Fuji FinePix F70EXR

So far after 10 days use, i must say i like it. I bought it during my trip to tokyo last week for 32,000 yen tax free no SD card. its a unique general purpose pocket mega zoom but with many contradicting qualities. Image quality is good though not best-in-class, build quality is very solid, size is perfect in hand, screen is very sharp, zoom range is excellent though a little soft, I.S. is more effective than expected, excellent dynamic range, excellent low light abilities yet low light focusing not always sharp and no manual focus to help, specifications is excellent but a little steep learning curve.

Its exposure flexibility is so unique; my pictures taken in glaring midday sun retained details in the highlights on the ground and grass, then able to get many usable shots in dim lighting at iso 800 shutter 1/10th of a second hand held, and even took very dimly lit shots hand held iso 1600 in image stacking mode which looked surprisingly good with little noise (about the same as iso 400 on other cams). Its ability to take a picture under almost any lighting condition handheld (except the very dark, long exposures) is simply amazing. As unique as it is, I don't think this cam is suited to absolute beginners because there are so many solutions (all the diffrent exposure modes) available for any one situation, which means if you want to get the best image for that situation, you may need to choose the right solution yourself because though the automatic system tries hard, it can miss such as choosing too high an iso or choosing exr-high-res when should have chosen exr-high-dynamic. i don't think it suits the pro either because the image quality is not best in class. Anyone else in between these two groups though could find it fun to use and appreciate the images which can not be taken with any other pocket cam on the market at this time.

To help new users get started with this camera i have summed up what i have found so far to be most useful. It may sound complicated, but if you have it in hand, all should be apparent (i hope).

TIPS:
- for shutter priority in low light situations and hand held photo, the aperture should be set to widest (f3.3), then set shutter to 1/10th of a second because this has proven (for me) to yield the best ratio between most amount of usable shots and the slowest possible shutter speed. Then i simply change the iso between 200 to 800 to fine tune the exposure. This has worked very well for me as a sort of a shutter priority exposure mode. Another way to use shutter priority is to select the Scene Mode and set it to FIREWORKS. You are then able to set the shutter freely between 1/2 a second and 4 seconds. This is useful if you have a tripod.
- if you want wide dynamic range then use the exr d-range priority mode for best image. I don't recommend you use wide dynamic range in other modes such as program exposure full resolution because your image will show noise in the shadows. This is not actually the same as the exr mode and it shows.
- for very dim lighting, switch to image stacking mode (Pro low light), hold your breath and ask your subject to stay completely still for 3 seconds as the camera takes 4 multiple shots. The effect of other people walking around your subject or cars passing by actually look beautiful, like capturing a long exposure light streak while your main subject remains sharp!
- for slightly dim lighting and hand held, i use iso 400 or iso 800 program exposure and medium resolution which helps reduce chroma noise.
- for sharpest daylight image possible, i use full resolution and dr100% dynamic range and low iso such as 100 or 200.
- set iso to auto 400 for general photo
- in exr d-range priority mode, settings between dr100%-dr400% the minimum iso is 100, but choosing dr800% will increase minimum iso to 200 automatically. Image quality looks the same but dr800% retains more highlight.
- I don't actually see that much difference in noise level between full resolution, medium resolution, and exr-low-noise except that full resolution has more chroma noise but the noise is actually much smaller in pixels, so this is up to your preference.
- for EXR exposure i leave it on wide dynamic range. This is because in exr low noise mode i don't see much difference (as mentioned above), and for auto-exr mode it selects iso 1600 in low light which looks awful. So i just leave EXR at d-range priority.
- for Scene mode, i leave it set to pro-low light all the time now for easy access because it has proven its usefulness in more than just a few occasions.
- The Natural Light mode always sets the iso too high so i don't use it.
- if you want the best image from this cam you should NOT leave it on auto, a little learning and understanding is necessary so please experiment.
- Pro focus looks artificial, i don't use it.
- to bring out its excellent dynamic range, use HDR programs. I used the free Photomatrix. there are tutorials on the web you can look for which shows you how to make a simulated hdr image from one jpeg photo. This camera is ideal for this job because it retains so much information for you to post process.