 inches to 2.6 feet) from the front element of the lens at the wide angle position, and from 30 to 80 cm (1 to 2.6 ft.) at the full telephoto setting.

Using the minimum focus distance, the camera captures a field of view of 8 cm (2.57 inches) when measured horizontally in the frame. There is very little barrel distortion, and the image quality is very good.

BUILDING PHOTO

This image is our outdoor test. The architecture of the building, in particular the angled girders, immediately show the presence of jaggies. The shadowed entrance can also often reveal the quality of the exposure.

Metered using the default pattern, which evaluates 256 segments in the frame, the F40fd captures a perfect exposure. The image is free of any barrel distortion, and there is no noticeable chromatic aberration on the edges of contrasting areas.

The image sharpness is quite high, as can be seen below.

ZOOM PHOTO

Zooming in on the entrance of the building, the shadowed entrance takes on a greater importance for the metering and can cause an overexposure of sections that are directly lit.

The 3X zoom of the F40fd is quite short — equivalent to a 100 mm on a 35 mm camera — so it's ability to bring the subject closer is limited. Once again, the camera yields an excellent exposure. However, some noise is detectable in the shadow areas, and the image processing for sharpness seems to add to the image's slight grain.