Fujifilm FinePix A101

Opinion: I received this, my first digital camera, for Christmas 2000. Growing up with 35mm SLRs, at first I was a bit skeptical - until I took a few impromptu snaps in and around the house on Christmas Day and was blown away! The colors in particular were excellent - vibrant and saturated without looking unnatural (blues and greens are beautiful). You could really tell the people who designed this camera knew how *photos* were supposed to look. It was quite a shock to see just how good it looked compared to scanned 4x6 prints from 35mm film. Jpg compression is low, with files sizes around 600kB for a 1.3MP image so artifacts are seldom visible. If the lens was sharp to the corners I would have gone up a half point in my score for IQ. Metering is generally very reliable; AWB works great in natural light and the presets are pretty good too (though with such a wide angle lens my use was mostly outdoors).

The WA lens is nice, though a bit soft in the corners. However, given the field of view the effect is seldom objectionable. Switching to macro, the image quality looks even better though DOF is pretty shallow and of course with a fixed-focus lens you have to compose pretty carefully using the monitor.

Lacking AF, it never froze because it was unable to to lock onto a subject, which made it an excellent tool for shooting out the window of a moving vehicle where more sophisticated cams (at the time) might not get the job done. Manual controls are limited and it's not especially responsive; when the batteries start to get low you can find yourself waiting around for quite a while for things to happen. Speaking of batteries, don't even think of using alkaline AAs in this camera - stick to high-capacity NiMH and you'll be fine. The XD media was a definite minus. It's well made and feels nicely solid in the hand. The monitor cover is glass, resists scratches and wipes clean easily.

This camera gave me a very happy introduction to digital photography!

Opinion: I love this camera I used this about half a year. It has two mega pixel and we took it to a trip to national olympic park. You could visit the website at www.highqphoto.com

Andrey Stakhnyuk

Opinion: Good and value for money only for bright light photography. You'll be hardpressed to get a decent flash photograph without mysterious white spots appearing uninvited.

Opinion: I have just bought it today as a birthday gift for my 4 year old daughter with a great price (HK480)! I love its light weight and using AA battery and also SM card since I am using Olympus 3030.

Opinion: First of all, when evaluating this camera one must take into account the price/value ratio, and in my opinion this one performs very good in those terms. The camera is rather small and practical to drag around as it can fit into a shirt pocket. However, it's plasticky feeling calls for some protective case as I doubt that it would withstand any serious bumping. Pictures are of good quality (again for a camera in the low price segment) and movie mode comes in handy for capturing flicks of funny moments. However camera does underpoerform in low lighting situations and I've had some problems with mysterious white circles appearing in some shots using flash. Overall - good value for money, very basic but then again if you need the bells and whistles you'll have to pay for them :).

Opinion: dont do it you would be lucky to fill the first 8m card befor the first problem

Opinion: This is an excellant camera for a beginner or a novice photographer! It's easy to use and VERY easy to see the pictures! All you have to do is plug it in! It is very light weight, versitile and my first digital camera. I suggest it to anyone who is interested in just starting with digital photography.

Opinion: My first "real" digital camera, purchased in Nov. 2001. Have used extensively in many conditions. Works best outdoors in moderate to strong light, but will take fair indoor shots with some experimentation with flash/lighting combinations. Some lag between shots. Poor to moderate on battery consumption. Overall it has exceeded my expectations handily, and is a tremendous value for the price. I recently have upgraded to a high resolution camera, but would buy this camera again without a second thought for the purposes it serves. Clarity and definition are outstanding relative to its class of cameras. Software and USB connection download very quickly and flawlessly.

Opinion: Fantastic little camera! I have a Ricoh RDC-6000 and I must say that even though the Fuji is more than half the prive of the Ricoh, it takes better pics. Resolution is not so high, but I did not buy it for hi-res pics. It handles low light situations much better than the Ricoh. I bought it because it's much more study and solid than my other cameras, and I am comfortable when taking it along trips. My other cameras I use to take Macro's and they are packed in special cases. This is a lovely camera to use for just taking pics on trips or in general. I would surely recommend it.