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I must admit that I’ve bought and sold several compact cameras since day 1 after I somehow find that they perform horribly under low light conditions. I’ve messed with a Ricoh GRD, a Ricoh GX100 and a pretty looking Sony T100 … none of them can give me anything acceptable. I am not one who is too particular about noise but the results were disappointing at ISO400 and above. Not that I’m expecting DSLR quality noise control but … nevermind. I ain’t good at explaining. Let’s just say that they didn’t perform as I expected … or it could be just my lousy skills.

I did own an used Fujifilm F31 for a while and the noise control was good. Too bad I didn’t like the feel and handling of the camera and had to let it go too.

Anyway … for my coming trip to Hong Kong next week, I decided to hunt for another compact. Travelling with a bouncing 2 year old boy ain’t easy, so I guess I will be using a compact and shooting with 1 hand most of the time. That ain’t a problem since I have my Lomo LC-A+ and Fujifilm Klasse … but … I need to snapshots of my boy and family. They’ll kill me if I come home with some fuzzy looking photos (that I love), so I decided on a newly launched Fujifilm F200EXR.

Image above leeched from Fujifilm’s website 😛

Some key features I found about it online …

– Super CCD EXR 12 megapixel switchable sensor (6MP in low-light and dynamic range modes)
– 5x (28-140mm equiv.) wide-angle optical zoom lens
– Dual Image Stabilisation
– 3” clear view LCD screen

– High sensitivity modes (ISO 6400 at 6MP resolution & 12800 at 3MP resolution)
– Manual controls (including aperture and shutter priority)
– EXR Auto mode selects sensor and scene mode (Portrait, Night, Macro, Landscape. Night portrait & Backlit portrait)
– Film Simulation mode (Provia/Standard, Velvia/Vivid, ASTIA/Soft, Black & White, Sepia)

Due to the interesting specifications and user reviews, it was sold out in most shops. A couple of shops had only the gold/silver colored ones but I wanted the black one instead. Was told that stocks might come in a week, so I thought maybe I can just forget about a compact for this trip.

Fortunately … I heard from a friend that his friend is letting go one of these which he bought during the recent IT show. Yay! After some bargaining, I got a bit of discount for this camera that he used for some test shots and burned (another) hole in my pocket for it.

I ain’t got time to do much test shots with it yet but some prelim shots kinda impressed me. I probably won’t be bothering with the manual controls since the few auto modes seems to be working great. My favourite is the N mode (Natural Light) which I suppose it should work a bit like Natura 1600 film loaded into my Klasse. It’s great using that to photography my boy when lighting is bad. Few test shots with it yesterday evening at the park and I was convinced!

From DPreview …

“The FinePix F200EXR also retains Fujifilm’s improved exposure modes.  New ‘Super intelligent flash’ can control technology that even lets you take flash assisted macro shots without flash washout. Enables to capture subjects and background in bright, clear a natural detail over the full flash range including ultra close-ups. Other popular exposure modes such as Natural Light and with Flash (giving the user a choice of flash ‘on’ or flash ‘off’ shots) or  Natural Light , is featured to capture great candid portraits when powerful flash might be intrusive.”

The EXR Auto mode is interesting. It automatically chooses and sets the stuffs based on different scenes. For example, if I were to point the cam at an object nearby, it will automatically choose macro mode settings and if I point it away at some buildings far away … it goes to landscape mode. Having some people in front of me … it will do face detection and sets to portrait mode. Despite it being pretty cool … I won’t be using this mode. Why? In this mode, the focusing is continuous and you can always hear some sound from the camera, probably the focusing mechanism at work focusing non-stop. It will not only suck up the battery real fast but also irritates the hell outta me!

The film simulation mode especially the Velvia one might save me from lots of Photoshop work. It has a 28mm to long telephoto of 140 mm lens that is very versatile for normal everyday use.

This new sensor has 3 switchable modes on the camera …

• High Resolution mode, which deploys all twelve million pixels, and is designed to offer the finest detail of intricate subjects when light is full and even
• High Sensitivity and Low Noise mode, which caps two adjacent pixels together to produce 6 million large photodiodes, which are big enough to absorb light in the darkest of conditions, to produce low-light shots of extraordinary quality with minimal noise and grain; and
• Wide Dynamic Range mode, which captures different exposures with two sets of six million pixels, which, when combined, gives an excellent level of detail in highlights that would otherwise be lost.

More information about the F200EXR here

Read a review about it here

For now … this is the compact I’ll be keeping for quite a while. It might not be pretty as some other compacts in the market but it feels good in my hand and performs well. Well the surface is a bit too smooth and slippery for my sweaty paws, so maybe sticking a piece or two of gaffer tapes might solve the problem. I can now forget about carrying a small camera bag with me when I’m out playing with Fitzand in the park.