Pros: good build quality, decent lens, quiet zoom motor, uses NiMH AA, small size for AA battery cameras, large screen with decent resolution, fast lens at f2.9, slightly wider than average 32mm lens, many fool-proof features, auto scene selection (very nice for "dummies"), panoramic mode that works well, simple to use, very portable, long battery life.
Cons: battery meter fluctuates in accurate response to the NiMH voltage, and has the unintended effect of making the "dummy" user nervous. Image is highly compressed and shows in smeared up details. ISO higher than 400 are very noisy with flattened colors and details, though higher iso are often selected automatically to prevent blur (which is understandable from an average consumer point of view). Video files are too big for the resolution relative to even the average, can use better compression methods. No orientation sensor. Without face detection only center point AF is available.
Notes: Got this camera for my dad, who can't ever figure out how to operate anything other than the shutter button. The automatic scene selection was the reason why I got this, along with the ability to use rechargeable AA and its small size (smallest among the AA cameras?).
The automatic scene selection works very well. It actively detects lighting, faces, and subject distance (thus uses more battery power as it continuously focuses and meters the scene); it then uses the combination of these information to determine if it's portrait, backlight, macro, landscape, night modes, etc. Scenes are manually selectable too, especially ones that are not auto-detectable (e.g. long shutter requires tripod, and wouldn't be selected automatically since it'll not be fool-proof. ;)). There's a "manual" which lets you configure all the features other than shutter speed and aperture, as well as a regular "auto" mode.
Build quality on the two cameras we got were excellent. It's a budget camera so it was made of a piano-like finish silver plastic with chrome trims. It felt solid in the hand with no squeaks and loose bits, and all buttons were tight and responsive, especially the shutter button. The zoom motor was very smooth and quiet (can't say that about many of the canons), and the LCD screen was big enough and had sufficient resolution and brightness to look satisfactory.
Images, even at the highest resolution and best quality show significant compression artifacts (smeared details and loss of color depth). Higher ISO than 400 shows significant noise. Lens is probably on the soft side though I haven't really done serious comparisons, but nothing extraordinary for this price level. The field resolution is fairly even though, and corner blurriness didn't bleed too much into the image, which is good. Lens is fairly quick at f2.9, impressive for this size camera, and also slightly wide at 32mm equivalent. Video files seems bigger than average: a 640x480 movie can only record for about 30 minutes on a 8gb card; the quality of the videos didn't seem to justify the very large size. Images at lower ISO have decent color reproduction, even at long shutter speeds (tripod night scene mode). The longest shutter time I was able to get out of this thing is 4", but am not sure if it can go longer.
Battery life is excellent: we used it heavily (flash photos, active scene selection, lots of video tests) for quite a bit more than 2 hours (i don't want to say 3 hours but it's close if not more) before the two Eneloops (around 2000mA each) ran out completely. DO get rechargeable low discharge NiMH batteries, as alkalines are not meant for high current draw of digital cameras and will be wasted in a short order. The battery meter fluctuates quite a bit though, as it seems to depend directly on the instant voltage of the battery; e.g. it will dip slightly after a flash photo, but recover over time as the battery chemistry catches up and shows full again in seconds/minutes. It did get my dad a little nervous though; but to me it is better than some other brands who don't even show the battery meter at all until nearly depleted (e.g. canon A series), probably due to the difficulty in tracking the NiMH voltage?
Fuji made a point of making this camera easy to use and fool-proof. The auto scene selection is a testament of that, and I appreciate this feature very much, particularly for elderly or people who aren't tech savvy and don't know when to use fill flash/slow shutter/slow sync, etc. Fuji seems to automatically manage most situations pretty well. While the auto scene mode's hiking up ISOs in low light situations isn't my cup of tea (done at the sacrifice of image quality) it does make sense in that it will at least GET the image (and not some blur). It's thoughtful in trying to satisfy the less knowledgeable users, even at slight sacrifice in absolute quality.
It's a good camera for "dummies"--with its innovative auto scene selection feature, compact size, universally available and long lasting batteries-- if you can tolerate the apparently mediocre image quality. At this price range you probably shouldn't expect much better. Portability, build quality, ease of use, and affordability are all covered very well by this little package. I think it's worth a look if you are in for an economical pocket camera with decent performance and true point-and-shoot ease.Get more detail about
Fujifilm Finepix A170 10.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD.
