This 3-megapixel snapshooter offers a 3X zoom for a great price, but image quality and performance don't rate as highly.
Inside the compact, silver-plastic body of Fujifilm's FinePix A303 lies a 3-megapixel sensor, a fully retracting 3X zoom lens, and a simple interface that even newcomers should find unintimidating. At 198g with the battery and the xD-Picture Card installed, this digital camera is lightweight enough to make the cut for ultracompact consideration. And with the price less than AU$800, the A303 has great deal written all over it. But subpar image quality and sluggish performance detract from an otherwise attractive package.
Though it's a small package, the A303 provides a big, thumb-operated mode dial to select shooting, playback, movie, macro, and self-timer modes. If you think that the controls on the latest crop of ultracompacts are a bit too small, you may find this Fujifilm's buttons more manageable. We especially like the dedicated self-timer mode; it makes life much simpler when shooting a series of timer shots. You access settings for white balance and exposure compensation--as well as the camera's USB Webcam mode--through a well-designed LCD menu.
As with most point-and-shoot models, the A303 delivers the best results when shooting outdoors during the daytime and indoors with flash. To get satisfactory pictures from a night time skyline, though, you'll need a camera with more manual-exposure controls than this one offers.
The A303's shutter delay takes a bit of getting used to when tracking moving subjects such as passing cars; our first efforts came out blurry. The camera also imposes a five-second shot-to-shot delay, which is substantial for a 3-megapixel model. In outdoor images, colours look good, but sharpness tends to depend on lighting and degrades as afternoon changes to evening. The A303's pictures also look surprisingly noisy, with a bit of overall yellow-biased colour balance.
Despite this FinePix's attractions, the Ricoh Caplio RR30 delivers better image quality for the same price.
Fujifilm FinePix A303
Company: Fujifilm Australia
Price: AU$799
Distributor: Hanimex
Phone: 1800 226 355
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