Fuji FinePix XP150 review

The Fuji FinePix XP150 takes good quality images whether in Normal or Fine JPEG quality mode. Chromatic aberration, fringing and noise are low. There can be noise in places, particularly in areas of shadow. There's nothing particularly noticeable at a low sensitivity with an ISO of 200, but it's worse at higher sensitivities such as ISP 1600, which is to be expected.

The colour range sometimes struggled to cover much tonal detail in areas when examining tonal gradient. They have a slight painted effect in places, but this is a camera predominantly meant for capturing action. It also struggles to convey metallic colours, but this isn't unusual for a compact.

The exposure and white balance are among the few parameters the camera enables you to experiment with in Program mode. Generally the automatic white balance performs well. When applying programmed white balance settings, such as cloudy and fluorescent lighting, the Fuji XP150 copes well.

Scene recognition is perhaps the Fuji FinePix XP150's most distinguishing feature, since it's very easy to use. By pressing the shutter release half way, the lens detects both the distance of the subject and the content within the frame, switching smoothly between macro and face recognition portrait modes. The aperture, shutter, white balance and ISO are all automatically set, depending on what scene the camera detects.

Our underwater shots are mostly clear and detailed, although dark in places. The sports mode captures subjects very well, with barely any subject movement noticeable, ideal for taking a shot of someone snowboarding or skiing thanks to the lens's efficient AF.

The Motion Panorama 360 mode gives you a certain amount of time, indicated by a scroll bar, to sweep the camera around 120 degrees, 180 degrees or 360 degrees. You get approximately five seconds to make the full sweep at 120 degrees, eight seconds at 180 degrees and 11 seconds at 360 degrees.

Although the time duration has been decreased from the previous model, to make for a hastier sweep, it is perhaps now too hasty in its given capture time. It's quite difficult to keep the arrow on the yellow guideline while sweeping fast enough to capture a full 360 degree shot, although if managed it can produce a good photo.

The HD video is simple to use, accessible via a record button on the camera face. Recordings are of a high quality, but it struggled with keeping focus once the zoom was applied during recording.