Review: Fuji MX-2900 Zoom

Don Bradbury looks at a mid-price digital camera from Fujifilm

Product	MX-2900 Zoom
Company	Fuji
Web	www.fuji.co.uk
Price	£424.68 plus VAT and delivery
We like
We don't like
Rating	7/10
Requirements

While 2.3 megapixel CCD digital cameras proliferate - and their price drops because higher pixel counts are now standard - this is still the buying bracket that many will go for in order to keep costs in check for their first buy, and also to let the market settle further before a more ambitious second buy.

The MX-2900 Zoom is a Magnesium alloy, silver-bodied, comfortable-to-hold, reasonably compact camera. Easy to use once you've mastered the Fuji menus, and taking pictures under normal conditions that are probably the equal of similarly specified competition, many will be happy with their buy.

Its 3x optical zoom lens is standard these days, and perfectly adequate for most users. Digital zooming, which is also available, is best left 'in the box', but it's there for emergencies (when you simply can't get any closer to the subject). Unusually, the camera starts with the maximum focal length engaged, so virtually every first shot after switching on has to be taken after zooming the lens out to a standard setting. That's surely a design mistake by Fuji!

The zoom control was a 'love it or hate it' kind of design, with a button press-in/up for one direction and a depress for the other, the button/lever arrangement being on the same control. Something to get used to, then.

Auto-focus

Auto-focus worked well enough except under low-light, close-up conditions when it was unacceptably variable in its accuracy. Viewing and framing were good with either the optical direct viewfinder (complete with diopter adjustment) or the variable brightness, quite sharp, two inch Polysilicon TFT LCD.

Macro focusing was not particularly inspiring, covering the range 10-35 inches, but as mentioned before, after protracted gear whirring and noisy grinding of the mechanicals, focus was still often not accurate, especially if the light level was low.

Automatic flash worked reasonably well from the integral pop-up unit, with the usual red-eye and forced on/off modes, although there was something of a hot spot in the central zone, giving a brighter image in that area than the rest. The supplementary hot shoe will be found useful by keen photographers who prefer to use a compatible external flashgun.

Automatic or manual

Manual control was there, but not to the degree guaranteed to satisfy enthusiasts. Only two apertures were available in this mode, with a shutter speed range of 3 secs to 1/500 sec at f4, or 3 secs to 1/1000 sec at f8. Flash brightness could, however, be varied, as could the metering mode. Choice of average, spot, and multi metering should satisfy most users.

Continuous shooting modes are common these days, and this Fuji model gave up to 9 shots at 3 frames per sec, though only at the low resolution setting of 640 x 480 pixels.

Picture replay was rather slow, but I really liked the 16 stage zooming that was easily engaged whereby to judge image sharpness.

The 8MB Smartmedia card that was supplied held 1800 x 1200 pixel shots, or 640 x 480, each with variable JPEG compression, but there was no uncompressed TIFF mode.

In conclusion

With white balance adjustment, self-timer, image sharpness control, multi-frame playback, picture effects, image resizing, image protection, DPOF frame selection for external printing services, and a neat power supply cum charger supplied as standard for the Li-ion battery (though with an unacceptably long 8 hour recharge time), plus optional wide angle converter, a nice manual, and CD bearing Adobe Photodeluxe Home Edition 3.0 plus image transfer media (serial only, not the much quicker USB), this Fuji digital may satisfy a range of potential users, especially at a heavily discounted price. It is not, however, an enthusiast's camera, despite the "advanced features" thrown in by Fuji.

 

Don Bradbury