Fuji FinePix 4700Fuji packs a 2.4 million pixel "SuperCCD" sensor and 2400 x 1800 images into an ultra- compact digicam!<<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 10/7/2000 |
Viewfinder
The 4700z offers both an optical viewfinder and an LCD monitor on the back panel for composing images. The real-image optical viewfinder features an autofocus and exposure target in the center and some cropping guidelines around the edge. A small LED on the side of the viewfinder reports the camera's status (i.e. whether or not the focus is ready, flash is charged, etc.). The optical viewfinder zooms along with the camera, but digital zoom can only be operated when the LCD is on.
The two inch, low-temperature, polysilicon TFT, color LCD monitor on the back panel can be turned on or off via the Display button just above it. A varying information display on the LCD monitor reports the camera's exposure settings, flash settings, battery power, number of images, etc., depending on the exposure mode you're in. The exposure menu options are also listed at the bottom of the screen, but only in Manual exposure mode. When shooting in manual exposure mode, this information display is always present, even if the LCD display is turned off. In all other modes, the information and the image display can both be canceled and a framing guideline function can be displayed to help frame shots for individual or group portraits. The optional alignment grids default to one of several forms, varying according to the capture mode you're operating in. Once the grid is displayed though, you can select from a variety of secondary options by pressing the Shift and Up-Arrow keys. These grids are very handy tools for getting critical subjects (like our "House" and "Far" test shots) aligned square to the frame. Curiously, the alignment grid option doesn't seem to be available in Manual mode, an omission we'd really like to see corrected in future releases of the product: It's really very handy for quickly lining things up.
Viewfinder accuracy on the 4700 is a bit of a mixed bag. The optical viewfinder crops the frame rather severely, showing only 76% of the final image area in wide-angle mode and 77% in telephoto. By contrast though, the LCD viewfinder is quite good, at 96% and 95% respectively. While we really prefer a 100% LCD viewfinder, 95% isn't bad, and in fact better than many. The optical viewfinder is a bit of a problem though, since it not only crops the image area, but shows an offset view of the subject: The final picture is offset up and to the left from where the camera seemed to be aimed in the optical finder. In practice, this sort of idiosyncrasy isn't too hard to compensate for as you get used to a camera, but we don't see why it needs to be there in the first place.
In Playback mode, the LCD monitor allows you to zoom into captured images up to 15x and create an index display to view 25 selected frames from a captured movie at once (not available for still shots). Interestingly the 25-frame movie index is created as a separate image file, stored on the camera's SmartMedia memory card. The 15x playback zoom level goes way beyond the magnification level we've seen on any other digicam to date (April, 2000), and is a very useful feature: For the first time, you can really check critical focus using a camera's LCD display - Other manufacturers take note! (The 130,000 pixel resolution of the LCD also goes a long way toward making it useful for evaluating image quality.)
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