Fuji FinePix 2600 Zoom2 megapixels, a 3x zoom lens, great pictures, and a bargain price: A great "value leader" from Fuji!<<Camera Modes & Menus :(Previous) | (Next): Video, Power, Software>> Page 10:Image Storage & InterfaceReview First Posted: 11/08/2001 |
Image Storage and Interface
The 2600 Zoom stores images to a SmartMedia card, and a 16-megabyte card is included with the camera. Additional SmartMedia cards are available as separate accessories, with capacities as large as 128-megabytes. SmartMedia cards can be individually write-protected by placing a small sticker over the designated area on the card. A set of stickers comes with the card, and stickers can only be used once (they must be clean to be effective). Write-protecting the entire SmartMedia card prevents anything from being written to or deleted from the card. Interestingly, the 2600 Zoom does not provide an option to write-protect individual images through the Playback menu. This is a feature that has become standard on most digicams, but has been left out here. The only downside of this is that you can only write-protect the entire card instead of just one image.
The 2600 Zoom offers three resolution sizes, 1,600 x 1,200; 1,280 x 960; and 640 x 480 pixels for still images. Three JPEG compression levels are also available, Fine, Normal, and Economy, though the 1,600 x 1,200-pixel size is the only resolution to offer all three quality settings. Movie files are captured at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels.
Following are the approximate number of recordable images and the compression ratios used, for the included 16-megabyte SmartMedia card:
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Resolution/Quality |
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| High Resolution 1600x1200 | Images |
20 | 39 |
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| Approx. Compression |
7:1 | 14:1 |
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| Standard Resolution 1280x960 | Images |
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| Approx. Compression |
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Images |
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| Approx. Compression |
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The 2600 Zoom is accompanied by a USB cable and interface software for connecting to a PC or Macintosh. (Macs running OS 8.6 or later, and PCs with Windows 2000, Me or XP should need no additional driver software to connect to the camera.) Here again, the FinePix 2600 Zoom proved itself to be quite fast, downloading files to our G4 Mac host computer at a speed of 528 KB/second. This isn't quite as fast as the quickest high-end digicams we've tested, but is clearly near the top of the field. (No need for a card reader with this camera!)
One
of the first things any new digicam owner will need is a larger memory card
for their camera: The cards shipped with the units by the manufacturers should
really be considered only "starter" cards, you'll definitely want a higher capacity
card immediately. - Probably at least a 32 megabyte card for a 1.3 or 2 megapixel
camera, 64 megabytes or more for a 3, 4, or 5 megapixel one. (The nice thing
about memory cards is you'll be able to use whatever you buy now with your next
camera too, whenever you upgrade.) To help you shop for a good deal on memory
cards that fit the FinePix 2600, we've put together a little memory locater,
with links to our price-comparison engine: Just click on the "Memory Wizard"
button above to go to the FujiFilm memory finder, select your camera model ,
and click the shopping cart icon next to the card size you're interested in.
You'll see a list of matching entries from the price-comparison database. Pick
a vendor & order away! (Pretty cool, huh?)
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