Fujifilm Finepix E900
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Review: I was l
ooking for a new one because my daughter dropped and broke mine, and I was very pleased to find one on Amazon. Unfortunetely it costs just as much to fix one as it does to buy a new one. I originally bought this camera when it first came out. It takes beautiful SLR quality photos and is so simple to use. And for a 9 MP camera, you cannot beat the price or quality.
This will be my 4th Fuji camera. The only complaint I have is with Fuji cameras in general. While the quality of the photos their cameras produce are superb and the prices are great, they seem to all have some sort of glitch. As another customer reviewed, his camera produced white lines in the photos. This has happened with 3 out of the 4 cameras I have purchased. I dont know anything about the insides of the camera so I do not know what causes this. Something inside just seems to go bad after awhile. But I keep buying them because of ease of use, picture quality, and price.
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Review: In the late 1960’s and early 70’s, I purchased a nice 35mm SLR and a lot of accessories while in the Navy. Once I got back to the State’s and re-entered college, I could not afford to take and develop all the pictures anymore, so I sold all my equipment. Recently I have wanted to get back into photography and was intrigued by the point and shoot digital market. The cost of developing prints limited me in my desire to take lots of pictures of a given subject. Plus, I want to do more than just snap photos a family get-togethers. Digital cameras solve these problems and have finally grown up from their ‘toy-like’ beginnings. Consumer Reports rated this camera as a “Best Buy” for an Advanced Compact. All I can say about this camera is “Wow!”
In addition to the “Auto” point and shoot, the Fujifilm Finepix E900 has modes for natural light, portraits, sports, after dark, plus a ‘Photo’ mode that lets you change focusing method, photometric method, white balance, flash intensity. It also has functions to allow up to 40 shots in burst mode and auto-bracketing of shots by changing the exposure value (EV) of your shots. You can also work with the shutter speed, apperture setting or just do everything manually. It also does movies up to 30 minutes long on a 1 GByte xD photo card. That is what makes this advanced point and shoot great. I can experiment with a subject and take a hundred shots just to see how the camera responds and then keep all, some, or none of pictures and I have not spent a cent for photo-finishing.
In about 3 weeks, I have taken over 1,100 shots while trying to learn the basics of operation. It is a very easy camera to use. It is forgiving in the Auto mode and most of the other modes also. If you want a camera that does more than point and shoot, then the E900 is a good camera to consider. Sucking the pictures off the camera and into the ‘My Pictures’ folder your PC is as simple as plugging the camera into a USB port and clicking OK. The software included with the camera does basic editing.
A word of warning, however, buy a large xD memory card when you buy the camera. The camera shipps with a 16 Mb xD-Picture Card that holds about three 9-megapixal pictures! A 1.0 GB xD holds about 200 shots, while a 2.0 GByte xD will hold about 400 shots. You can, of course, crank the quality down to as little as 2-megapixals. Also buy rechargable ‘AA’ batteries. The E900 will accept regular ‘AA’ batteries, but the life of two standard alkaline batteries was about 20 shots compared to about 160 with the rechargable ones.
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Description: Advances in digital photography have impacted every level of user, from first time digital owners, to families with multiple photographers, to consumers who are simply interested in expanding their photography skills. Answering the growing needs of every level of user, Fujifilm offers the FinePix E900 digital camera. Packing a powerful nine MegaPixel 5th Generation Super CCD HR sensor the highest resolution available in a consumer digital camera the FinePix E900 joins Fujifilm’s already popular E-series line of cameras and continues the tradition of point-and-shoot ease and photographic essentials such as image quality, form factor and powerful feature sets including manual controls, found in all E-series models.
The E900 offers Fujifilm’s innovative Real Photo Technology, which provides many benefits for the user, including faster operation, low noise processing, better low light shooting, and higher shutter speeds that minimize blurriness in photos at even the highest ISO setting of 800 with full resolution. In addition, fully automatic features on the E900 provide point-and-shoot simplicity, while manual and customizable feature settings provide additional control, particularly when combined with the power of optional lenses.
