A good job overall, with excellent color, though details are slightly soft and image noise is higher than average.

The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot for many digicams, which is precisely why I set it up this way, and why I shoot it with no fill flash or reflector to open the shadows. The object is to hold both highlight and shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors, and the F410 performed fairly well.

The shot at right was taken with a +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment, about a typical amount for this shot. The highlights are fairly well held in check, although the midtone values look a little dark. You could arguably use the +1.0 EV exposure compensation setting, though I felt the highlights were a bit too blown out. I chose the Auto white balance as the most accurate overall, though it produced nearly identical results to the Daylight setting.

Skin tones look very good to my eye here, just a bit pink, but quite appealing. The blue flowers in the bouquet are rendered almost perfectly. (This is a very difficult blue for many digicams to get right, so the F410 does an excellent job here.) The rest of the color in the frame looks accurate as well, although the red flowers are a bit oversaturated. Resolution is moderately high, with good detail visible throughout the frame (though detail is only moderate in the shadows). Details are slightly soft throughout the frame however, and there's more image noise than I'd like to see in the shadows.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.7 EV, see files F41OUTAP0.HTM through F41OUTAP5.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Closer Portrait:

Better resolution and detail, no distortion from the lens.

Results are similar to the wider shot above, though this close-up shot required less exposure compensation. The shot at right has only a +0.3 EV exposure boost, which produces only slightly dark midtones, although the strongest highlights are again lost. The F410's 3x zoom lens helps prevent distortion of Marti's features. (Fixed focal length wide-angle lenses distort terribly in close-in portraits like this.) Detail is much stronger in this shot, particularly in Marti's face and hair. Details are just slightly soft overall, and image noise is moderate throughout the frame.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files F41FACAP0.HTM through F41FACAP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, Flash:

Normal Flash Default Exposure

Slow-Sync Flash Default Exposure

Good intensity and coverage with the built-in flash, good color as well.

The F410's built-in flash illuminates the subject well, even at the default exposure setting. The 410's exposure compensation adjustment doesn't appear to affect flash exposures, as the default exposure at right was no different than one shot at +1.3EV. Overall color is good, though the background incandescent lighting produces an orange cast on the back wall, which spills slightly onto Marti's features. I also shot with the camera's Slow-Sync flash mode, which combines the flash with a longer exposure to allow more background illumination into the photo. In this mode, I felt the default exposure looked best, as the +0.3 EV adjustment produced a strong blue cast on Marti's face and the white shirt. The bright exposure resulted in hot highlights on the white shirt. The orange cast is much stronger in this shot, due to the influence of the room lighting.

To view the entire exposure series in the Slow Sync flash mode, see files F41INFSP0.HTM through F41INFSP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, No Flash:

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Color casts with both white balance settings, high exposure compensation required too.

This shot is always a very tough test of a camera's white balance capability, given the strong, yellowish color cast of the household incandescent bulbs used for the lighting. The F410's Auto white balance had a little trouble here, and produced a pink color cast. The Incandescent setting instead resulted in a strong yellow cast. Marti's skin tone is quite pink, as is her white shirt. The blue flowers in the bouquet are quite dark and purplish, a common problem with this shot.

ISO Series:
The F410 shows higher than average noise in general, and shows very high noise at both the 400 and 800 ISO sensitivity settings.

ISO Series
ISO 200	ISO 400	ISO 800

House Shot:

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Pretty good color, although with slight warm cast, with moderate resolution.

Both the F410's Auto and Daylight white balances resulted in sight yellowish casts. I chose the Daylight setting for the main image, as the warm cast seemed just slightly less in the white house trim. Resolution is moderate, with slightly limited detail in the tree limbs above the roof and in the shrubbery in front of the house. Details are also quite soft throughout the frame, and show some jagged artifacts in the more finely-detailed areas.

Far-Field Test

Typical 3 megapixel resolution and detail, with a limited dynamic range, but great color.

This image is shot at infinity to test far-field lens performance. NOTE that this image cannot be directly compared to the other "house" shot, which is a poster, shot in the studio. The rendering of detail in the poster will be very different than in this shot, and color values (and even the presence or absence of leaves on the trees!) will vary in this subject as the seasons progress. In general though, you can evaluate detail in the bricks, shingles and window detail, and in the tree branches against the sky. Compression artifacts are most likely to show in the trim along the edge of the roof, in the bricks, or in the relatively "flat" areas in the windows.

This is my ultimate "resolution shot," given the infinite range of detail in a natural scene like this, and the F410 performed pretty well. This is an example of the effect I mentioned in the note at the top of the page: The interpolation used in the F410's maximum-resolution files makes them look very soft when viewed on-screen, even though the amount of detail present is very typical for a good 3-megapixel camera. - My usual comments therefore don't easily apply here, but suffice to say that the F410 captures a solid three megapixels worth of subject detail.

Dynamic range is a little limited, in that the camera loses all but the strongest details in the bright white paint surrounding the bay window, a trouble spot for many digicams. Detail is slightly better in the shadow area above the front door, but I'd still say that dynamic range is on the low side. Overall color is very good, and exposure is about right. However, image noise is higher than average. The table below shows a standard resolution and quality series, followed by ISO and a color effects series.

