Strengths: Right size, Easy Controls, Improved LCD, Battery life, Great value for 4mp
Weakness: Useless 16mb XD Card, Night shots
I have the last generation A340 and purchased this A345 for my parents. Most of my review will be based upon this comparison. This camera is nicely sized in that it's not too big and not too small. You can easily fit this into a shirt pocket and also not worry about losing it as compared to many micro digicams out on the market.
I'm impressed with the simplicity of the A345. The "power" button is much better than the retractable lens cover (A340) to power up the camera. The mode switch (playback, record, and shoot) that's located in the top of the LCD screen is so much easier to navigate than going into the menu system.
Just like the A340, the A345 has great battery life and you can shoot at least 150-175 shots with flash with rechargables. It also takes 2 AA batteries which is economical and practical in itself.
There is also a continuous shot mode which I haven't really used because the flash is always off in this mode.
Another feature I rarely use is the record feature, but there is sound which is cool.
Now to the weaknesses: why does Fuji ship its cameras (and I beleive for all models) these worthless 16 mb xd memory cards??? With 4mp at fine mode, you cant's even take 10 pics. There must be a glut of these 16 mb cards that fuji produced and can't get rid of. You need at least a 128mb or more capacity. 128mb card will give you 128 shots in 4mp Normal mode and 66 shots in 4mp Fine mode.
The performance for night shooting is still average to poor. The night scene mode helps but pictures can come out blurry. I guess you can't expect too much from this budget model.
Overall, this is a great camera for the money (paid $134). It's a simple point and shoot camera. This is also my parent's first digital camera and the proud grandparents were able to operate it with no problems.
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Strengths: Affordable price, Easy to use, good photo quality
Weakness: None
I do like my new camera. Firstly, I'd like to mention its unbeatable price.Below $100 with 4.1 megapixel CCD sensor and 3x optical zoom in a robust, top quality, metal body. It give me a lot more than I expected from a DC under $100. Then it is very easy to use, so if you are a casual user, I recommend you to consider it as your first option. I have no more words to its photo quality. It is good enough for me. The only drawback I think is that it uses expensive XD card as storage.
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Strengths: small, fast, flexible, cheap, good with batteries, good controls, decent zoom.
Weakness: ...buying this camera is like eating Safeway brand icecream on your way to Ben and Jerrys'.
I would get at least the A400 before I bought either the a345 or a350 cameras. Fuji cameras generally have no image-quality adjustment except at the highest resolution. That is one reason why I am shying away from Fuji now.
The A400 uses the 6th generation super-ccd and this uses an older ccd, the ccd is not necessarily so bad but the image quality is just too farking low, everything I shot on it, if there was a decent color level, came out with a pastel look. It is just barely acceptable. I suspect the jpeg Q setting is just too low, absymally low, to save space, and the onboard image processing is pretty lame. Compared to a photo from a Nikon, Canon or an Olympus camera you will instantly notice the difference.
But,it's a nice cheap point and shoot camera which has decent flexibility and can take some decent shots. At the price, it's a decent replacement for a film camera (but you can do better at the same price and feature point!). If the image was better, and the AF worked a little better in low light, I would be almost perfectly happy with it.
But if you buy this camera you will want a better camera as soon as you see photos from other cameras.
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I am posting a reply to my own review to explain what I mean by "pastel colors". You may have bought this camera and taken some still shots with it in decent lighting and said, "hey, the images look great, what's wrong?"
I mean I too remember the thrill of my first digital photos, appearing on my computer screen.
But. Look at the range of color on your image. Is it mostly one color, or a few colors? Like, the side of a brick building...a lot of green, mostly sky or water, or darkness, dark brown and black? With perhaps 80% of the image in one color, or close to it?
