Fujifilm announces FinePix F100fd

New flagship for the F-range

24 January 2008 12:23 GMT / By Katie Scott

"This is the best F camera yet", says Adrian Clarke, Fujifilm's director of digital products, of the new FinePix F100fd digital compact.

This new 12 megapixel model has a 8th Generation Super CCD, offers high sensitivity up to ISO 12800 and the latest Face Detection Technology 3.0.

It is built around a Fujinon 5x wide angle optical zoom lens, and a 2.7 inch high-resolution 230,000 pixel wide angle view LCD.

Tech-wise the camera includes a Wide Dynamic Range and Dual Image Stabilisation.

The Dynamic Range technology is brought over from the FinePix S5 Pro DSLR and is a result of a new Super CCD HR VIII sensor and RP (Real Photo) Processor III, which are claimed to "broaden tonal capability and guarantee exceptional rendition of photos with both bright highlights and dark shadows", says Fujifilm.

The Face Detection 3.0 technology is claimed to be faster than previous versions, able to detect up to 10 human faces in a scene in 0.035 seconds, automatically correcting focus, exposure, and white balance.

The camera can register faces with up to 90O movement in either direction for profiles, and with rotations of up to 360O. After the shot is taken, the system instantly corrects red-eye as fast as 0.1 second and then saves both the original and the corrected image file automatically.

Also worth mentioning are the camera's 5x Fujinon zoom lens, Dual Image Stabilisation facility and continuous shooting: Top/Final 3 at 1.7fps at full resolution and Top/Final 12 at 5fps at 3 Megapixels.

The FinePix F100fd also has 16 pre-programmed scenes, including an underwater scene mode for use with a special underwater casing and a Blog mode that automatically reduces the size of copied images for easy posting to a Blog, Web page or email attachment.

It also boasts infrared communication via IrSimple technology for wireless image transfer to a compatible device.

The FinePix F100fd will be available in March and we'll bring you a confirmed price nearer to its arrival.