Even at first glance there's little room for doubt as to exactly what sort of camera the Z30 is. The slim, rounded plastic body, the simplified controls and the fact that it's available in a range of colours including pink, purple, orange, white and black, are a sure-fire indicator that this is a camera for people more concerned with style than with substance. Its relatively low price makes it a good choice if you're looking for a present for a fashion-conscious teenager, and its extremely simple controls mean that even those with the shortest attention spans should be able to work out fairly quickly how to take pictures with it.
The Z30 is very compact and lightweight, tipping the scales at approximately 131g including battery and measuring just 90.5 x 59.0 x 25.7mm. Despite the rather toy-like plastic body the build quality is up to Fujifilm's usual high standard and the camera feels solid and well made. The shiny finish resists dirt and scratches, and the curved shape is inherently strong, although it does make the camera rather slippery and hard to grip securely. There's no denying that it's a nice looking camera, although the white finish and the rubber-covered buttons on the back do remind me of a Sinclair ZX80, and not in a good way. (If you don't know what a ZX80 is, ask your grandparents.)
The Z30 is a very simple point-and-shoot ultra-compact, and as such is doesn't have a lot of features or options. It has only automatic operation, with a choice of basic or standard auto modes, plus 16 fairly mundane scene modes and an automatic scene recognition mode, which is the best default setting for ease of use. Menu options are limited to the basics, including image size/quality, ISO setting, white balance and exposure compensation, but precious little else. The only colour options are between standard or high saturation mode, and there are only two focus mode options. What it does have however is a "Blog" mode and an online auction mode. This is a camera for the Internet generation.
The external controls consist of a double row of rubber-covered buttons to the right of the monitor. Presumably the rubber coating is intended to help resist dust and splashes, but the Z30 is not waterproof like its sibling the Z33. In practice the controls are extremely fiddly, particularly the zoom control, which is very small and hard to press accurately. The zoom action itself is very slow, but at least it has nine steps between wide and telephoto, so accurate framing is possible.
I'm not a big fan of sliding-cover cameras, but in fact the design of the Z30 does work fairly well. The curved shape means that the cover is less likely to come open in your pocket, and the lens is positioned far enough away from the corner that you don't end up accidentally getting your finger in the way when holding it two-handed.
The Z30 features a dedicated button to immediately start recording video, although it is limited to 640 x 480 resolution at 30fps with mono audio and no optical zoom. The video quality is reasonably good, but the sound quality is pretty dreadful thanks to the small and very tinny microphone.
The only other features of note are a couple of unusual self-timer modes, a couple-timer and a group-timer. These use the face detection system to count the number of faces in the frame, and then start the timer countdown when everyone's in position. It's a simple feature but one that could come in useful for exactly the type of social snapshot photography for which the Z30 is designed.
When it comes to overall performance the Z30 is going to need to practice a bit more if it wants to make it to the 2012 Olympics. It starts up quickly enough, in approximately two seconds, and shuts down again almost instantly as soon as the cover is closed. In single-shot mode its shot-to-shot cycle time is a little over three seconds, which is a bit on the slow side, and it’s no faster in continuous shooting mode.
The autofocus system is a bit slow, and I did find that it wasn’t always entirely accurate, beeping to confirm focus on several shots which later turned out to be blurred. It copes fairly well in low light despite the lack of an AF assist lamp.
I suppose that the sort of consumer who’s going to choose a Z30 probably doesn’t care too deeply about image quality, but even so I found that the Z30 has a number of significant problems. I’ve already mentioned the unreliable autofocus, but other issues include very poor automatic white balance, which tends to put a distinct cyan cast over daylight shots, and very mediocre lens performance. Wide-angle images don’t show any barrel distortion or chromatic aberration, although this is due mainly to image processing rather than optical quality. The corner sharpness is very poor, and centre sharpness isn’t far behind it.
Dynamic range is very limited, and in high-contrast situations the camera tends to expose for the highlights, resulting in very dark featureless shadows. Colour rendition in standard mode is over-saturated, especially red tones which come out far too bright, and the high-saturation “Chrome” mode looks positively psychedelic. Image noise is also a problem, with significant noise at 200 ISO, getting progressively worse up to the maximum 1600 ISO.
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