Wait until you take some photos where you have a lot of different colors in the shot, where there is high color contrast. Blues next to reds or greens. Even worse if they are *bright* blues next to *bright* reds or greens. Then you will see. The color intensity dymamic range on this camera, or perhaps just in the output of the image processor, is just enough to produce an acceptable image, if you don't mind pastel colors. Look at the same image from a Canon camera, for example. And you will see sharp, bright crisp colors. And you will say, "aw, gee, I could have taken that photo if I'd only known".
let me just end this by saying that this is a nice little pocket camera whose Achillies' heel is the fixed center spot focus.
You have to half-press on something at the same distance as what you want to shoot, that has good contrast (so it will get a good focus), then accept the exposure that it calculates from that, then go back to what you want to shoot and shoot it.
The good thing is that it does focus ok even on "sky". So this is not a huge problem. It is a problem mainly when the subject is close and not well lit so the focus is just bad.
Other than that the usual comments apply: too much noise reduction, too soft an image (undersharpened), too much contrast, a little oversaturated, for general photography...but good for tight, well-lit shots and even night shots from a rest (not so much NR that you can't really even use it at night), and a lot better than a cheap film camera. You will get some mileage out of this camera before you are ready to upgrade. I used it for about 6 months and took a lot of shots before I had to get something better, and even then, I tried a lot of "big name" cameras, far more expensive cameras, that were a lot worse, before I found something better that I was happy with.
Took this at night in "landscape" mode, from a rest...I was pretty impressed with this for a first camera, and the a600 is even better. I'd get that instead but don't turn up your nose at an a345, it is not easy to beat at that size. Though at $100 retail I'd spend an extra $75 and get an Olympus sp-320 way before I bought one of these. It's a little bigger but it's a full-featured 7MP camera with a much better sensor and better image processing and is a far better deal than any of the Fuji "A" series cameras, and most of their F models.
Strengths: Nice, compact and very easy to use digital camera for 1st time user. Makes digital picture taking a snap
Weakness: Uses more expensive xD type digital flash memory cards which are more expensive then compact flash and secure digital cards.
Fujifilm Finepix A345 4 MP 3x Optrical zoom is a very good value for an entry level sub $150 digital camera. It is very easy to use with capability to shoot digital videos as well. Macro setting allows closeups upto 4 inches. Easy transition from point and shoot 35 mm film camera to the digital world for the first time user.
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Strengths: Compact, lightweight, fairly EZ menu navigation
Weakness: Power button too recessed, have to press all the way down, easy to accidentally cover the flash & mic with finger.
This camera has so many options, it's hard to know where to begin. It's feather weight, even with AA batteries loaded. You can record fairly lengthy video at the smaller preset pixel sizes. Audio is in mono. Great macro length of only 4". Has many, easy to find shooting modes and flash modes to suit any situation, even full manual if you wish. The enclosed CD loaded easily and automatically grabbed all my photo files. Using the clear viewfinder was easy especially when using a black lined grid that overlays on the finder, but, of course, doesn't print on the image. Helps you follow the one third rule when shooting. Power saving features galore and a well written manual really helped me go right to whatever setting I needed to change. Multiple languages are available as well. The continuous shooting mode goes for as long as you keep your finger on the shutter button and until you run out of space on the memory card. Highly recommend this camera for amateurs and pros alike.
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Strengths: Compact Size; Can be used with AA batteries (2); xD picture card format; 3x Opt. zoom, 3.6x Dig. zoom; Quick power on/off
Weakness: Battery cover door design (see details in comments); low-capacity xD card provided; No cover/case provided
A compact 4.1MP digital camera for around $140? This is it! Stack up two decks of playing cards, and you have the dimensions of this affordable "pocket camera".
After spending a number of hours pouring through the well-written hardcopy instruction manual and performing hands-on trials with the camera, I am impressed with the number of features provided in the A345, and the quality of the images, both of which are comparable to more expensive models. The back-panel layout and menu-driven settings combine to provide easy navigation of functions and options that took me only minutes to explore and become familiar with. However, big fingers beware the small buttons. The A345 has a fixed lens mount, with no ability to use filters or macro/telephoto lens adapters, but these should not be required for its intended use as a feature-packed snap-shot camera.
