Having gotten just two replies I figured out there's not much owners, but just in case other people will think of bying, here's my initial opinion of the camera. I don't think it's a clear winner over G16, certainly it doesn't speak a few years production advantage over Canon. My biggest gripe is battery life which is nowhere near the stated 470 shots. Weird as it does have more capacity and the camera doesn't spend any power on zooming, that one is being manual. Amazing how blindly people, including actual owners, just quote Fuji on those 470 shots in all reviews I read. Its way, way less. Camera feels good in the hand, but inside its overloaded with stuff, useless stuff imho - four-way colour shifts, shadow-highlight tone, dynamic ranges, 'film looks'. If you're so much into controlling your pix go Photoshop at post- stage. At least once it outsmarted itself an just refused to let me control ISO in full manual mode. I had to reset all soft features. Weird filter size - not many companies offer 40mm filters and buying a suggested step-up ring/lens shade is another source of disappointment as that one has three huge slots on the back through which dust and dirty will come easily. Besides, it makes turning the camera on more clumsy. I have noticed that camera sometimes fails to deploy focus-assisting beam and in many instances fails to focus - at least this happens markedly more often than with G16. Macro mode is not so macro at all, I seem to be getting a much tighter shot with g16. Picture quality is allright and in mid-range ISO seems to be better than Canon G16. I like true manual focusing, although I'd be very happy not to pay for it with having to switch aperture function somewhere else while I use the lens ring for focusing. There is enough space to fit a second wheel for the aperture, imho. While we're at it - who needs this huge exposure compensation wheel - takes load of space, doesn't actually do anything for me. Burst mode is working good - I got a selection of pix of my daughter jumping into a pool and that's a pretty quick action. So the bottom line is - an advanced camera, but with some very regrettable hype on battery life, quite a bit too complicated software for p&s and some strange lapses on mechanical controls. Still, money is spent and I will try to get used to this camera. |