If you're somebody who buys electronics kit by the specifications, you could be very impressed by the Fujifilm FinePix J50. Among its specs are an 8.3-megapixel sensor, 5x optical zoom and a 67mm LCD display. All good stuff, particularly when the camera's available for around £75. There's a bit more to it than the numbers, though.

The FinePix J50 has a conventional design with a good-sized LCD on the back and a compact but chunky case. Because of its high-resolution sensor, Fujifilm can afford to offer 3x digital zoom as well as the optical. You can turn the digital zoom on or off, but not adjust through it, which makes it less flexible.

The battery and memory card slide in at the side and Fujifilm, perhaps acknowledging the less than universal take up of its xD card format, provides compatibility with SD and SDHC cards too. They all fit the same slot.

The mode selection wheel includes ‘portrait' and ‘baby' modes, where skin tones are ‘warmed' in firmware, plus red eye reduction - useful for snapping fell hounds on Dartmoor - and image stabilisation. There's a four-way click wheel below this, controlling zoom, macro, delete and the self-timer; it's a bit small for anything but thumbnail or fingernail operation.

The resolution of the sensor, at 8.3 megapixels, is one key aspect of its spec. Colour rendition is another and the J50 does well, with good, natural hues. The third aspect is sensitivity, though, and if that's poor you get image noise; the annoying patches of pixels that appear in low-lit shots. In this camera the sensitivity is poor and you get a lot of noise unless the image is well lit, preferably by bright sunlight.

The problem is most obvious when image stabilisation is switched on. Stabilisation, which stops picture shake when you have no tripod or your subject is moving fast, can be provided in several different ways. The cheapest is to increase the sensitivity of the sensor from, say, ISO 100 or 200 up to 400, 800 or beyond. Guess which method Fujifilm uses, and guess whose camera has a top sensitivity of ISO 800 and a sensor that is very noisy at this level?

What it comes down to is that this is a good camera for taking shots of the family on sunny days on holiday, but you'll be disappointed shooting the same family indoors when the evenings draw in.

Verdict
This is a neat, easy-to-use camera with a good lens and screen. Unfortunately the bit in between, the sensor, is not of the same quality. At anything other than low sensitivity, image noise level becomes increasingly difficult to live with. What a shame, as in most other respects this camera is a real bargain.

Company: FujiFilm

Contact: 0870 084 1310

Tags: fujifilm fujifilm finepix liquid crystal display secure digital image stabilization international organization for standardization lucida sans unicode digital camera