My first thoughts about my new Fuji E550

[Bonzo]

Camera is very light ( made me think cheap when I took it out of the box ! ) but feels a lot better once it has some batteries installed.

A bit of a knack to closing the battery cover as the batteries push it up it also feels a bit small in my hands when using.

Started taking pics as soon as the batteries were installed as that's straight forward.

Took two goes at loading the software onto my PC.

Flash from "cold" can make the LCD screen go black for 2 to 3 seconds; it also needs a bit of a "push" to put it away.

Mode knob is not very positive and the power button is a bit to close to it.

The flash is not great but I adjusted the ISO and apart from reducing the mp it worked OK; this is new method to me.

The zoom is very "speedy".

I have nearly lost the plastic connector cover already and I have only had the camera a day!

Anthony

[Bluedog]

I had one for 30 days and swapped it out. Fuji did a very poor job at being able to view the LCD screen in low light or especially very bright sunlight. The screen is totally unusable for even making menu changes and forget trying to view your subject for a photo. The lens partially blocks the Optical viewfinder at Wide Angle. The camera took very good photos for the most part but those issues above got to be very annoying.

[sarah12334]

I was thinking seriously about this camera, but I have a few questions. The LCD being difficult to see in low light - is this a really big deal or can you just look through the viewfinder? Also, is it true that you have to manually "pop up" the flash in order to use it? I think I'd find that really annoying.

I was going to ask if you had any better ideas of similar cameras... but I guess that question belongs in the other 'which camera' forum.

[Bonzo]

Hello

I do not know about the LCD screen at low light but it is hard to see in bright sunlight.

The flash is a manunal popup type but I have used a Fuji before so am used to that !

The photos seem a great quility with no sign of the horizontal lines people speak of. I have tired RAW as well and there seems very little differance between that and the jpg most of the time. I have found a RAW plugin for the Gimp.

I now have a Fuji case which I am not impressed with as the heavy end of the camera is the end up in the air and would fall out easly I think.

The speed of starting up has come in useful for taking images of my daughter; the macro seems OK, the lens shows in the viewfinder at one setting and of course the viewfinder dose not change when zooming in.

I suppose I am very happy with the quility of pictures; less happy with the camera itself but I only paid £187 for it.

Just looking at some pics of my daughter and there are no signs of redeye and that was on the normal flash setting. Its easy to change the macro and flash settings from the little control beside the lens without having to go into the camera setup !

Anthony

[jasm]

This camera is good value with images taken at 12Mp and reduced out of camera,iuse irfanvew or picasa2.

jasm
http://www.pbase.com/jascm/start

[sarah12334]

Yeah, it's great on paper but I've basically ruled it out because the popup flash would drive me nuts, and (more importantly) because the low-light focusing looks pretty bad according to all the reviews I've read. Thanks for your help though.

[netbell]

i have been using it for 1 month and the quality of the photo is good.

[jakoky@shaw.ca]

I had a canon a75, which i was very happy with. It started to make some really weird grinding noises, so sears upped to the 85. I was very unhappy with this camera, i found the pic quality very poor. I returned it and got the fuji e550. First, i find the pic quality excellent. Sometimes it has trouble in low light focusing, but is better than my a85( and comparable with my 75, maybe not quite as good). The lcd people have complained about is at least as good, if not better, than both my canons. I am thrilled witih my new camera, and am trying to learn all the features it came with. Start is beyond fast, unless flash is needed and then takes a few extra seconds. Anyways, just wanted to put in my 2 cents
shar ;)

[Montana]

yeah the e550 is a good camera, IMHo takes pictures that are a notch or two above the a95-a85.

[shu246]

i bought a fuji e550 for the wife (at her request that i pick a camera for her) after looking over a decent size (but by no means complete) spread of cameras at the local big stores. (we had lost our obsolete olympus on a trip; i was becoming too possessive of the panasonic fz20 i had bought to replace it.)

i wanted decent megapixels and zoom; standard batteries; lens which retracted to covered; no protrusions (shape of a brick); controls suitable for a non-techi, but not restricted to automatic only.

i like the fast open and close times for the lens. yes, a non-techi will lose the data port dust cover the first or second time out.

after more time with the camera i found a few more things not to like. the aperture closes as telephoto increases, limiting telephoto shots in low light(not so with the panasonic fz20, which keeps f/2.8 out to 12x optical). the lcd is unreadable in anything brighter than outdoor shade (not a problem for casual use in full auto, but a major annoyance for serious work).

the menu layout is workable, but not great. it would be better with fewer buttons and more information on the screen at one time. not a problem for a user who does not get into the menu much.

the raw and 12mpx settings don't seem to provide any advantage over 6mpx jpg, just bigger file size and slower processing.

a few days after buying the fuji e550 i took close-ups of some coins under an incandescent desk lamp and printed them at 11x17. i was astonished (dismayed and humbled) to find the fuji produced noticeably better images, sharper, better color than my (5mpx) panasonic fz20.

products (of any type) can be a perfect fit in only the narrowest of user niches. as the range of use broadens, compromise must work in. the e550 takes nice pictures; a good camera for someone who will jumble it in a handbag and mostly run it in auto mode with the (optical) view finder.