Fujifilm FinePix F series · on sale November 2006 · a retrospective
The Fujifilm FinePix F31fd: the F30 that learned to find faces
Fujifilm took its best-loved low-light camera, added face detection and an infrared port, and asked for the same price. Reviewers called it the F30 with a party trick.
Meet the camera
It looks like the camera before it. Trusted Reviews found the F31fd virtually identical to the F30: the same strong all-metal body in anodised semi-matt finish, the same f/2.8 to f/5.0 3x Fujinon lens, the same 230,000-pixel screen, with only a small rubberised grip on the front panel and an extra label on one rear button to tell them apart.4 Digital Lifestyles called it a plain, bulky camera that would not find favour with camera aesthetes, with impressive picture-taking behind the ordinary looks.2 What is new is inside: a dedicated chip for face detection.1
Imaging Resource's note on September 25, 2006 gave the price as $399, the same as the F30 at launch, with shipments expected that December and the F30 staying in the line.1 Trusted Reviews says it launched in November.4 In Britain the list price was £259.99, though the camera was widely available for under £200.4
Why this one was interesting
A chip that looked for faces
Fujifilm's face detection ran on a dedicated chip, first seen in the FinePix S6000fd, and could find up to ten faces in a picture at once. Fujifilm rated it at about 1/20 of a second.1 When it was on, the camera framed the faces it found in rectangles, white for most and green for the top priority face, and used their positions to set focus and exposure, so a subject off centre still came out sharp.1 Trusted Reviews described it as ultra-fast hardware-based face detection.4
Was it a new chip?
Only in a sense. Trusted Reviews said it kept the Real Photo Processor II and Super CCD HR VI sensor of the F30, the processor being the technology that made face detection possible.4 DPReview said the only specification changes were face detection and infrared communication, and described the upgrade as so minor it would not normally have been reviewed.5
A new lens?
No. The lens was the F30's 36 to 108 mm zoom, which DPReview called a boring range.54 Digital Lifestyles would have liked more wide angle.2
For the full story of the camera it was built on, see our F30 retrospective. For a rival's take on faces, our SD1000 retrospective covers Canon's face detection the following spring.
Face detection, in practice
Reviewers were not sure that it mattered. PhotographyBLOG found it worked well in the right situations and was quick, something rivals struggled with, but best suited to posed group shots where your subjects stand still at a moderate distance, and it was inexplicably limited to half of the camera's shooting modes.3 Trusted Reviews called the system a bit hit and miss, and said it was probably not enough to justify the price premium over the F30.4 Digital Lifestyles was not convinced of the benefits either, and suggested anyone used to focusing and reframing might as well buy the cheaper F30.2
Playback mode got a neat use for it: the camera could zoom in on the main face to confirm pose and focus, or crop a shot automatically for portrait framing.1
The dark, still the point
The low-light ability was unchanged and, for most reviewers, the reason to buy. DPReview wrote that most of what it said about the F30 applied equally here, with class-leading high ISO performance, superb results up to ISO 400 and surprisingly good ISO 800, though it thought ISO 3200 a stop too far.5 Trusted Reviews said it had the best high-ISO performance on the market and was capable of outstanding results in circumstances that would defeat most other models.4 Digital Lifestyles called it the king of the low-light compacts.2
Real photographs taken with this camera. The sensitivity shown is recorded in each file's own EXIF data.
Like that look? See what F31fds have recently sold for on eBay ↗
On eBay right now
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The little wins
Under the new feature, a few small details also changed.
More built-in memory
The built-in storage grew from 10 MB to 26 MB, still topped up by an xD-Picture Card.1
A proper power port
Digital Lifestyles was pleased that Fujifilm had dropped the annoying terminal adaptor of the F10 and F11 for a proper DC port for the supplied mains adaptor.2
Infrared sharing
A simple infrared connection, called IR Simple, let owners send photos to compatible devices.12
Gentler bright-light handling
DPReview found improved handling of bright outdoor scenes over the F30 and slightly more subtle processing, with the same low-light ability.5
How it drew the picture
DPReview re-ran all of the F30's tests with new samples and found mild highlight clipping in bright conditions, though better than the F30, along with purple fringing and a screen that was hard to see in very bright light.5 PhotographyBLOG scored the image quality 4.5 out of 5.3 Trusted Reviews called the image quality superb.4
Photos taken with this camera, from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each picture.
Where it let you down
The faults were the F30's. DPReview listed noisy focus, slow macro focus, a three-shot limit in continuous mode, slow card writing and a user interface that lacked finesse, and said the camera was starting to look long in the tooth as 8, 10 and even 12 megapixels became common in 2007 and features like image stabilisation and wider zooms became the norm.5 It still used xD cards, which Digital Lifestyles did not like.2 Its Picture Stabilization mode, Digital Lifestyles said, simply raised the ISO rather than stabilising anything.2
What the reviewers said
| Outlet | Date | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Lifestyles | 5 Jan 2007 | A fairly minor update to the F30 with the same impressive low-light performance. Not convinced by face detection; the cheaper F30 would do.2 |
| PhotographyBLOG | 6 Jan 2007 | Design, features, ease of use and image quality all 4.5 out of 5, value 3.5. An incremental upgrade with a significant price increase.3 |
| Trusted Reviews | 25 Jan 2007 | A superb compact with the best high-ISO performance and class-leading battery life, but face detection was not enough to justify the price against the F30.4 |
| DPReview | 11 Apr 2007 | A very minor upgrade, which was good news and bad: the class-leading high-ISO performance was untouched, but the camera was starting to look dated.5 |
The timeline
- 25 September 2006Fujifilm announces the F31fd at $399.1
- November 2006It launches, according to Trusted Reviews.4
- 5 January 2007Digital Lifestyles reviews it.2
- 6 January 2007PhotographyBLOG publishes its review.3
- 25 January 2007Trusted Reviews publishes its review.4
- 11 April 2007DPReview publishes its review.5
Should you buy one now?
Buy an F31fd if you want the F30's low-light talent and like the idea of a camera that frames the faces in your party shot. If you only want the dark-room pictures, the F30 does the same thing, and reviewers said so at the time.24 The F31fd launched at $399;1 what it sells for now is a question for the sold listings, not for us. Before you bid, check these:
- The card. It takes xD-Picture Cards, not SD, and has 26 MB of built-in memory.12
- The battery. The NP-95 was good for up to 580 shots when new;2 an old one will be far worse. A fresh one is on Amazon ↗.
- The face button. There is a labelled button on the back for face detection;4 press it and look for the frames on the screen.
- The screen. It is hard to see in bright light, and there is no viewfinder.5
- The settings. Auto mode picks ISO 800 with flash when it need not, DPReview said,5 so switch ISO to a lower setting.
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-95 battery ↗
New to the jargon (CCD, ISO, xD cards, IXUS vs ELPH)? Read our plain-English digicam glossary.
Sources
- Imaging Resource, “Fujifilm F31fd” announcement (updated 25 Sep 2006)
- Digital Lifestyles via urban75, Fujifilm FinePix F31fd review by Mike Slocombe (5 Jan 2007)
- PhotographyBLOG, Fujifilm FinePix F31fd review, conclusion (6 Jan 2007)
- Trusted Reviews, Fujifilm FinePix F31fd review by Cliff Smith (25 Jan 2007)
- DPReview, Fujifilm FinePix F31fd review (11 Apr 2007)
Camera photo by Jnn (CC BY 2.1 Japan); other photographs are credited under each one, all via Wikimedia Commons. Links to eBay and Amazon are affiliate links.