Nikki Echler McDonald and Carla Thornton
Fujifilm FinePix 2800 Zoom
This shiny, silvery metal 2-megapixel camera takes impressive shots and packs a few nifty features for an affordable $379. It includes a whopping 6X optical zoom and a bright electronic viewfinder, which lets you see your camera settings while you compose your shots; this works well for outdoor closeups taken in bright light. (Most digital cameras force you to use the LCD screen for macro shots.) The camera's battery life is phenomenal: We snapped 492 shots on four AA alkalines-the third-longest battery life of the cameras we tested.
The FinePix 2800 Zoom consistently ranked in the top third of its class for image quality. Though the camera produced low-contrast, slightly fuzzy shots in our outdoor tests, it captured colors and details nicely overall, both on-screen and in prints.
With its boxy shape and right-hand grip, the FinePix 2800 resembles the advanced cameras. But functionally, it's a point-and-shoot, with basic exposure controls tucked away in menus. Fortunately, the menus are easy to navigate, so you can make your selections relatively quickly. A simple switch on top includes icons for shooting, playback, and menu modes only, forcing you to wade through the menus to access such commonly used features as flash, macro mode, and delete.
Unlike most point-and-shoots, the FinePix 2800 Zoom does not have any programmed scene modes for hard-to-shoot situations, but it does come with useful metering options, broad exposure compensation (11 steps in 0.3-EV increments), five flash modes, six resolution/compression options, macro and movie modes, and 30-second voice annotation. You also get a 16MB SmartMedia card and an extensive software package that includes Adobe PhotoDeluxe 4.0 for Windows users (though we'd have preferred to get the newer Adobe Elements).
The $379 FinePix 2800 Zoom is a solid buy, offering long battery life, impressive image quality, and the convenience of through-the-lens-style viewing.| Buying Information |
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