Fujifilm FinePix F · announced September 2005 for UK sale from November
The Fujifilm FinePix F11: the pocket camera that was happiest in the dark
Fujifilm's own press release called it the FinePix F11 Zoom; the camera's front plate just says F11.6
In autumn 2005 Fujifilm took its best-selling F10, gave it aperture and shutter priority and a sharper screen, and left the sensor alone. Reviewers raved about ISO 1600, then disagreed about fringing, sharpness and what the body was made of.
- Launched
- September 2005
- Sensor
- 6.3 MP CCD
- Lens
- 36–108 mm, 3×
- Card
- xD-Picture Card
- Battery
- NP-120
Fujifilm FinePix F11 specs: sensor, lens, battery, memory card and cable
The Fujifilm FinePix F11 is a 6.3 MP CCD compact camera with a 36–108 mm (35 mm equivalent) 3× zoom lens, launched in September 2005. It uses xD-Picture Card and runs on the NP-120 battery. Sources
- Sensor
- CCD, 1/1.7", 6.3 MP source
- Lens
- 36–108 mm equivalent, 3× zoom source
- Memory card
- xD-Picture Card source
- Battery
- NP-120 source
- USB / A/V cable
- See our Fujifilm cable page
Meet the camera
It is a squared-off pocket camera, 92 by 58 by 27 millimetres and 155 grams before battery and card are added,1 with a Fujinon 3x lens that the front ring marks 8 to 24 millimetres at f/2.8 to 5.0, equal to 36 to 108 millimetres on a 35 mm camera.15 Behind it sits a 6.3-megapixel Super CCD HR sensor of the 1/1.7-inch size.4 There is no viewfinder and no image stabiliser, so the 2.5-inch screen does all the framing.41
Fujifilm UK announced the camera on 29 September 2005, for sale from November, and gave no price at that point.6 Imaging Resource added that the camera had also been announced in Asia but, at that point, not in the United States, and that no price had been announced in any market.4 Prices came with the reviews: Pocket-lint quoted £299.99 in January 2006,2 while Trusted Reviews, on an undated page, put the high-street price at £239 and said £220 was easy to find online, with a 64 MB xD-Picture Card in the box.3
Why this one was interesting
An F10 with the missing controls
Trusted Reviews had been enthusiastic about the F10 because it broke new ground in high-ISO quality, and the F10 was crowned EISA European Pocket Camera of the Year 2005/6.3 The F11 kept the same body, sensor and lens, Trusted said, and added a better monitor and the new exposure modes.3 Imaging Resource listed them: aperture priority and shutter priority, metering raised from 64 to 256 zones, macro focus three centimetres closer, and a 2.5-inch screen of about 153,000 pixels.5 Trusted put the old screen at 115,000 pixels and the old macro limit at 7.5 centimetres, where Imaging Resource's "three centimetres closer" than 5 cm would imply 8 cm (our arithmetic).35
Low light without a tripod
The headline was sensitivity. Most cameras in this class stopped at ISO 400, Trusted said, and noisy results at that setting were normal; the F11 offered 1600, and Trusted found less noise at 1600 than most rivals produced at 400.3 It reckoned that was worth roughly the same three stops as image stabilisation, since a higher ISO allows a faster shutter speed.3 PhotographyBLOG said it had never reviewed a compact that matched the F11's ISO performance.1
The sibling reviews are on this site too: the F30, F31fd and F40fd carried the idea forward.
What was lost
None of the three reviews names a feature the F11 dropped from the F10; the complaints are about what the upgrade still left out. PhotographyBLOG, which scored the camera 4.5 out of 5, wanted dedicated buttons for shooting mode and exposure compensation, and found the Manual setting on the dial a misnomer, because the camera chooses either aperture or shutter speed and never lets you set both.1 Trusted Reviews also noted that the F11 stops short of full manual exposure.3
The dark: its strong point
All three reviewers commented on the camera's noise control; they agree that ISO 1600 was usable and differ on how clean the middle settings were. PhotographyBLOG found ISO 80 and 100 virtually noise-free and ISO 200 very clean, with noise starting to appear at ISO 400, still very well controlled at ISO 800 and usable at ISO 1600 (its summary elsewhere calls ISO 80 to 400 virtually noise-free). Its 15-second night shot at ISO 80 was judged very good.1 Trusted Reviews shot indoors by ambient light and called ISO 400 virtually noise-free, ISO 800 only faintly grainy, and ISO 1600 extremely high in quality apart from an odd banding pattern in the darker areas.3 Pocket-lint saw noise well controlled even at 1600, but found processing artefacts in the shadows in Auto ISO at low light, which disappeared at ISO 80 or 100.2
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Real photographs taken with this camera; the sensitivity shown is read from each file's own EXIF data, and so are the camera make and model.
