Product Reviews

Fuji's Z3 is aimed at the fashion conscious, social snapper - our review model's sleek aluminium housing came in a girly pastel pink. Looks may be high on the list of the Z3's priorities, but it also feels solidly built and is small enough to fit into even the tightest of pockets.

Where's the on button?

When it comes to looking for the power switch, you'll probably spend a few minutes wondering where it's hidden before it clicks - there's no traditional power button. Powering up simply involves sliding the lens cover across and moments later you're ready to shoot. It's a neat touch that allows you to just grab the camera and start shooting. The downside of such a slick mechanism is that when the Z3 is in your pocket, it's easy to accidentally nudge open this panel and leave the lens exposed. Thankfully, the camera automatically powers down after a period of inactivity, so at least you won't waste battery life.

The rear of the camera will be familiar to those who have used Fuji compacts before. A single button takes you straight to ISO, quality and colour settings, and there's a dedicated anti-shake button to help keep your photos blur free. It's all neatly laid-out and makes accessing major functions and features straightforward. However, this isn't a camera for the control freak - there's very little manual control of aperture or shutter settings.

Rosy-cheeked

in daylight, the Z3 produced pleasing outdoor snaps that were well exposed,

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and despite slightly over-enthusiastic colours, the Fuji produced snaps that were more or less true to life. Die-hards might object to the Z3's rosy tint, but it does add colour to otherwise dull photos without giving everything an unrealistic, fluorescent glow.

The Z3 also has a natural light mode that makes it possible to take natural-looking photos in low light without a flash. It does this by taking advantage of the camera's wide ISO, or light sensitivity, range, and in our test shots it produced some stunning results. As with all compact digital cameras, the Fuji exhibits image noise at higher ISO settings, but thanks to its noise reduction circuitry this was never too severe and more than worth the bonus of being able to shoot without flash.

Intelligent flashing

In some situations, you can't completely avoid using the flash and the Z3 has an intelligent flash system that attempts to improve shots taken in low light. We've all seen photos of bleached out faces against inky black backgrounds, but this is something you'll rarely get with the Z3.

It achieves this by using higher ISO settings to boost the available ambient light, while also using the flash to light the foreground of the picture. In practice, this worked better than similar features we've seen in rival compacts - the Z3 avoided the typical blurring and double images because of its ability to use shorter exposures.

One feature that we've never seen before is the Fuji's dual-shot mode. This entails two photos being taken in rapid succession, one with and one without flash - usefully the flash shot is taken second, so as not to disturb your subject. When you're unsure of whether to shoot with or without flash, dual-shot mode gives you the best of both worlds.

The Z3 is a great little camera and it's well-suited to keen happy snappers who want a hassle-free compact. It's as adept in bright sunshine as it is photographing scenes in low light, and despite over-enthusiastic colour reproduction and other slight niggles it does a fantastic job for the money.