An amazing camera for serious amateurs & some types of pro photography
Pros:
An extremely flexible photographic tool for a great range of image types.
Cons:
Limited flash photography, mode dial easily moved, image stabilization is limited at lower ISO speeds.
The Bottom Line:
This is an extremely flexible camera. It allows knowledgeable photographers many options to make just flat fabulous photos. Fuji reduced it by $100 in June making this a no-brainer.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I've owned my Fujifilm E900 digital camera since February and have taken several hundred shots with it. I've used it in a great variety of applications, from shooting photos of my oil paintings (my profession is fine art) to shots of scenes of both country and city, macro shots of objects and insects and all sorts of family pictures. Generally speaking, the results have been stunning.
While the E900 can be used in an automatic mode, taking fine photos, the various selectable features give the thoughtful snapshooter an amazing choice of ways to solve the difficult and unusual shooting situations. Here's a list of those that immediately come to mind:
1. Exposure settings of MULT, SPOT and AVERAGE, plus and easy to use onscreen EV settings. That's a way to raise or lower exposures without leaving the LCD. It helps when the subject is light on a dark field or visa versa.
2. Several white-balance features including a CUSTOM feature which allows one (with the aid of a piece of white paper or board) to get the camera to balance the light in ANY unusual light situation. For instance, you might have some daylight coming through a window and incandescent light inside.
3 Additionally, there is a NATURAL LIGHT mode which does a white-balance automatically, thereby giving a cool daylight to photos shot indoors or in other low light situations. This feature boosts the ISO (think "film speed") to 800 and does not allow the flash to be used. I've taken wonderful pictures in this mode.
4. There are five focusing modes, including AF AREA in which you can move the focus point to just about anywhere in the picture frame. There is also a manual focusing mode, while not real easy to use, that will save you in very low light situations.
5. ISO (flim speed) settings of AUTO, 80, 100, 200, 400 and 800 in all modes. And Fuji has developed proprietary software to keep electronic "noise" (think "film grain") down to a minimum, even at 400 or 800 ISO.
6. The E900 has an optical viewfinder. Although its coverage is only about 77% of the image, it is essential for bright outdoor photos.
The above list is only a few of the bells and whistles that are available to photographers. If you wish to take movies, the E900 takes 480 x 640 pixel AVI sound movies at a terrific 30 frames a second. This means seamless motion. There is also a lower-resolution 240 x 320 mode. With an unused 1 Gb xD card you get 15 minutes at 640 and just under 30 minutes at 320.
The E900 is on the perfect camera, but it allows the photographer to make truly great pictures. This is NOT a camera for one who wants to shoot without thinking. My only poor shots have been made when I forgot to check and see just what modes I was in. When shooting still photos at the maximum resolution of 9 megapixels "Fine" setting, a 1 Gb xD card gives you 228 exposures, at 9 Mp "Normal" one gets 456 exposures.
O.K., here are some things that would make it a better camera.
1. After 9 Mp "normal" the next setting is 5 Mp. I would have thought that 6 Mp would follow the 9 Mp.
2. Shooting in very low light can be difficult as to focusing. The camera doesn't have "focus assist" which would be helpful. You can use manual focusing to be more certain, or in review mode you can zoom the photo and see much more closely what you got.
3. The mode dial is a bit too easy to move when the camera is pulled from a case. You have to check it each and every time to see where you art at.
4. A hot shoe for a more advanced system would be enormously helpful for photographing parties, events and covering journalistic projects.
All in all, I've been very pleased with this camera. While it does have limitations, most amateurs and many professionals can get great results. At the 9 Mp fine setting you can seriously crop an image and still have a 6 Mp file.
This is my fourth Fujifilm digital camera. I've enjoyed them all and in addition to the E900 I have a compact 5 Mp Fujifilm F460. My last three Fujis have the same basic control set-up. This has made the learning curve amazingly short. I learned everything about my E900 on a three hour flight.
