My first Digital Camera couldn't be any better.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Fantastic picture quality, easy to use once you learn the controls

Cons: Sucks battery power...Ni-MH rechargables are essential. Storage expensive unless you use IBM Microdrive.

The Bottom Line: 
I absolutely love this camera. Could you have ever taken a film camera on a trip and fit 300 pictures on a single roll?

Author's Review
I know there are people out there who don't like this camera, but I think they have extremely high expectations. This camera is incredibly versatile. I've been able to take pictures in just about any situation, and they come out well. I don't know how much detail I can go into about this camera because there are SO MANY features! If you buy this camera, make sure you read the instruction manual and also make sure you visit www.dpreview.com. That site will teach you everything you need to know about digital photography. I learned everything from that site and I'm grateful.

This camera is a 3.1 megapixel SuperCCD professional-consumer digital camera. The pictures that it outputs have a max pixel count of 6 megapixels due to some creative and innovative thinking on the part of Fuji engineers. The CCD (light sensor, for non-techies) uses algorithms and interpolation to get a max resolution of 6 megapixel. The photos that come out of this camera will amaze you with sharp, colorful, beautiful pictures.

This camera has 6 picture settings plus a movie setting. Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program Mode, Automatic (point and shoot) and SP (programmed modes for different situations, such as outdoors, sports, indoors, etc.) The movie setting allows you to take 30 frame per second AVI movies that can be as long as your storage media can hold.

I use a 340 MB IBM Microdrive which can hold about 15 minutes of high quality video or over 1000 640x480 resolution pictures. The ability for storage is amazing. This is the first camera released with two media slots, one corresponding to each of the two most common types of media: CompactFlash and SmartMedia. The Microdrive fits into the CF slot. Your camera will arrive with a 16MB SmartMedia card, but run out to an electronics store to get more media, you'll need it!

The zoom is fast as is the auto-focus. The level of zoom gets higher as your picture resolution gets lower but its a nice tradeoff.

The EVF (electronic view finder) or eyepiece of the camera boasts probably the best LCD EVF I've ever seen. The detail is amazing for such a small screen.

The display screen on the rear of the camera is equally impressive. The color is bright and there isn't much lag between what you are seeing in real life and what you see on the screen. The only downfall is that the display screen is difficult to see in direct sunlight.

Battery life is very good but it is also a major complaint that I have about this camera. There is not a power level monitor so you have no idea when your batteries are about to die. You will see a blinking red crossed-out battery symbol and 3 seconds later the camera will shut off. This is by far my biggest complaint. Just make sure you carry at least two sets of rechargable Nickel-Metal-Hydride batteries with you. You'll be able to take hundreds of pictures on each set of 4 batteries. Also, sadly, Fuji doesn't send you rechargable batteries, just simple Alkalines. I got a set of 8 rechargables at the local Radio Shack for a good price.

This is by no means the end of my review but I need to stop. I will periodically update this review to give the more experienced photographers details of the camera and its functions.