Fujifilm Finepix F50 Samples

Below are sample crops from an indoor photograph of a book-cover at each of the Olympus Stylus 1030SW's ISO settings. When available, a crop from the Fuji Finepix F50SE at the same ISO setting is shown next to the Olympus 1030SW's crop. These are both ultra-compact cameras with automatic controls. However, the Fuji Finepix F50SE is not rugged at all and does not feature a wide-angle lens.

Images below are all unmodified 100% crops from their respective cameras. The ISO and white-balance were set on camera but exposure was fully automatic, not that there is a choice on the Olympus. The Fuji does not have a manual mode either but does have shutter-priority and aperture-priority modes.

These crops help determine which ISO settings can be acceptably used on these cameras. As noise increases, most cameras compensate with noise reduction which introduces softness. The result is that, while you can partly reduce noise at the expense of details, the maximum acceptable print size gets smaller as ISO is increased. The point at which a print become unacceptably noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Olympus Stylus 1030SW	Fuji Finepix F50SE
ISO 80
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600

The Fuji Finepix F50 produces quite clean imgaes for an ultra-compact camera. While the F50 does not have the lead its predecessor, the Fuji Finepix F31fd, had over its peers, Fuji still managed to produce images of excellent quality using such small photosites. Noise levels increase slowly from one ISO to the next, but image details are well preserved and colors remain neutral. Up to ISO 400, noise levels are unintrusive and do not compomise imaged quality. From ISO 800 on, the Fuji Finepix F50 seems to apply increased sharpening to preserve edges.