Fuji S6000 or S9000? This is for a gift and I'm unsure which is a better choice for a semi-experienced amateur photographer.

I'm purchasing this camera for my husband. Currently we have the Fuji S5200 and really like it but are looking to move up to the next step. Would the S6000 or the S9000 be a better choice? The price is similar enough that I'm less concerned about the cost.

The S9000 is a great upgrade. This camera is a real powerful work horse. Excellent zoom and picture quality plus ease of use. The S6000 is a bit less powerful 6MP compared to 9.2 which isn't a big deal but would be nice and for a little price increase.

The S9000 is indeed a good upgrade, nice tiltable LCD among other things. Beware that the sensor supposedly didn't improve much yet the pixels went up, so this camera may be a bit noisier in high ISOs than the S6000. I'd still choose the S9000 personally.

The S9000 would be my choice for two reasons. First - it is always better to have a picture file with as many pixels as possible. Pixels are your key to future modifications and printing. They allow you to crop relatively small sections of a photo and still have a printed image that has photo quality. Second - no matter what the user's current skill level with computers and the potential for using high grade photo editing software, I predict her/his skills and tools available will grow over time. I have taken more than 10,000 photos with my Fuji camera and it is still going strong. Either of these cameras will be around for a very long time, and you will wish for the higher pixel levels sooner or later. For these reasons I say, buy the best now. You will be glad you did, for a very l-o-n-g t-i-m-e.