Fujifilm FinePix E900 Digital Camera (9.0MP, 3488x2616, 4x Opt, 16MB xD-Picture Card)

Reviewed by: ashok

Duration of ownership: 2 Weeks

Strengths: What I liked: 1. Bigger super CCD, comparatively more light sensitive than normal CCD 2. Wide angle lens starting from 32mm 3. Very fast prefocus shutter lag of 0.01 4. Live histogram display and button for changing exposure compensation without going to menu 5. Auto exposure bracketing 6. Support RAW mode, but need third party software like adobe photoshop or s7raw to process image 7. Very good ISO performance for compact camera, although not as good as F30/F31fd model 8. Weight less, two AA Battery, and pocketable 9. Battery and Charger included 10. Program shift capability in program auto mode when flash is not in use 11. Optical viewfinder 12. Good picture if you do post processing 13. Excellent Resolution

Weaknesses: What I missed: 1. An AF assist lamp present in S-series/F-series camera 2. Good Manual focusing through magnification at the LCD 3. AE/AF locking option (button) for later use. Button for switching between AF and MF. 4. Custom and preset shooting modes. 5. Stitch assist mode and software to stitch photos 6. Good software for editing and handling RAW files 7. Swivel LCD 8. Face detection AF technology 9. Optical image stabilizer 10. Stronger and Intelligent flash There are some free softwares that can manipulate Fujifilm Raw (.RAF) files, such as, GIMP (GIMPShop) with DCRAW or UFRAW plugins, Picasa, StudioLine basic, s7raw, etc. Gimp, s7raw and Picasa work both with Windows and Linux. Autostitch, a free software, can be used to make panorama.

Overall Evaluation: Fujifilm E900 is a very capable camera and produce very good results. You'll very much satisfied with it feature sets and large print results even in high ISO. Excellent value for money. Also E900 has following limitations that should be corrected in their future model: 1. Highlight blow out problem, although the camera gives warning in playback mode. But no correction in camera. Note that highlight problem is correctable if you shoot RAW and process later. You may also use negative exposure compensation. 2. Long file writing time, sometimes annoying 3. Limited maximum lens aperture of F2.8-F5.6, telephoto should start from F4.0 for low lighting IMO. 4. Limited micro capability 5. Image compression (jpeg) is not good. Limited option. Should have super fine mode. 6. Small optical viewfinder coverage 7. Outdoor photos are slightly dull looking and dark straight out of the camera. Should use increased saturation and contrast for outdoor shoot. Bottom line: Fuji should hear what people wants in the camera and build their product such way. I think they can sell double number of their camera if they use high speed SD memory instead of slow and costlier xD memory.