Fujifilm FinePix A900

Opinion: Bought this camera four months ago and pictures in good light
are fine, but last week I made 212 pictures at a party in a hotel
and the result was very disappointing.
140 pictures were so bad that I deleted them directly and the
rest of the images are still too grainy and soft for my standards,
even after applying some adjustments like 15% of unsharp mask.

I owned about 5 compact cameras and 3 DSLR’s, so I do have
some experience and I tried several settings with the Fuji on the
party, but the overall result was so bad that I did a little experiment
at home.
I made identical shots with the Fuji A900 and my Nikon L11 both
in the Auto mode with Auto flash and the result was obvious, the
Nikon’s pictures are sharper, brighter and have more detail and
less grain.
The Nikon has a 6Mp sensor against the 9Mp of the Fuji and the
same applies for the price of the cam’s.

I have my Fuji A900 for sale now and I will buy a used Canon S50
tomorrow for about 100$, because the S50 is a solid tool which can
get Raw pictures and gives you full control of all settings.
The S50 was my second camera and my daughter is still getting
amazing shots with that one.

I also work a lot with my Fuji S3 Pro and that is a perfect camera
for me, but for compact I’m going back to the future.

Opinion: expecting much more out of this, because for 159 dollars there were better choices but after having their six megapixel cameras, I figured this could only be better. Wrong. Everytime I pick up a fuji I see what their technology offers and its a step beyond other makers. So maybe because of that I expect more and get disappointed. The six megapixel camera I had from fuji actually performed much better outside. The resolution on this was very good but they had very little custom controls. I found all the photos soft , few tact sharp. I think the a820 was much better then this. Their ccd has so much potential with punchy contrast and real looking colors and white balance but there is no punchy colors or sharpen controls.I would love to see this ccd with at least a six x zoom and sharpen controls and different shutter speeds or focus options. Why can't their 9 megapixel get as much detail as their 6. I guess what I want is a dsl like experience from a point and shoot and this gets close but not enough custom controls to maximize . Not enough anything to maximize this technology and if they did they might have dslr makers down their back.. and this has been the complaint from many on fuji boards.

Opinion: Well we all know about opinions, and for what it’s worth here is mine.
I purchased an A900 from CostCo for $159.99 with an ATP 80x 2GB SD card included in the price, about 3weeks ago..….Great value! Since that time I have shot in the neighborhood of 1100 to 1200 photos with the camera.
I use an extensive collection of photography software and suggest that if you decide on this camera purchase one from each of the following groups;
A. Intellihance pro, Neat Image Pro, Dfine, or Alien Skin exposure for corrections.
B. onOne Fractile Print Pro for quality resizing prior to printing.
C. PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro Photo for primary photo enhancing.

Pros:
1. Good outdoor landscape photos, crisp, excellent color presentation, balanced exposure levels.
2. Great value within use limitations. Mainly outdoor, adequate lighting, etc.
3. Simply to operate, well suited for the novice.
4. Very good macro photos.

Opinion: I must confess, this camera turned out better than I expected and I feels is certainly worth more than I paid. The 1/1.6" super CCD is 56% larger than the 1/2.5" of my previous camera (and larger CCD is supposedly better) certainly contributes the the excellent images this camera produces. The TTL 256-zones metering vs center weighted (as found in many if not most point-and-shoot cameras) is certainly an advanced feature - my film SLR has something very similar and both work amazingly well. There's enough manual over rides to make most people happy but the auto setting has proven itself to be outstanding.