I just got my E-520 and now I'm having first experiences. I bought it with double lens kit: 14-42 mm and 40 -150 mm. My first idea was to buy it with tele lens double kit but it was far too expensive. With 40-150 mm the price was 790 euros and with 70-300 mm it would be 960. The difference was 170 euros, separately 70-300 is just 100 euros more valuable. Another good reason not to buy it with tele lens is that the kit is not available yet. :(
Looking back
Previously I had (and still have, who wants to buy it?) Fuji S9600 bridge camera and I was quite happy with it. Picture quality was ok and low light photos were ok but not brilliant. The small sensor worried me a little bit and lack of image stabilizer. Other things missing are bracketing and panorama "scene". Limited amout of scene modes were also minus thing.
Some things I will miss from Fuji: tilting live viewfinder, moving video with sound and long zoom with fixed lens. S9600 was my fourth fuji digital camera so it was easy to learn to use it from to beginning. Previously I had ex-20, F610 and F20. I was really happy with them all. Some words about them all.
Ex-20 was my first digital camera and took more than 10 000 images with it. It had fixed lens without optical zoom. Just 2 megapixels and no lens cover at all. Minimum distance to take picture was someting about 1 meter. It had no date at all in the camera so all pictures got the same time stamp. Moving video was without sound. It had a small internal memory and possibility to use smartmedia (SM) card. LCD was tiny and dim. Nevertheless I got very good pictures with it. I compared it to other cheap compact digital cameras of its time (2002-2004) and image quality was one of the bests. It was excellent tiny camera to carry with and take point & shoot images. It used AA batteries which lasted something like 300-500 frames (without flash). It had no moving components. :) But dam, it was slow. First frames I took with it I took from my pocket. I pointed, pressed the shutter and then put the camera in the pocket...
F610
The next digital camera was Fuji as well. My intention was NOT to buy Fuji camera. I just had a funny feeling that Canon and Panasonic are better, at least they look better. :) I tested one tiny Panny (Lumix fx7) and I was quite happy with it but it was relatively expensive. Then in a camera discussion forum someone said that a small camera company (located in a middle of nowhere) are selling Finepix F610 cameras with half price. I went though specifications and googled what other people and owners had said about it. It seemed excellent camera and I ordered it. They sold all their cameras (300-400 cameras) in a few days. I took about 10 000 images with it as well. I captured great memories with it. Why they sold it half price if it was so good? Probably because it was odd looking upright format and Fuji wanted to dump extra cameras to very distant place not to mess markets. But compared to ex-20 this one was much advanced: optical zoom, 6 Megapixels (12 Mpix interpolated), Shutter and Aperture priority like professional SLRs, dual lcd, moving video with sound, ISO setting till 800 (3Mpix), metal body and lot of more. Even I bougth it 2004 from outlet it is still (2008) at least average quality camera compared to brand new models.
Previously I had (and still have, who wants to buy it?) Fuji S9600 bridge camera and I was quite happy with it. Picture quality was ok and low light photos were ok but not brilliant. The small sensor worried me a little bit and lack of image stabilizer. Other things missing are bracketing and panorama "scene". Limited amout of scene modes were also minus thing.
Some things I will miss from Fuji: tilting live viewfinder, moving video with sound and long zoom with fixed lens. S9600 was my fourth fuji digital camera so it was easy to learn to use it from to beginning. Previously I had ex-20, F610 and F20. I was really happy with them all. Some words about them all.
Ex-20 was my first digital camera and took more than 10 000 images with it. It had fixed lens without optical zoom. Just 2 megapixels and no lens cover at all. Minimum distance to take picture was someting about 1 meter. It had no date at all in the camera so all pictures got the same time stamp. Moving video was without sound. It had a small internal memory and possibility to use smartmedia (SM) card. LCD was tiny and dim. Nevertheless I got very good pictures with it. I compared it to other cheap compact digital cameras of its time (2002-2004) and image quality was one of the bests. It was excellent tiny camera to carry with and take point & shoot images. It used AA batteries which lasted something like 300-500 frames (without flash). It had no moving components. :) But dam, it was slow. First frames I took with it I took from my pocket. I pointed, pressed the shutter and then put the camera in the pocket...F610
The next digital camera was Fuji as well. My intention was NOT to buy Fuji camera. I just had a funny feeling that Canon and Panasonic are better, at least they look better. :) I tested one tiny Panny (Lumix fx7) and I was quite happy with it but it was relatively expensive. Then in a camera discussion forum someone said that a small camera company (located in a middle of nowhere) are selling Finepix F610 cameras with half price. I went though specifications and googled what other people and owners had said about it. It seemed excellent camera and I ordered it. They sold all their cameras (300-400 cameras) in a few days. I took about 10 000 images with it as well. I captured great memories with it. Why they sold it half price if it was so good? Probably because it was odd looking upright format and Fuji wanted to dump extra cameras to very distant place not to mess markets. But compared to ex-20 this one was much advanced: optical zoom, 6 Megapixels (12 Mpix interpolated), Shutter and Aperture priority like professional SLRs, dual lcd, moving video with sound, ISO setting till 800 (3Mpix), metal body and lot of more. Even I bougth it 2004 from outlet it is still (2008) at least average quality camera compared to brand new models. This is a little bit different story. I was going to buy an entry level pocket size camera to my doughter as a Christmas present. Local hardware store had camera outlet: some very cheap and tiny Olympus fe-series cameras and one bigger Fuji F11. Olympus cameras seemed exactly what my daungter wants: tiny and pretty. Fuji F11 was bigger and more expensive. I went to the internet and learnt that fe-series quite nice, but picture quality is very bad. About Fuji F11 I learnt something different: legendary F11 was the best camera ever when it was published. I learnt also that it have successor F30 and it is even better and quite expensive. For coming Chistmas they published a new model from F30: F20 which was the same (same sensor, lenses) expect some professional settings had dropped away. I bought the F20 and that was excellent choise. It was christmas 2005 and it still have the best picture quality in its class. Every time I call my daughter I ask if the camera ok? Are you ok?
Early 2007 decided to buy a camera with proper zoom and more professional features. I first tried Panasonic FZ50 and the camera was excellent. Only big problem was bad picture quality in low light and high ISO values. I ended up to Fuji again. Finepix S9600 was quite good choise. Picture quality was close enough to SLRs. It had live view, tilting lcd, live view, very good moving video, long zoom (10,7x) and everything in one compact pack. Cheaper than cheapest SLR and I could carry just a camera, not bag full of equipments. I took several thousands pictures with it and they were best pictures I have shot so far.
