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Fuji 2700/4700
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Comparison of Fuji-2700 and Fuji-4700.
By Garnet R. Chaney
I've had the Fuji-4700 for almost a week now, and I really love it!
Here's my mini-review and comparison with my previous favorite digital
camera, the Fuji-2700.
Introduction
The Fuji-4700 is a long awaited upgrade of the Fuji-2700. Until the arrival
of the Fuji-4700, the Fuji-2700 was probably
the best truly pocket sized 2 megapixel digital camera available.
The Fuji-4700 adds interpolated 4 megapixel resolution, as well as
a 3X optical zoom, .AVI motion picture recording and playback (with sound!),
full manual control of the camera, and several additional picture modes
to quick setup for various common kinds of pictures such as 3-at-time picture
taking, outside pictures, portraits,
and low light or night time picture taking.
And it does all these things without any increase in size! It still fits
in the pocket, and has a nice metal shutter door that closes over the
zoom lense assembly, which is fully retracted into the camera when it is
turned off.
Nighttime Mode Produces Great Pictures
When you can't use flash in dark situations, the camera has a super
nighttime mode that allows it to take really good pictures. It apparently
does this by drastically lengthing the shutter opening time, since any
camera shake will produce some spectacular light trails and haze.
Camera Speed Much Improved in the Fuji-4700
Another huge improvement is in the speed of the camera. When first
turned on, the Fuji-4700 is very
quickly ready to take pictures.
The Fuji-2700 suffers from a pause at the start that gets very long if
larger 32MB or 64MB Smart Media cards are used.
The Fuji-4700 is also much quicker
when taking pictures, fixing the annoying recycle time problems of the
Fuji-2700. The Fuji-2700 can be rendered almost unusable when a 64MB
smart media card is used, with very yawn causing lags after each picture
is stored as it calculates the remaining picture space.
Batteries...
The Fuji-4700 include needs only two NiMH AA batteries (eventhough their
life seems shorter than the custom internal battery of the 2700, it's easier
and cheaper to get spares for the 4700). Our camera even came with an
extra set of batteries. Of course battery life is much better than with
a camera like the Olympus D-600L, which ate 4 AA alkaline batteries with
every fill of an 8MB smart media card.
There is a warning with the FUJI-4700 that it was not designed for use with
alkaline batteries, and if they are used, the LCD screen should not be
switched on.
The Fuji-4700 is not capable of recharging the batteries while they are in
the camera. The camera was supplied with a small two battery external
charger. For better performance, I suggest obtaining a MAHA MHC204F
which will condition and charge 4 batteries at a time. This charger can
be obtained from Ham Radio Outlet.
Other useful features
Other useful features of the Fuji-4700 include a USB hookup on the camera,
which requires a special cable that is supplied with the camera. There is also a direct
video output, but I have not tried it yet.
So far, I've found only one small bug...
So far the only bug I've found with the FUJI-4700 occurred when trying to access
pictures from an MSDOS prompt, under Windows, and an attempt to copy pictures
from the camera was rebuffed with a "Write Protect" error. When using the
Windows File Explorer to copy files, there is no problem.
Some side by side comparisons of the cameras:
All pictures taken in the FINE picture mode of the camera, which means
they were stored with the smallest amount of compression. Paint Shop
Pro 6.0 was used to gather statistics on the pictures.
- Comparison 1 Floor shot of cats at play.
| 2700/DSCF0001.JPG | 1800x1200 | 123106 colors | 877,250 bytes |
| 4700/DSCF0204.JPG | 2400x1800 | 289886 colors | 1,745,963 bytes |
- Comparison 2 First bookcase shot.
| 2700/DSCF0002 | 877,156 bytes |
| 4700/DSCF0205 | 1,751,128 bytes |
- Comparison 3 Bookcase shot with tripod
| 2700/DSCF0003 | 868,426 bytes |
| 4700/DSCF0206 | 1,732,974 bytes |
- Comparison 4 Bookcase shot with tripod and flash.
| 2700/DSCF0004 | 843,927 bytes |
| 4700/DSCF0207 | 1,781,893 bytes |
- Comparison 5 Tripod, Flash, Fully Zoomed picture from Fuji-4700
| 4700/DSCF0208 | 1,769,923 bytes |
- Comparison 6 Another indoor flash picture, handheld.
| 2700/DSCF0005 | 865,568 bytes |
| 4700/DSCF0210 | 1,809,728 bytes |
These pictures show some unique capabilities of the FUJI-4700.
Most of them were stored in basic mode, which uses the most compression.
- 4700-1 Sample AVI
DSCF0203.AVI 320x200 3,978,256 bytes.
- 4700-2 Interesting bluring (time exposure) under low light conditions. Nighttime mode.
DSCF0132.JPG
- 4700-3 Some more interesting blur under low light. Nighttime mode.
DSCF0133.JPG
- 4700-4 Nighttime mode gives excellent performance in low light if camera is held steady. This picture even includes some lighting from the background of the picture, and it still comes out great.
| 4700/DSCF0134.JPG | 2400x1800 | 135,617 colors | 290,250 bytes |
- 4700-5 Same picture in automatic mode. It is very dark.
Microsoft Photo Editor's Auto Balance function will just make this picture very
grainy.
| 4700/DSCF0136.JPG | 2400x1800 | 19,675 colors | 295,656 bytes |
Comments, suggestions, questions? Ask me at webmill@webmill.com
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