"The camera never lies" is one of those sayings that now seems truly outdated in this age of digital image manipulation. Even basic budget cameras like this J30 come with some image gimmickry built-in, such as an easy-to-use panorama mode which automatically stitches together sweeping landscape shots.

The J30 is certainly budget friendly, not to mention compact and user friendly. Boasting a decent sized 2.7-inch LCD display, it weighs just 130 grams and is two centimetres thick, fitting very comfortably in your pocket. It's stylish looking, coming not only in black and silver, but also electric pink and blue, the latter being our favourite.

In terms of other stats, the Finepix J30 is a 12.2-megapixel camera with a standard 3x optical zoom (and 5.7x digital zoom). It has a basic movie recording mode, complete with sound and zoom functionality, although you won't fit much of a film on the camera's internal memory of 10MB. You'll need to pick up an SD or SDHC memory card to complement that, obviously (unless you plan on running back to your PC and uploading after every snap).

The J30 is a point-and-shoot camera, with a simple menu system controlled by a four-way rocker switch that will be familiar to users of previous Fuji models. The menus and controls are pretty much self-explanatory, with no need to consult the manual to work out what you're doing, as the J30 is largely automated in its operation.

Whatever you're photographing, whether it's a night shot, portrait, landscape or close-up, the camera will automatically select the correct shooting settings. And the resulting images are impressive given the J30's budget price point. The colours are particularly strong: taking a simple close-up of a plant, we were particularly taken with the deep and vivid greens captured. Snapping a portrait shot with a brightly lit window in the background, the J30 did a good job of compensating for the light from behind and produced an evenly balanced image.

The camera also features picture stabilisation to help counter any blur effects, and an automatic panorama mode which takes three consecutive photos and stitches them together to produce a sweeping landscape shot. This mode generates some good results, although a steady hand and accurate eye are required to line up the edge of the preceding picture with the following one.

One slight niggle is the battery life, which was a little on the short side, particularly compared to our old warhorse Fuji camera which only needs its battery recharging once per year. However, there's only so much you can expect from a budget camera, and the J30 delivers a lot as it is. The picture quality you're getting per pound is as impressive as the ease of use and portability of this shiny blue toy.

Verdict
The J30 is a compact camera with a decent spec that produces some good quality pictures with a minimum of fuss. The images captured boast some vibrant colours, and the inclusion of an automatic panorama mode is a neat touch. For a point-and-shoot snapper at this price point, you can't go far wrong.

Company: FujiFilm

Contact: 0800 083 3113

Tags: camera liquid crystal display secure digital point-and-shoot camera digital zoom digital camera photography shopping