I'm confused

[bill013]

For months now I have been searching for a digital camera. Now I am exciting because I have narrowed it down to the top two cameras. These cameras are the Canon Powershot A95 and the Fuji Finepix F10. I thought the choice between them would be an easy one, but I was wrong. I like the Fuji because of its stunningg photo quality and video quality. I like the canon for its amazing manual controls. I am am intermediate photographer.

Tell me which one you'd choose.

[sjseto]

I was considering the A95 at one point because of the manual controls, swivel LCD, and Canon's reliable photo quality. What held me back was the noisiness of the pictures above ISO 200 and the outdated movie mode, and eventually I decided that it was a little bigger than I wanted to carry around.

Then the F10 reviews started coming out and I was intrigued by its ability to take amazingly clean, high ISO images. It's compact size and excellent battery life were selling points too. What worried me was the lack of manual controls and no optical viewfinder. But I decided that I could live without those features (I have an SLR when I need to have total control) and I was tired of the limitations of my compact film camera.

So I ended up buying the F10, and over the 2 and a half months I've owned it, I've been very happy with its performance. Occasionally I regret not being able to set the aperture manually, but for the majority of the time, it is a joy to use and is capable of taking great pictures.

The one thing that would keep me from recommending the F10 to you is if you are going to rely on the camera's auto mode. It makes some very strange decisions sometimes, like choosing overly high ISO's when there seems to be enough light to go with a lower one. If you are willing to learn the F10's quirks, work around them when necessary, and to make certain decisions yourself, I think you'll be very happy with it. You say that you're an intermediate photographer, so it sounds like you have the knowledge to handle it.

Another suggestion I would make is to consider holding off on your purchase until October, when the Fuji FinePix E900 (http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/cameraDetail.php?cam=754) comes out. It's a 9 megapixel camera, about the same size and weight as the A95, has lots of manual controls, with the imaging technology of the F10. The only downside that I can see is that it doesn't have an AF assist lamp. It's priced at about $100 US more than the F10, so I don't know if it's within your budget, but from the specs it sounds like it would combine the best of both worlds for you.