In addition to a convenient, ergonomic travel-friendly design, the FinePix E900 offers a large 2-inch LCD screen, which makes it easy to take and share pictures. A mode dial provides easy access to advanced shooting modes and a 4x optical zoom, which can be enhanced with optional lens adapters, allows user to tailor each shot to their needs. Other versatile shooting functions include a live histogram display for exposure settings and a highlight warning function.
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Review: I went searching for a new digital camera to replace my Canon S30 I had purchased several years ago. My Canon was having some underexposure and shutter lag problems so I was looking for a new camera that would hopefully help with these issues. I was particularly interested in being able to take pictures that were not underexposed and took well in low lighting. I did some extensive research and found myself looking in my MacWorld magazine at digital camera reviews to help me narrow down my selection.
In the June 2006 issue, MacWorld reviewer Richard Baguley, posted a glowing review of the Fujifilm Finepix E900 9MP Digital Camera - giving it a whopping four mice rating (out of five possible), which is very good considering they seem to give very few digital cameras that high of a rating. One if the biggest sellers for me was reading the following stated by Mr. Baguley in the article, “This camera produces very attractive images, with vivid yet accurate colors and exposures in a variety of lighting situations; the camera coped with daylight and studio setups equally well. Images were quite sharp, as well. There was also little evidence of noise at lower ISO settings, although some noise appeared when I bumped the ISO to the maximum of 800.” Besides that, I was also sold on the camera’s Natural Light setting, which the Fuji website states is “for scenes where flash is undesirable or prohibited”. I found many reviews and pictures posted by people that had purchased & used the camera and found that this setting was just what I was looking for because of all my issues with underexposed images I was having with my Canon. I was also impressed by the 4X optical zoom and 9 megapixel setting. I liked as well that it used Ni-MH batteries and two regular double AA batteries could be used in place of the Ni-MH batteries if needed.
I couldn’t find very many bad reviews on the camera. The MacWorld reviewer did state a few minimal cons about the camera including a low-resolution LCD, pop-up flash that could be easily damaged, and a few others but I could live with these. I didn’t find many other negative reviews from users who purchased the camera and found most to be very positive.
On May 18th, 2006, I purchased the camera with the 4 year additional protection plan, as I have had problems with digital cameras in the past. I also purchased a 512MB memory card for the camera. I was very excited to receive the camera and couldn’t wait to begin using it. It arrived about a week later.
I quickly took the camera from the box and was very pleased by the look. I liked the black slick case and the camera felt fairly sturdy to me, which hopefully meant it would last a long time. I liked how quickly it turned on when pressing the on button. I immediately took a few pictures with the camera. It seemed to work very well and I was pleased. I found that keeping the camera on a 9MP picture setting however filled the memory card fairly quickly so I lowered the megapixel down to 3, which was suitable for the pictures I wanted to take. I was very impressed by the zoom on the camera as well.
I found the shutter speed to be fairly fast. I would like it to be somewhat faster but it does the job.
One feature I wasn’t so impressed with was the pop-up flash. I did read and know it came with a pop-up flash but I didn’t realize how annoying it would be to actually use. I quickly realized how much I missed the automatic flash on my previous camera. The E900 does tell you when the flash is needed and you hit a button and it pops up, but you manually have to put it back down when you are finished and pop it back up when you need it again. It could be time-consuming having to do this especially if you wanted to take a quick shot of something. The flash also popped-up while in my case and could have easily gotten damaged from this happening.
I did notice right away that all the pictures, even those without using the flash, seemed to be overexposed. I first thought it was just my error and kept taking pictures but noticed almost every picture I took was slightly overexposed. When I did use the flash, I found it gave off A LOT of light - way more light than any other digital camera I had ever used. I actually kind of liked this at first because my last camera did have the underexposed picture problem however I quickly discovered that using the flash left most of the picture very bright, leaning toward white, and all were overexposed. This issue was disappointing but something I was going to try to work around.
I discovered that taking close up pictures using the “tulip button” (as I like to call it) or micro setting did work however my camera would not allow me to zoom in or out when set on the micro setting, which was very disappointing. I take many pictures on this setting and need to zoom in/out on them frequently.
I found the settings to be somewhat confusing to figure out. I mainly take pictures on Auto mode however so didn’t worry much about it.
