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User Score

Review Price £64.98

The rear controls of the Z70 are all mounted in a panel on the right hand side. They are obviously designed as much for their appearance as their function, but I've seen a lot worse. Because they're all in a single panel they're difficult to locate by touch, but they do light up which makes them a bit easier to find in the dark. They have a decent travel and operate with a nice positive click, and are clearly labelled. The rocker switch for the zoom control is a bit fiddly, but at least there is a textured thumbgrip area just below it. On the top panel of the camera is a dedicated button to instantly start video recording, so you're not going to miss any embarrassing skateboarding accidents.

The camera's other external features are unfortunately less useful. The monitor is not terribly bright, has a reflective surface and a fairly poor viewing angle, making it difficult to see in bright sunlight and impossible to see when raised above head height. It also has a slow refresh rate and a slight delay. The built-in flash too is a bit on the weak side, barely meeting its claimed 3.1m range at wide angle, and leaving the corners of the frame noticeably dimmer than the middle.

The Z70 has only a basic range of features, but does offer HD video recording at 1280 x 720 resolution and 30 frames a second with mono audio. The video and audio quality are actually quite good, and surprisingly it does include full optical zoom while recording, although the zoom motor can be heard on the soundtrack, and the autofocus does take a couple of seconds to re-adjust after zooming.

Other features include face detection and tracking autofocus, although neither are particularly effective. Shooting modes include Program auto, Fuji's usual natural Light and Natural Light with Flash modes, 12 scene programs and a Scene Recognition Auto mode. It also has a Successive Movie mode, which allows you to join a series of clips into a single movie. There are also some limited movie editing functions in playback mode.

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