Fuji Finepix Z37 Sweet Candy Digital Camera Bundle - 10MP 3x Optical Zoom 2.5" LCD with matching case and 2GB SD Card

I know [from using my first digital camera and recently borrowing Dad's] that heavy/bulky designs make for shaky hands, which in turn means blurry pictures. Add a protruding lens to the weight and bulk, and taking simple snaps can be bloody hard - especially in tourist hotspots whilst on holiday or in a club etc, where crowds are jostling you.

With that in mind I slimmed my Amazon results down even more, to make sure that my final purchase was slim, compact and preferably had a lens which, erm - what's the wording? - doesn't poke out . After a month or so of using the Z37 I can confirm that this was by far been the easiest camera to simply point and shoot - even in crowds.

Bonus; the sliding lens cover slides across the camera to act as the on/off switch, so if you see something or someone doing something worthy of a photo [maybe for blackmail?] you can whip out the camera, turn on the camera and snap a couple of photos [or take a video] in a matter of seconds.

Dimensions: 3.5" (W) x 2.2" (H) x 0.8" (D)
Weight; 115g
2.7" LCD screen

This is so easy to use:

Slide in the lithium ion battery in the base opening, charge the camera [it takes about fifty minutes to charge], insert the memory card* [it slides in the base opening, alongside the battery] and then enter the date and time [It asks as soon as you turn it on].

That's it, you are ready to go in under an hour - straight out of the box.

*The Fuji memory card that was included with my camera holds 751 photos.
[For comparison: I've used a Kingston 2 GB memory card in the past and it can hold over 1000 photos]

So far my main two usages for my camera have been accompanying my sister round various shops for snapping her in various prom dresses [people look at you as a real weirdo if you do this], and a day out at Chester Zoo.

I've taken photos indoors and outdoors, using different levels of zoom, with flash, without flash and the results have been fantastic every-time; the colours have all been true to life - direct sunlight nor strong lighting have bleached the resulting photos in any way. I'm not sure would someone more experienced would think of the image quality, but I honestly can't fault it. I'd thought my old 9.2 million pixel camera was great, but now I can compare photos side by side I can instantly see the improvement made by those extra .8 pixels.

I use auto mode most of the time myself and have only played about with all of the other various options and in all honesty, I think that most people will be fine on auto, as it works in every situation for me.

The other shooting mode that I use quite a bit is the scene recognition auto; this basically means that the camera automatically adjusts itself to fit the different scene settings [portrait, backlit portrait, night portrait, landscape, night and macro (close-ups)] to ensure the best focus is used on the photos.

The Z37 offers a total of eleven selectable scene modes which you can select to suit the conditions you are taking your photos in:
Portrait - for photos enhancing natural skintones.
Landscape - for daylight photos of landscapes, buildings etc.
Sport - for taking photos of moving objects.
Night - reduces blurring in poorly lit scenes.
Night (tripod) - uses slower shutter speeds [advises tripod to reduce shaking].
Sunset - enhances the colours in sun rises/sets.
Snow - captures the brightness of the snow in a primarily white setting.
Beach - capture the vividness of a bright, sunny scene, minus the colour bleaching.
Party - a great mode for low lighting indoors.
Flower - for vivid close-up photos of plants etc.
Text - for taking photos of text or print drawings.

For a basic point-and-shoot camera there are plenty of easy-to-use features; blog mode (re-sizes photos in-camera for posting photos online), face detection technology with auto red-eye removal, and picture stabilisation for blur-free photos.

I've taken a few short videos too and have been quite impressed. The image is slightly fuzzy and distorts when I used the zoom, but the audio is largely clear [though quiet]. The the resulting AVI file can be played on Windows Media Player, QuickTime and RealPlayer, after being uploaded from the camera.

I view the video camera as an extra, so will rarely [if I again witness someone something funny, embarrassing] use it, so the less then perfect playback isn't a issue for me.

Video Output; NTSC / PAL selectable.
Voice memo; Up to 30 seconds. WAV format.

There were two discs included with the camera; one disc contains the user manual in Adobe format and the second disc contains the Fuji Finepix Viewer software.

So far I've only needed to view the owners manual twice, as everything really is simple to use. I do think I'd flick through it again if it was in booklet form, but as I haven't encountered any problems this isn't really a big deal.

The only complaint about this product I have is with the Finepix Viewer software, not with the actual camera. When you attach the camera to your laptop/PC it is meant to automatically open the software, upload your photos, then edit them.

Put simply it does not work; The software does automatically open - along with a pop-up message informing me that the process has been aborted. When I try to edit previously uploaded photos using the software I again receive the same pop-up message.

But to be honest the software looks fairly basic, with commonly found options such as cropping, rotating, altering the colour, adding text and facial retouching, so I simply lost interest in trying to sort it out. I rarely bother altering the photos I take beyond cropping anyway and Windows Photo Gallery does that. Software that I already have [Kodak EasyShare] does everything else that I may need, so I just pull the photos out of the hard drive.

For the price of this product, I would highly recommend. The picture quality is really good and would be an ideal camera for a girly girl. I'm really pleased with it xx

I bought this camera for my daughter who is 9 as a birthday present. It is a lovely camera which is very easy to use and she has taken some really good pictures on it.