Like that look? See recent eBay sold listings for this camera ↗
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The little wins
Autofocus that kept up
PhotographyBLOG called it very quick in good light and said a powerful assist lamp got focus most of the time indoors.1 Trusted found it focused quickly and accurately in very low light even without the lamp.3
A battery that held its charge
Fujifilm's press release claimed around 500 shots per charge, and PhotographyBLOG lists the battery as 1950 mAh.61 Pocket-lint still saw a full indicator after about 200 frames, including playback and a computer transfer, in sub-zero weather, and Trusted saw the same after two days of shooting.23
How it drew the picture
Here the reviewers disagreed more sharply. PhotographyBLOG called image quality fantastic but found files a little soft out of the camera, because in-camera sharpening cannot be adjusted, and said fringing was handled extremely well with only a couple of test shots affected in extreme contrast.1 Trusted Reviews found edge-to-edge sharpness outstanding and no lack of fine detail, and then listed obtrusive purple fringing around bright highlights as the camera's one real fault, the same fault as the F10's.3 Pocket-lint rated image quality good, with plenty of detail.2
Photos taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture.
Where it let you down
PhotographyBLOG found no histogram in shooting or playback, which it called pretty unforgivable on a camera aimed at serious photographers, no RAW mode, no manual focus and no infinity setting, and noted that autofocus sometimes failed to lock at the long end of the zoom.1 Trusted Reviews disliked the F button, a second menu just for ISO, picture size and colour, because every adjustment means opening two menus, and found the battery has no separate clip and can fall out when you open the hatch to change the card.3 Pocket-lint's main complaint was that some menus close the moment you press OK, so setting aperture or shutter priority and exposure compensation takes separate trips in and out, and it called the flash underpowered although useful as fill.2 PhotographyBLOG, by contrast, found the flash worked well indoors, with no red-eye in its test shots and good overall exposure.1
The reviewers also disagreed about what the camera is made of and how it measures up to sunlight. PhotographyBLOG called the body plastic but solid,1 while Trusted Reviews called it a strong aluminium body with a scratch-resistant but highly reflective screen.3 Both said the screen is hard to read in very bright sun.13 Trusted described the metering as 64-segment, and PhotographyBLOG's specification table also says 64 multi-point,31 where Imaging Resource and Pocket-lint both list 256 zones.52 Imaging Resource lists the 64-to-256 upgrade as one of the F11's changes.5 They gave different video capacity for the bundled 64 MB card as well: about 55 seconds at full resolution to Trusted, about two minutes to Pocket-lint.32
What the reviewers said in 2006
| Outlet | Date | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Pocket-lint | 23 Jan 2006 | 4 out of 5 at £299.99. A clear improvement over the F10: good build, fast, good detail and battery life; fiddly menus, basic manual control, flash underpowered in the reviewer's view.2 |
| PhotographyBLOG | 27 Jan 2006 | 4.5 out of 5. The best compact for the discerning photographer, and a strong second camera for DSLR owners; faulted for no histogram, no manual focus, no RAW.1 |
| Trusted Reviews | Undated page | A very good camera with unrivalled high-ISO performance, excellent value and the F10's purple fringing; its breakdown shows value 9 and image quality 8 (scale not shown on the page we read).3 |
The timeline
- 29 September 2005Fujifilm UK announces the F11 Zoom for November, price to follow; Imaging Resource notes no US announcement.64
- November 2005Planned UK retail availability.6
- 23 January 2006Pocket-lint publishes its review.2
- 27 January 2006PhotographyBLOG publishes its review.1
Should you buy one now?
Buy one if you want a small CCD camera that still gives usable pictures indoors without flash, and you can live without a histogram, manual focus or RAW. Fujifilm announced no price at launch;6 what one sells for now is a question for the sold listings, not for us. Before you bid, check these:
- The name. It is the FinePix F11, and the earlier F10 looks very similar,35 so check the model name on the front.
- The battery. It uses an NP-120;1 a fresh one is on Amazon ↗. Trusted Reviews found the battery can slip out when the hatch is opened, so check that it seats and holds.3
- The card. It takes xD-Picture Cards only;1 see our memory card guide.
- The cable. The box held a Mini-B USB cable and an AV cable;1 see our Fujifilm cable notes.
- The screen. Trusted called it scratch-resistant but reflective;3 look for marks and for dead pixels.
- The lens. Check that it extends and retracts cleanly.
If you are wondering why cameras like this are being hunted down again, we tell that story once, in Pictures that never left the card.
See recent sold prices on eBay ↗Shop on eBay ↗NP-120 battery ↗
Sources
- PhotographyBLOG, Fujifilm FinePix F11 review (eight pages, dated 27 Jan 2006; author not named on the pages we read)
- Pocket-lint, Fuji FinePix F11 review by Doug Harman (23 Jan 2006)
- Trusted Reviews, Fujifilm Finepix F11 review (undated page)
- Imaging Resource, Fujifilm FinePix F11 Zoom announcement by Mike Tomkins (29 Sep 2005)
- Imaging Resource, Fujifilm F11 overview and specifications (what changed from the F10 Zoom)
- PhotographyBLOG, Fujifilm FinePix F11 Zoom announced (Fujifilm UK release, 29 Sep 2005)
Camera photo by wetwebwork (CC BY-SA 2.0); other photographs are credited under each one, all via Wikimedia Commons. Links to eBay and Amazon are affiliate links.