Review: Fujifilm Finepix Z5fd digital camera

Hot on the heels of Fujifilm's Finepix F31fd, comes the Finepix Z5fd.

This svelte digital camera is a fine advert for the company’s Super CCD HR , a 6.3-megapixel sensor which is claimed to be up to four times more light-sensitive than a conventional CCD.

And the functionality packed into the camera’s diminutive frame is impressive.

Fujifilm is schizophrenic when designing compacts, sometimes delivering uglies (see the A-series ), but the Z series just reeks of chic.

This aluminium-clad model benefits from an absence of ugly protrusions - the 3x zoom lens doesn’t even extend from the body when in use - and a tidy set of on-body controls.

It’s pocketable and lightweight at 148g sans battery and card, although shame on Fujifilm for not bundling an Xd Picturecard.

There’s a measly 26MB of internal storage, so budget for a 1GB (around £15) Xd that's good for 341 best-resolution stills or approx 15mins of VGA video (Avi as Motion-Jpeg).

In use, the Z5fd is undemanding. Well-designed LCD menus give access to numerous happy-snapper functions, including a plethora of scene modes for camera klutzes, continuous shooting at 2.2fps (frames per second), macro and a healthy variety of white balance presets.

There's also Fujifilm’s signature F button for calling up ISO sensitivity, which ranges from 100 to a noisy 1600, image quality from 6megapixels Fine down to web-friendly 0.3megapixels, and a choice of Standard, Black & White and Chrome colour modes. The Chrome setting boosts colour saturation and, once you’ve tried it, you're unlikely to go back.

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