One issue I did notice right away was that if you want to turn off the LCD display to save battery life and take pictures through the viewfinder only, you need to keep turning off the LCD every time you turn the camera back on as it does not remember the setting. I found this rather upsetting as I like to take pictures quickly and turn the camera on & off rather frequently.
The LCD screen is fairly small especially considering how large they are on newer digital cameras. This really didn’t bother me much however as I am used to a smaller LCD.
The batteries seem to last quite a long time even using the LCD. I was impressed that I didn’t have to charge them frequently. It does take quite some time (several hours) to charge them so you do want to have a spare around if needed. The camera also has a feature to de-charge the batteries if you are having problems with them, which I found very nice. It does take a long time to do this however - I tried it once and it took several hours.
I found when I put the camera in my case that the knob to change settings would frequently flip to another setting. I usually have it set on auto and found when I took it out of the case it had been set on the natural light or another setting. It’s good thing to check this before taking pictures.
I did have some issues with pictures coming out blurry. With my past Canon, I didn’t have many issues with blurriness however I found that almost every time I used this camera I would get at least 2-3 blurry pictures a time. I found myself taking multiple pictures of each shot in hopes one would turn out without the blur.
After using the camera just a few times I noticed some of the pictures I had taken turned out very poorly. They had a lot of noise and lines running through them. I tried turning the camera back on and off, different locations, different settings, but no matter what I did I still had the same problem. Hoping it was battery failure, I uncharged the batteries and recharged them again which seemed to fix the problem.
The camera worked fine for a few days and then I took the camera to the park to take some pictures of my son. It was a bright & very sunny day and I thought it would a perfect day to use my new camera. I turned the camera on and noticed immediately something was wrong with the LCD display. The LCD was almost completely whited out from the sun. I could hardly see any images through the LCD. In fact it was so bright, it hurt my eyes to look at it. With the previous digital cameras I’ve had in the past I have never had any problems like this before. I figured maybe it was just the sun and tried taking a picture. I snapped a few pictures and they turned our horrible. The pictures looked exactly like the LCD display - they were all whited out & severely overexposed. I tried holding my hand over the camera to block out some of the sunlight to see if that would help but it didn’t. After taking a few more pictures the line problem I was having earlier also returned.
I then went back in the car, out of the sun, and took a few pictures which turned out fine, without the lines. After taking the camera home, I took another shot where the lines appeared in the image again.
Some feel that it must be my error that the camera took such bad pictures. People say they think I somehow switched the settings accidentally but I didn’t. I talked with a camera expert and followed all of their instructions trying to get the camera to work correctly again but nothing worked. I made sure all the settings were set correctly and the camera still did not take pictures correctly. I finally just took it back to the store (Best Buy) where they attempted to fix the camera. They tried replacing the memory card and then took pictures but they all turned out “green” as the person who was helping me said “with lines through them.” Luckily they gave me my money back and I have purchased a Canon S2 IS which I am very happy with instead.
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Review: I purchased this camera, a card, and a card reader. I initially had difficulty connecting the camera to my computer, and when I finally was able (using a usb cable and not the card reader)discovered a bunch of corrupted data. I thought it must be the card. I replaced the card, things seemed fine for a while, but it recently happened again. I have to assume it’s the camera, or the provided usb cable. Either way I have no means of transferring files without the fear that I’m going to lose pictures of my kids.
Fujifilm Finepix E900 Review: I’ve had my E900 for about a month now. For the price you pay for this camera you can do alot. For beginners like me it takes some playing around to figure out all the manual settings. The cool thing is you can always put it in auto mode or set it to one of the programmed settings as well. Once I figured out how to set the manual setting I realized how great of pictures you can get out of this camera. One thing I really wanted was a camera that you didn’t have to wait on. It takes less than 2 seconds on startup and only a couple seconds for the flash between shots. The 4X zoom isn’t exactly impressive but the 9MP image quality makes up for that so you can always crop your photos and still get nice close ups. Battery life is pretty good compared to most cameras I’ve used. The video quality is even better then what I was expecting. With a 1GB card you can get 15 minutes of video on the highest setting. Like I said for the price you can’t go wrong.
Price: $88.99 to $299.99