Fujifilm FinePix F401 Zoom Review

The F401 employs a Super EBC Fujinon 3x optical zoom lens, it's equivalent to 38-114mm on a 35mm camera. When the camera is powered down the lens retracts inside the camera and is covered by a built in lens protector.

The digital zoom is 3.6x. The focusing range in Normal AF is from 2.0ft to Infinity.
When in Macro mode it covers from 0.3 to 2.6 ft.

The eyelevel optical real-image zoom viewfinder has a field of view of approx. 80% of the captured image and has no diopter adjustment. It has no LEDs near the viewfinder to indicate focus lock or flash ready.

The flash has an effective range in wide angle of 15.7 in. to 11.5 ft and in Telephoto a range of 15.7 in. to 6.6 ft. Flash modes available are: Auto, Red-eye reduction, Forced flash, Suppressed flash or Slow syncro.

The power switch on the F401 is not normal at all. It is the finger grip to the side of the lens. Upon sliding it outwards the lens cover opens and the lens ratchets into position. The three blue 'Cylon' LED's glow for five seconds indicating power up. The camera is ready to shoot and, if the camera isn't operated within two minutes it will return the lens, cover it and power down. To reactivate slide the grip in towards the lens and back out. The LED's also indicate 'charging in progress' when the AC charger/power supply is plugged into the DC IN port on the side of the camera.

All of the controls are on the back. The green LED to the top left indicates the camera is ready, it turns orange when the processor is writing to the memory card or the flash is charging. To the right is the Mode switch that can be set to Record, Play or Movie Mode. The 4-way selector in Record mode operates the zoom lens and digital zoom with the up and down positions. It toggles the Macro on and off with the left arrow and the Flash modes with the right arrow. In Play mode the up and down zoom control allows zoomed-in replay and after pressing the DISPlay button the 4-way controls the movement inside the zoomed image.

Next to the LCD monitor is the MENU/OK button which toggles the Menu on/off . While ON, the menu selections are navigated with the 4-way and the OK button makes selections. The BACK basically stops any procedure midway through. The DISPlay button in Record selects the LCD monitor ON/OFF or selects the four framing grid lines (see Record Modes & Menu Options.) In Playback the DISPlay button toggles between Text display ON/OFF and Index of last nine images in tiny thumbnails(see Playback Modes & Menu Options.).

On the side is the docking cradle connector. If you don't have the optional cradle then you just plug the USB cable directly into the same port. On the same side is the 5v DC INput jack for the battery charger. When using the cradle, the charging power and USB connections are made automatically. It has no Audio and Video Out capability even with the docking cradle as some other Fuji models do.

The F401 is equipped with a SmartMedia card slot and is supplied with a 16MB SM card. It's compatible with any 3.3v SM card from 4MB to 128MB. The battery is also located in this compartment.

Power is supplied by a super-slim and proprietary lithium rechargeable battery pack. The NP-60 is a 3.7V 1035mAH pack that charges in the camera in five hours or less. The optional BC-60 rapid charger can recharge the NP-60 in 60-120 minutes.