Resolution Series:

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG
2,816 x 2,120	F41FARL
2,048 x 1,536	F41FARM
1,280 x 960	F41FARS
640 x 480	F41FART

ISO Series:

ISO Series
ISO 200	ISO 400	ISO 800

Color Effects Series:
The F410 offers Black and White and Chrome color options. Chrome mode raises contrast and saturation, for more vivid images.

Function Series
Normal	Chrome	Black / White

Lens Zoom Range

A typical 3x zoom range.

I routinely shoot this series of images to show the field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide angle, at maximum telephoto (3x, in this case), and at full telephoto with the digital zoom enabled. The F410's lens is equivalent to a 38-114mm zoom on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to a moderate wide angle to a reasonable telephoto. Following are the results at each zoom setting.

Musicians Poster

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Slightly reddish color with the Daylight setting, but good overall results.

This shot is often a tough test for digicams, as the abundance of blue in the composition frequently tricks white balance systems into producing a warm color balance. The F410's Auto white balance fell victim to this trap, and produced a warm color balance. The Daylight setting was just a bit reddish (yet cool), but overall color looked best here. The blue robe looks nearly right, with only slight purple tints in the shadow areas. Resolution is moderate, and the embroidery of the blue robe shows good detail.

Macro Shot

Standard Macro Shot

Macro with Flash

A small macro area with good detail.

The F410 performed pretty well in the macro category, capturing a minimum area of just 2.86 x 2.12 inches (73 x 54 millimeters). Resolution is moderately high, with good detail in the dollar bill. The coins and brooch are very soft due to the short shooting distance. Color balance is just slightly warm, but not too bad overall. Glare from the surface of the brooch tricked the F410's flash into throttling down a little too much for the macro area, but that's generally good news, in that it means the flash can indeed be used up close. (On a negative note though, flash illumination is rather uneven when shooting at the minimum focusing distance).

"Davebox" Test Target

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Warm color balance, but good overall color.

The F410's Auto and Daylight white balance settings produced similar, warm images with slight greenish casts. Exposure is slightly dim, but the F410 distinguishes the subtle tonal variations of the Q60 target nicely. Considering the warm cast, the large color blocks look pretty good, albeit slightly dim. That said, the additive primary colors (red, green, and blue) are hot. The shadow area of the charcoal briquettes shows limited detail, with fairly high noise.

Low-Light Tests

Quite limited low-light capabilities, just barely sensitive enough for average city street lighting at night (only at ISO 800).

The F410's fully automatic exposure control and maximum exposure time of 1/4 second hamper its low-light shooting abilities quite a bit. In my testing, the F410 produced clear, bright, usable images only down to the one foot-candle (11 lux) light level at the 800 ISO setting. At ISO 400, images were bright as low as two foot-candles (22 lux), and at 200 ISO, images were bright only to four foot-candles (44 lux). Since average city street lighting at night equates to about one foot-candle, the F410's 800 ISO setting is just sensitive enough for city night scenes. Color is pretty good, but image noise is quite high. The table below shows the best exposure I was able to obtain for each of a range of illumination levels. Images in this table (like all sample photos) are untouched, exactly as they came from the camera.

(A side note: I happened to have an F410 along on a recent trip, and found that it actually did pretty well with city night scenes. It couldn't pull detail out of the darkest shadows, but well-lit street scenes came out quite nicely, despite the rather mediocre results on my in-studio low-light tests below.)

Flash Range Test

A dim flash, even at the eight foot distance from the target.

In my testing, the F410's flash was fairly dim at the eight foot distance from the test target, and incrementally decreased in intensity from that point on. Fuji rates the F410's flash range as good to 11.5 feet at wide angle, but only usable to 6.6 feet at telephoto. Since the shots below were taken with the lens at the telephoto setting, it's probably no surprise that even the shot snapped at 8 feet is rather dim. Below is the flash range series, with distances from eight to 14 feet from the target.

8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft	12 ft	13 ft	14 ft
1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 200

ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test

Moderately high resolution, 1,100-1,100 lines of "strong detail," (depending on the line direction). High barrel distortion, but very low pincushion distortion.

The F410 performed fairly well for a 3-megapixel on the "laboratory" resolution test chart at its interpolated 6.0-megapixel resolution. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 800 lines per picture height vertically, and around 650 lines horizontally. (Artifacts became very pronounced in the horizontal direction, especially around 800 lines.) I found "strong detail" out to at least 1,150 lines vertically, and around 1,250 lines in the horizontal direction. "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,500 lines.

Optical distortion on the F410 is high at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 1.05 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared much better, as I found only a half-pixel of pincushion distortion.(The average among cameras I've tested seems to be about 0.8% barrel distortion at wide-angle (still too much IMHO), and between 0.1 and 0.3% at pincushion at telephoto. The F410 thus did a bit worse at wide-angle, and a bit better at telephoto.) Chromatic aberration is low, showing only a few pixels of fairly weak coloration on either side of the res target lines, although it was a bit more pronounced in the lower right-hand corner. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Resolution Series, Wide Angle

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG
2,816 x 2,120	F41RESWLF
2,048 x 1,536	F41RESWMF
1,280 x 960	F41RESWSF
640 x 480	F41RESWTF

Resolution Test, Telephoto

2,816 x 2,120 (Fine, Tele)

F41RESTLF