My two main negative observations center on the low-capacity (16MB) xD card provided with camera, and the design of the battery cover door.
Same old story. The A345's default resolution setting is 4MP, which allows 15 images to be saved on the provided card, or only 7 images at the higher 4MP-F setting. Why Fuji, or any other manufacturer, doesn't yet provide at least 32MB cards or higher to increase the camera's usefulness right out of the box continues to baffle me.
The battery cover door on this camera reminds me of a similar design on my Olympus C-720UZ. The door provides contacts for the batteries and bears direct pressure on its catches, which are plastic (on the door and the camera body) which can fatigue and break, resulting in an uncloseable battery cover door, and hence nonfunctional camera (unless you are lucky and only door-catches are broken, in which case the door can be replaced.) However, exercising care in the handling of the door and the camera should prevent untimely damage to the catches. (This issue was fixed on my newer Olympus C-765UZ, which removed the pressure from the door by adding a battery-catch in the design.)
This camera will definitely travel with me to places I would not risk the loss of more expensive cameras, without any fear of losing image quality. I would definitely recommend this camera to anyone based on its size, performance and affordability.
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...why anyone would write so many words about a problem that is solved with a $25 256MB xd card and dropping the resolution down to a far more reasonable 1M or 2M is beyond me.
You really want to solve it, buy a 1G card for $100 or so. But don't go to the 640x480 /03M as you will just cry when you see your photos.
Strengths: Small Size
Cheap
Resolution
Light weight
Weakness: Picture Quality (but good for its price)
I have used this for a quite a few days. This is a real good one. This works beyond my expectations. I was thinking this one will be a bulky one. When I opened to the box I was surpriced to see that it was only 3/4ths of my Canon A80.
Coming on to its features I has all the features required in a basic Camera. I guess the memory Card provided is very low. They could have given one with atleast 32 MB. Anyway at this price I guess they wont be able to afford that.
One more inportant thing is that this one is User Friendly. I dont think there is a need to read the user manual and operate the camera.
Well If you are searching for a good 4MP camera at a very cheap price I would suggest you yo go for it.
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The Fuji Finepix A345 camera is one of the best cameras I have ever came across. It has high quality resolution and is an excellent price for a 4.1 pixel camera. I would recommend this camera to professionals, as well a anybody who wants to preserve enjoyable moments. The video quality is excellent and it also has sound to make the experience better. It requires an affordable xd card that is easy to transfer pictures to a printer or computer. I would highly recommend the Fuji Finepix A345 to anybody not only because the image is very clear but also it is compact for carrying around.
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...this guy has got to be joking. Else he has not "come across" many cameras :)
for one, it will do 320x280 x16fps video, max.
maybe if he had written this review in, say, 2000, I could believe it. But it's the bottom of the line camera from *Fuji*. I would not recommend this camera to anyone who wants to take good photos, much less to a "professional".
Weakness: included memory is too small, and xd is expensive compared with other memory cards
I used it for several days, the picture quality is good. It can take very few pictures with the included xd card. I have to buy a little big one although the xd is expensive. I wish it can use other type of memory stick. Anyway, it is enough for my purpose.
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Overall the Fuji Finepix A345 Digital camera is an excellent camera. A Compact, lightweight design makes this camera easy to take anywhere. Very easy to understand manual even for first time camera users. The Software provided makes it easy to organize and add special effects to images. Be sure to purchase rechargeable batteries as this camera eats alkaline batteries. The only weakness I have found is (like most Digital Cameras in this price range) the small memory card that is included. A 16MB xD picture card holds only about 7 pictures unless you want to lower the quality. Plan on purchasing a larger card
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Strengths: compact design; light-weight body; easy to operate; xD memory though not so common, help battary last longer;
Weakness: Some photos came out a little dim, suspect the auto-focus doesn't function perfectly; Shot speed is a little slower than I expected.
I basically recommend to buy this cute little digital camera, especially for the beginner and the amateur. It's easy to get a handle on it and convenient to carry around for your daily life or journey. Comparing with another digi-camera I have used, canon A85, although the picture quality is not so great, it's good enough and lives up to this nice price.
