Fujifilm FinePix A350 Review

The A350 employs a Super EBC Fujinon 3x optical zoom lens, it's equivalent to 35-105mm on a 35mm camera. When the camera is powered down the lens retracts inside the camera and is covered by the sliding lens protector.

The focusing range in Normal AF is from 2 ft. to Infinity. When in Macro mode it covers from 2.4 in. to 2.6 ft. The aperture range is f/2.8-4.5 in wide angle and f/5.6-9.5 in telephoto.

The eye level optical real-image zoom viewfinder has a field of view of approx. 85% of the captured image and lacks any type of diopter adjustment.

The flash has an effective range in wide angle of 2 to 11.5 ft and in Telephoto a range of 2 to 9.8 ft. Flash modes available are: Auto, Red-eye reduction, Forced flash, Suppressed flash, Slow Syncro and Red-eye reduction + Slow Synchro.

On the back is a 1.7-inch color TFT LCD monitor for image preview, review and accessing the camera's menus. In the upper right corner is the 4-way selector, in Record mode the large center switch operates the zoom lens and digital zoom with the "Up" and "Down" positions. The "Left" button toggles the Macro focus on and off and the Flash modes are controlled with the "Right" button. In Play mode the up and down zoom control allows zoomed-in (magnified) replay mode.

Above the LCD monitor is the Playback/Movie/Record mode control switch. The MENU/OK button toggles the Menu on/off. While ON, the menu selections are navigated with the 4-way and the OK button makes selections. The BACK button stops any procedure when necessary. The DISPlay button in Record selects the LCD monitor ON/OFF or selects the four framing grid lines. In Playback the DISPlay button toggles between Text display ON/OFF and Index of last nine images in tiny thumbnails.

The only controls on the top are the Power on/off button and the shutter release.

On the left side is the USB 1.1 port - a PictBridge compatible printer can also be connected to the USB port for direct-printing. The Audio-Video Out port allows connection to a TV for playback, the format is selectable for NTSC or PAL standard. The 3v DC INput jack is for an optional AC power adapter.

The A350 is equipped with a xD-Picture Card slot and is supplied with a 32MB xD card. It's compatible with any xD card from 16MB to 512MB. The batteries are also located in this compartment.

Power is supplied by a pair of standard AA type batteries, alkaline, NiMH rechargeable or one-use lithium.