Tech Gadgets

To the ordinary consumers, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation is best known for its photographic and imaging products like Fuji digital cameras.  This Tokyo-based company, however, is much more than that. Fujifilm has also distinguished itself in office equipment products, flat panel display, medical systems, and life sciences.  The company counts on 223 subsidiaries and over 70,000 employees worldwide for the manufacture, distribution and product research.

In 2007, Fujifilm emerged no. 17 in the listing of companies with the most patents registered in the USA, an indication of the company’s vast technological armory in optics, digital imaging, thin film coating and fine chemical applications.  With almost $25 billion in global revenues, Fujifilm has consistently ranked among the world’s largest companies, occupying the 142nd slot on Fortune Magazine Top 400 and holding the 217th place on BusinessWeek’s Global 1000 list.

Formerly operating as Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., the company was the prime-mover of the development of Japan’s first electronic computer, called FUJIC, which saw completion in 1956.  In more contemporary times, Fujinon lenses helped shape moviemaking history with  a Fujifilm company supplying high-definition lenses in the filming of Darth Vader scenes shot in total darkness for the George Lucas’  Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.  A high-definition Fujinon Cine lens was developed for these particular scenes which are difficult to film with regular movie camera equipment.  What the Fujinon HD Cine lens delivered were images expressing texture and reproducing subtle black hues.   The high performance of these lenses enabled the Fujifilm company Fujinon to win an Emmy Award for Technology and Engineering.

The same outstanding technology is at work in Fuji digital cameras, particularly in the Fuji Finepix models which have set the trend in compact models excelling in low-light shooting conditions. Among the advanced technologies that go into these Fuji compacts is the Super CCD EXR sensor, which is one of the selling points of the Finepix F200 EXR.  The sensors of these Fuji digital cameras bring in a versatile feature that helps the photographer adapt to three different shooting environments.

There is a fine capture mode, wherein these Fuji Finepix cameras employ 12-megapixel resolution of the EXR pixel array to capture images in bright colours up to the smallest detail.  For high-contrast shooting situations, a photographer can switch to the dual capture mode wherein the Fuji compact reads two images and merges them into a single image of up to 800% in wide dynamic range to produce pictures that reveal subtleties and shadow, and eliminate washout in the brightest areas.  In low-lighting situations, the Super CCD EXR is ready to take charge with its pixel-fusion mode, high-sensitivity features and pixel-binning capability wherein two pixels are combined into one super-pixel.

There are two different modes by which to access these Super CCD EXR modes.  One is the priority mode which allows the photographer to manually set any of the EXR modes suitable to the shooting condition.  The other is the auto mode wherein the Fuji digital cameras automatically set the best EXR mode for the shooting situation to deliver the perfect image.