Our first sample image was taken on a very bright day with the F50fd zoomed-out to wide angle and set to its lowest 100 ISO sensitivity. As such this represents perfect conditions. The crops contain lots of detail, and there’s virtually no fringing despite the high contrast areas of the yacht. Look closely though and there is very slight evidence of texturing from noise – nothing to be concerned about here, but it’s already clear the F50fd doesn’t share the high ISO leadership of its predecessors.

Landscape: 4.69MB, M Mode, 1/480, f5, ISO 100, 8-24mm at 8mm (equivalent to 35mm)

						Another shot taken at wide angle on a sunny day with the F50fd set to 100 ISO. Once again a similar result to that above, with detailed crops, minimal evidence of fringing and only very slight texturing through noise. We let the F50fd work out the aperture here, although it’s also possible to manually set it for a larger (or smaller) depth of field if desired.

Landscape: 4.41MB, M Mode, 1/4, f5, ISO 100, 8-24mm at 8mm (equivalent to 35mm)

Set to auto exposure, the F50fd selected a shutter of 1/4 of a second, which as we found in other tests was beyond the IS system. So here we balanced the camera against a fence to take the shot. Interestingly despite the dim conditions, the F50fd selected a relatively small aperture.

The crops again show plenty of detail although a little softening in the extreme corners, and a sprinkling of noise in shadow areas.

The crops still show lots of detail, but noise levels have increased at 200 ISO. Images taken at 200 ISO are perfectly usable though.

As you’d expect there’s another slight increase in noise, but you’d have to be pixel-peeping to really be bothered. Again the F50fd remains usable at 400 ISO.

Another shot at 400 ISO, this time taken in dimmer indoor lighting conditions.

As with the sample above, there’s certainly noise visible, especially in shadow areas, but it remains acceptable for most situations.

The big drop on the F50fd occurs at 800 ISO as seen below…

The F50fd prides itself on decent indoor people photography and this shot illustrates its strategies in fully automatic.

The camera’s face detection easily identified the subject and suitably adjusted both the focus and flash; the red eye reduction has also proved effective.

In Auto, the ISO has been increased to capture background detail, although at 800 ISO there’s a significant drop in quality.

If you prefer the best quality, albeit with a darker background, you can fix the ISO or limit the maximum in Auto.

To be fair, this kind of result is no different to other compacts, which are also best used below 400 ISO, but as the successor the high ISO-leading F30 / F31fd, we’d hoped for better.

We should also note this shot at 1/15 was at the limit of the IS system and several duplicate shots suffered from camera shake.

Some high ISO images can look a little washed-out, but the F50fd performs ok in this regard, meaning these are images which could still look fine when emailed – or printed very small.

All in all, the F50fd performs similarly to other premium compacts at high ISOs, but sadly given its heritage, it isn’t any better in this respect.