A stylish-looking camera that offers little in the way of manual settings, but whose sound image quality and value will keep it in good stead with casual shooters.The Fujifilm FinePix A310 sports the same fourth-generation Super CCD HR (High Resolution) sensor found on the F410. As such, the former affords the same ability to capture digitally interpolated 6-megapixel images as well as most of the functions found on its more expensive brethren. Thus it's a surprise to find the A310 retailing at only $600, making it one of the better-value digicams in the 3-megapixel 3x zoom class.
While the A310 won't give the F410 much competition in the sleek and slim department, the former carries itself well in style. With a footprint of 97 x 64 x 33mm and weight at 190g when equipped with battery and xD-Picture Card, the A310 qualifies easily as an ultra-compact that's easy to bring along on holidays.
The A310's curvy silver-plastic body features a matt-metallic look complete with beveled edges. Due to the slightly thicker form factor, the A310 will not fit nicely in all but the larger pockets. The A310 comes with a wrist strap if you prefer to hang the camera elsewhere. Ergonomically, the camera sits comfortably in your hands, even for single-hand operation. A large thumb-operated dial, which doubles as a thumb rest, resides on the rear of the unit with selections to shooting, playback, and movie modes. Buttons are also responsive and placed within easy reach, allowing for easy navigation within the camera menus. Like the F410, the zoom controls come in the form of a small rocker switch for moving up and down rather than the more conventional two-button zoom adjustments placed side by side.
The signature Fujifilm way of powering up its ultra-compact cameras remains. Rather than a push button, switch, or sliding lens cover, the finger grip section on the front slides open to start the camera. This then retracts the spring-loaded metal cover protecting the lens. Curiously, Fujifilm has again neglected to have any form of protection for the USB and DC ports--not even the flimsy rubber covers that you find in its competitors' offerings.
Like all point-and-shoots, the Fujifilm A310 is uncomplicated and easy to use. Similarly, everything expected of a basic snapshooter is present. This includes simple manual settings such as white balance, light sensitivity (up to an ISO 800), and exposure compensation, though the range is lopsided with the array of options between +1.5EV and -2.1EV in 0.3EV steps.
As with most digicams, the FinePix A310 offers two modes of viewfinder: Optical and LCD. The 1.5-inch LCD display comes with an adjustable brightness control that allows the screen to be viewed clearly in bright outdoor conditions. However, the monitor tends to over-saturate colours and displays grainy images of captured shots onscreen.
As mentioned earlier, the A310 comes with Fujifilm's SuperCCD HR technology which allows images to be recorded in 6-megapixel (2,816 x 2,120) files. The resulting JPEG files are on average about 0.4MB larger than other equivalent 3-megapixel cameras. So should you intend to use this mode, storage should be high on your concerns. With the bundled 16MB xD-Picture Card, we were able to record only 10 pictures.
Other notable mentions include the useful "Rule of Thirds" display mode found similarly on the F410. Beginners will find this feature a godsend in giving them a simple guideline for composition.
Despite all the inclusions, the A310 cannot shake that budget rap. A prominent exclusion is the built-in speakers and microphone that're required for full video capture and playback. There're also rather few pre-programmed shooting modes (portrait, landscape, sports, night).
In our tests, we found the camera's performance to be bearable for the point-and-shoot crowd. It's able to start in about 3 seconds with a shot-to-shot interval of about 3 to 4 seconds for the second shot and a rather long 5 seconds for the other subsequent captures (The flash is disabled by default with consecutive shots in automatic mode). With the flash forced on, the shot-to-shot interval plummeted to a rather disappointing 9 seconds.
The auto-focusing system, on the other hand, was quite zippy, taking around 1 to 2 seconds. The continuous shooting mode also proved to be very quick, taking four frames in a second before a noticeably long pause.
In terms of image quality, the A310 produced some photos that rivaled those captured by the F410 (which we liked). The pictures were detailed with pleasing colours. The metering generally gave properly exposed pictures. However, in situations with low-light levels (indoors or even evenings), the images produced were noisy even with the ISO set at 200--which happens to be the lowest. The camera's automatic white balance also proved able to handle most lighting conditions; only under tungsten lighting did it falter.
The FinePix A310 is essentially a FinePix A303 with a newer-generation SuperCCD sensor. Like the A310, this unit should appeal mainly to the point-and-shoot user with its uncomplicated design and ease of use. If you can live without capturing audio in video recordings and playback, as well as the noisy images under low-light conditions, the A310 will suit most novices. The rather affordable price tag of $600 will also help you to fork out that credit card faster.
Fujifilm FinePix A310
Company: Fujifilm
Price: AU$599.95
Distributor: Hanimex
Phone: (02) 9466 2600
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