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Slender and stylish, the Fujifilm FinePix F450 is a cute pointand- shoot camera with a 3.4x optical zoom that begs to be taken everywhere. Thanks to its 0.8" slim profile, you’ll have no problem sliding the F450 into a pocket or purse.
There are few buttons and dials to mar the camera’s sleek surface. Just slide the small silver accent on the front of the camera to power it on. Minimal controls dot the rear real estate. Slide a switch to change from still shot to movie to playback. Hit the Function button to adjust resolution, ISO and color. The menu button is simple as well, with white balance and EV (exposure compensation) options in manual mode, as well as a small selection of scene modes, including Sports, Landscape, Night and Portrait. Optional grid framing guidelines make it easy to keep horizons straight. That’s about all there is to it. With the F450, there’s no muss, no fuss, no confusion.
While the camera’s control buttons are understandably few, Fujifilm managed to outfit this little unit with a large and bright 2" LCD. It’s a good thing, too, because the optical viewfinder is truly tiny.
Fujifilm bundles the F450 with a Picture Cradle and a rechargeable lithium ion battery. Plug the USB cradle into your Mac, pop the camera into the cradle and you’re set to transfer. At the same time, it charges your battery.
Although the F450 won’t break any performance records, start-up is fast. Auto focus worked well as long as there was sufficient contrast, although in low light we had to re-compose several times in order to hone in on a dark/light edge to lock focus.
Picture quality was quite good for its class. Although we used the Chrome (vivid) setting to add a little punch, overall we were happy with our test shots. –THEANO NIKITAS
FinePix F450: 
Fujifilm | www.fujifilm.com | 800-800-3854 | $500
Pros: Sleek design, highly portable, simple to use, comes with rechargeable battery and picture cradle, good picture quality for its class, above-average zoom.
Cons: Pricey for its minimal feature set, only a 16MB xD card, less than razorsharp details, default saturation is low.
Requires: USB port, OS 9.2.2 or OS 10.2.6 and higher
macHOME recommends: High-capacity xD card, extra battery
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