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Strengths: enough detail for photo-quality 12 x 15-inch prints, 3x optical zoom, small size
Weakness: Uses xD cards, sometimes hard to see LCD, picture quality
This is a pretty good camera for its price. The greatest plus is probably its size and ease of use. However, I find that sometimes the pictures may turn out blurry and you have to take multiple pics. I also found that the LCD is hard to see sometimes without adequate light and have to be angled at just the right position to be effectively seen. The good thing about this camera is that there are a lot of features that are very easy to learn. The prints I got from the pictures from this camera are pretty good.
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The A345's default resolution setting is 4MP, which allows 15 images to be saved on the provided card, or only 7 images at the higher 4MP-F setting. Why Fuji, or any other manufacturer, doesn't yet provide at least 32MB cards or higher to increase the camera's usefulness
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The camera is a good beginner camera. There are many features available, including video camera recording. I am very pleased so far with the camera. I have purchase a Kodak and Cannon digital camera so far for personal or gift use and the is my first Fuji, so far so good. The camera is also very small, lightweight, and only needs rechargeable batteries.
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Strengths: Compact size. Well positioned controls. Price.
Weakness: Haven't found any yet.
This is my first purchase of a digital camera. So far I'm very happy with all aspects of the camera. Camera is small size and light weight yet feels very sturdy and well made. Picture and video quality seem very good. Have not had time to use all it's features yet. I compared this to several cameras at local stores before buying on-line. Couldn't find a camera with comparable features for the same money. This should be an excellent choice for basic photography.
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Strengths: I love its size and the pictures it takes, I just bought it so I haven't been able to try all its features
Weakness: So far I haven't found any
The camera is a great size - very convenient to put in pocket or purse. I tried it the minute it arrived and was pleasantly surprised. The book was very easy to read and I have already emailed pictures to my family. This camera is a nice start to digital cameras and the price is great.
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Strengths: Good size, easy navigation,compact, affordable.
Weakness: medium sized LCD screen
This is a reliable little camera. i'm in school and it is very discreet when trying to hide it from teachers and what not. i regurally go on a ski trip and this is the first time i took it with me. it suprised me at how good it could capture detail. every picture was truly picture perfect!
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Strengths: Lightwieght, perfect size. Great deal for the price paid.
Weakness: None so far
This is my first digital camera. My sister knows more about digitals and says I got a bargain. I am very pleased. Purchased at NormanCamera.com. I highly recommend them.Thumbs up!:-)jane
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Strengths: Love the compact size,picture quality is very good,easy to use features, although I haven't used all of them yet.Instruction manual easy to understand.
Weakness: No carrying case,had to buy larger memory card and rechargable batteries.
I'm very pleased with this camera,would recommend it to anyone .This is my first digital camera and I used it the first day taking pictures of my granddaughter with Santa at the local mall.I e-mailed the pictures to relatives and friends and all were impressed with the quality of the shots.
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Strengths: Sturdy - Have knocked it around quite a few times. Still works great!
Great Picture Quality
Decent Zoom!
Very affordably priced
Weakness: The 16Mb card is too small - You HAVE to buy extra memory (XD memory) which is more expensive than the SD Type of memory cards
I was looking for a low budget - decent MP - Reliable camera that delivers good quality digital pics and this camera proved admirable in all respects!
A great buy and highly recommended for capturing travel pics, party pics and general purpose "kodak moments". Not for the professional / people looking for "arty" pics.
Strengths: It has an excelent color quality. I campared pictures from my Canon 520 with Fujifine pix 345 and Fujifine pix was the winer. excelent color. I love this camera.
Weakness: Slow shutter response.
It is a very good camea. If used as described in oparating manual I am sure it takes stunning photos. I sold my canon 520 because of that. dont go for name try and campare for yourself.
