Full Review

This camera is disgusting. And for the money I wouldn't return it.

Lots of loose ends. Nobody at Fuji seems to have been willing to stand up for actually making a good camera; everybody just had their bullet items to say they'd done.

First of all, though, this style is the future. SLR was for when you just plain couldn't see what you were getting any other way. With a digital, you can see it right on the screen (with certain sacrifices for low-light viewfinding), so I wouldn't pay for a clunky bunch of optics. Viewfinding quality may be poor in poor conditions, but it's a digital camera, so just try a shot already! Beyond a certain point, an SLR would be too dim, too. I did have some concerns about how the camera accommodated the light level for viewfinding. One time, just desperately trying something, I was able to press one-time Autofocus and have it lighten up the viewfinding from then on so I could see the scene. But at the moment I can't reproduce the problem.

When set to Manual/Manual Focus, in Macro, the camera has autofocused for the shot, then gone back out of focus when returning to viewfinding.

In this camera, the Zoom ring has a mechanical connection to the optics, but the Focus ring seems to be only an encoder feeding the digital signal processor.

In Manual/Manual Focus, focus using the magnified inset is weird sometimes. It's nice and snappy without the magnified inset, but I want the inset so that I can make sure I focus as well as possible. (When you're focused, any diagonal light-dark boundary in the inset shows jaggies; I like this very much.) Also, sometimes I can shoot again and have the focus stay right, but other times the focus has gone out after the first shot. Oh, and in Manual/Manual Focus, they give you a focus indicator that very annoyingly interferes with focusing. I guess they thought they had to have it to be like an SLR, but if you wanted the thing to tell you the focus, you'd be using autofocus!!! Somebody needed more guts. This focus indicator seems to use just the DSP and the image sensor, rather than the main autofocus mechanism, which uses a bright green LED projecting a pattern of boxes onto the scene. (I assume they look for the sharpest gradations.)

They word it (as of how long, I wonder?) as the inset being for "checking" focus. No good; people need to use the inset while actively focusing, obviously. I keep wondering whether the focusing "aid" is what's loading the DSP so badly that it can't focus properly.

The imaging quality isn't great. At high ISO numbers, what you get particularly is multicolored mottling of gray surfaces. But I think it's better than the 400 color print film I used some time ago. Just keeping them honest.

I only installed their Hyper-Utility 2 software. It's usable enough. I use it because I choose to shoot in uncompressed (Raw) mode rather than compressed (JPEG). Hyper-Utility 2 takes the Raw file off the camera and stores it as TIFF on my PC, which I gather has all the original bits. When desired, I use Windows Paint to convert that to .BMP or .JPG. I use Paint for checking of focus. I've found that images where I can see every pixel have slight measles, sometimes white, sometimes dark. I worry that it's dust on the image sensor. I'm hoping I can go a while without a cleaning. On an 8.5"x11" print, I don't even see them. I've also never gotten an edge sharper than 3 pixels of gradation, but I'll live.

Hyper-Utility 2 seems to close the window but leave the task extant if you break the USB connection to the camera before closing Hyper-Utility 2, and this makes every subsequent launch of Hyper-Utility 2 create another task without opening a window. That was my impression.

The file conversion user interface is primitive, at least in that you can't specify a filename to convert into; you have to accept the name from the camera. But you can specify the folder, anyway. And you can delete files off the camera.

The camera takes a special xD memory card (or PCMCIA compact flash, but those apparently burn a lot of power).

Speaking of which, you'll end up buying NiMH batteries and a charger, so save time and do it now. Alkalines aren't awful, but if you bought this camera, you're probably somebody who won't be pleased by their life.

The camera works with dumb slave flashes; I've been doing a great deal of work with them. (I actually put a piece of tin in front of the flash to reflect it up to the ceiling and fire the slaves.) To get the camera flash to fire exactly once, during the exposure, set the camera to Manual Flash but pop the flash arm up anyway. I also used the sync jack with a little strobe with a sync cord. You need to check the voltage before you do this; some flashes will destroy components in some cameras.

I haven't tested movie mode seriously; see other reviews here. But apparently it can shoot for quite a while.

About the manual, well, apparently their perceived market was duffers, and the serious users were just allowed along for the ride. I often find it annoying. I'd love to know what percent of this avalanche of modes these duffers ever remember or use.

I hate the menu system in the camera. It's so showy, with graded intensity menu items, that when you need to use it quickly while squinting into the viewfinder, it's extremely hard. (The fact that something can be done does not mean that it's better than not doing it.)

The multiple choice questions on this site are based on a fallacy. This camera is, to me, only good for people who have the strong skills to work around its defects. To them the price is attractive.