Fujifilm FinePix T200 review

A big zoom in a compact-shaped camera is a great idea, letting you travel light and still be able to capture distant subjects with plenty of detail. These cameras tend to be pricier and bulkier than normal compact cameras, but the T200 is neither. At £130, 151g and 28mm deep, it’s barely distinguishable from many budget compacts with modest 5x zooms.

Admittedly, its 10x optical zoom is a little way off the likes of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 with its 16x range, but the T200’s ability to zoom in to capture more detail is much closer to the TZ20 than to a conventional compact with a 5x zoom.

We’re happy to see that optical stabilisation is included, as telephoto shots are particularly susceptible to shake. Otherwise, this is a typical budget camera. The screen is run-of-the-mill at 2.7in and 230,000 pixels, and the amount of photographic control on offer is basic. There’s the usual ISO speed and white balance preset options but there’s no control over the metering or access to shutter speed and aperture settings. The lack of a custom white balance option meant that we couldn’t achieve balanced colours in our studio test shots, but in practice it’s unlikely that many potential users would miss this feature.

The scene presets are likely to prove more popular, not least because some are easily accessible on a mode dial on the back of the camera. We particularly like the Natural and Flash mode, which captures two shots in quick succession, first without and then with the flash, leaving the user to choose the best one later. This dial could do with being stiffer, though – it’s easily nudged to a different position by accident.

Compact cameras with 14-megapixel sensors have a poor track record in our reviews, with the excessively high resolution enhancing noise levels more than details. This was certainly the case with the T200, and low-light shots were extremely scruffy-looking when viewed up close. Indoor shots without the flash were only really suitable for use as small web images.

Low-light shots indoors were scruffy looking – click to zoom image

We also found that, even in well-lit scenes, subtler tones were under-saturated. This resulted in an almost monochrome appearance to parts of the image in some shots. We suspect that this may be another symptom of the sensor’s noisy output and the noise reduction that’s employed to counteract it. Either way, it meant that a fair proportion of shots looked drab.

Some images lacked colour, appearing almost monochrome – click to zoom image

It wasn’t all bad news, though. The lens achieved sharp focus, which is a great achievement considering the generous zoom range and slim camera body. The live view image exhibited heavy barrel distortion at wide-angle settings but fortunately this was corrected digitally in the saved images.

This correction wasn’t applied to the 720p videos, though. Focus and optical zoom were fixed for the duration of clips and indoor picture quality was pretty noisy, but despite all these issues, most video clips looked and sounded excellent. Our concerns over image quality mean we can’t wholeheartedly recommend the T200, but at this low price it’s unfair to be overly critical. If you’re after a big zoom in a small body, it’s a good-value choice.