Strengths: good picture quality, cheap, compact and sleek design
Weakness: indoor photos are not that great
This is a good camera for outdoor use. The indoor photo quality is not that great. It's 4MP. Outdoor snaps has good color quality. It's really small and sleek that I can easily fit in my pocket.
Strengths: compact and sleek design, good picture quality, cheap
Weakness: picture taken indoors are ok
The indoor picture quality is not that great. It's 4MP. Outdoor snaps has good color quality. It's really small and sleek that I can easily fit in my pocket. This is a good camera for outdoor use.
Strengths: cheap, compact and sleek design, good picture quality
Weakness: photos taken indoor are not that great
This is a good camera for outdoor use. The indoor photo quality is not that great. It's 4MP. Outdoor snaps has good color quality. It's really small and sleek that I can easily fit in my pocket.
Strengths: great value. AA batteries Small Size Lightweight
Weakness: xD card is more $$
For $100ish, it is great value . 4MP good quality images . Excellent point & shoot for a starter or intermediate photographer. xd card is more expensive than other cards , but the camera is low priced.
Strengths: Compact,light,easy menu, fast processing of each shot, good optics, xd picture card, sound video recording, av out, usb, dc adapter,good battery life, nice lcd
Weakness: none to speak of... it's a well designed 4 mega pixels pocket camera.
Bought this as a replacement camera for my teenage daughter. She never goes anywhere without it. My wife and I get to see pictures instead of just hearing about dances,games, etc. Picture quality is good and xd picture cards are great.
Testseek.com has collected 7 expert reviews for Fujifilm FinePix A345 and the average expert rating is 47 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Testseek.com to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions.
Fuji Finepix A345 receives an overall TopTenREVIEWS score of 2.32 out of 4.00. It is ranked the #410 Compact digital camera of all time. The overall rating represents an intelligent balance of features, value as a function of price to features, and a summary of reviews from a variety of sources. The TopTen REVIEWS' formula gives a picture of important consumer features, market value, and a...
Fujifilm's FinePix digital cameras have always been associated with good image quality and color, with solid performance even at the lower-end of the line. With a 4.1-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom lens, the Fuji A345 continues that tradition in an attractive new design, although we didn't feel that its color rendition was up to the level we've come to expect from Fujifilm cameras. Like other...
Fuji A345 - Subtle Improvements from A340
Strengths: Right size, Easy Controls, Improved LCD, Battery life, Great value for 4mp
Weakness: Useless 16mb XD Card, Night shots
I have the last generation A340 and purchased this A345 for my parents. Most of my review will be based upon this comparison. This camera is nicely sized in that it's not too big and not too small. You can easily fit this into a shirt pocket and also not worry about losing it as compared to many micro digicams out on the market.
I'm impressed with the simplicity of the A345. The "power" button is much better than the retractable lens cover (A340) to power up the camera. The mode switch (playback, record, and shoot) that's located in the top of the LCD screen is so much easier to navigate than going into the menu system.
Just like the A340, the A345 has great battery life and you can shoot at least 150-175 shots with flash with rechargables. It also takes 2 AA batteries which is economical and practical in itself.
There is also a continuous shot mode which I haven't really used because the flash is always off in this mode.
Another feature I rarely use is the record feature, but there is sound which is cool.
Now to the weaknesses: why does Fuji ship its cameras (and I beleive for all models) these worthless 16 mb xd memory cards??? With 4mp at fine mode, you cant's even take 10 pics. There must be a glut of these 16 mb cards that fuji produced and can't get rid of. You need at least a 128mb or more capacity. 128mb card will give you 128 shots in 4mp Normal mode and 66 shots in 4mp Fine mode.
The performance for night shooting is still average to poor. The night scene mode helps but pictures can come out blurry. I guess you can't expect too much from this budget model.
Overall, this is a great camera for the money (paid $134). It's a simple point and shoot camera. This is also my parent's first digital camera and the proud grandparents were able to operate it with no problems.
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Jan 16, 2006
how do you use a continuous shoot mode??? i have not found this although I have found the timer which had come in handy.