Remanufactured Fujifilm Finepix E900 9MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom (Black)

And yes, I really mean it! You can look high and low and not find another gem like this, and they are really cheap! The relatively wide zoom and RAW features give astounding pictures and the "N" setting on the dial for natural light is a miracle worker. Great dynamic range and great overall IQ. Until Fuji does an image stabilized version of this Super CCD model or something equal, I will keep this one.

I was pleased to see such a great deal when I was shopping for cheap cameras with RAW and or wide angle features. I was previously shopping for Canon s60's and s70's.
I bought this remanufactured fuji and was pleased with everything it offered and it appears to work nicely so far (disclaimer I'm only 2 dozen shots into it).

But I'm reviewing this to let you know that my refurb. arrived with no fuji batteries, charger or wrist strap as described here on this page. When I first approached amazon, I got the email centers abroad, and was eventually told to approach Fujifilm USA. Then I went through several ridiculous call centers and was told that a refurbished camera means these items are "my responsibility" and would not be provided. They are in the item description! And fuji is leaving amazon in a tight spot by providing them substandard items.

I was very pleased when Amazon amended the amount between the refurb and the original and I could go buy the accessories myself. But it shouldn't have had to come to that.

Buyer slightly beware.

I confess! I love this camera. And here's some good news from a review in the June '06 MacWorld: the E900 won the "Top Product" award in their review of point-and-shoot digital cameras. The image quality won raves. See page 28. Also there was a review in PC World for July including the E900 in their list of the top 100 products - see page 96. The October 17th PC Magazine on page 47 rates it highly, as well. Just saw the November 06 Consumer Reports which gave the E900 a "Best Buy" rating in the advanced compact camera class. As well, the December 06 MacWorld placed it in their Top Products list on page 56. Phew! I'm tired already - and there is still one more very favorable review to mention: PC Magazine for December 06 on page 84 placed it in their top five cameras (and the only point and shoot) list. This was in their 2006 best selection. And I just got my Consumer Reports 2007 Buying Guide which placed it second out of six choices for best advanced compact camera. So, you can see, this camera comes highly recommended!

Another thing I just learned after using the E900 is that it not only has an optical viewfinder, but when you look in it when zooming (up to 30X) you see the zoom in the viewfinder as well as on the screen on the back of the unit. I never expected that from an optical viewfinder in a point-and-shoot camera!

Of course, I loved my 1963 VW beetle, too. The connection: they're both a little homely - but superbly functional. The Fuji Finepix E900 has an acclaimed lens (my shots at F2.8 were unexpectedly sharp), extreme pixel count for a point-and-shoot camera, ease of use on automatic (but the 130 page owners manual is worth reading on a rainy afternoon), 30X total zoom, VGA quality video for up to 15 minutes at 30 fps with sound (with 1GB xD card), total control with Manual, Shutter and Aperture priority, several Auto modes.

The menus are extensive but logical and after a bit become easy to navigate. Manual focus! Flash suppression, too. On a camera that fits in the palm of your hand, easy to carry at the ready with quick startup time. A good accessory: The AC power supply to use while uploading files (frames) to your computer. Bad news to lose power during the process. Just 2 seconds upload time for each 9 Megapixel image.

With the 1 Gigabyte xD card I use, there are over 200 such shots available. For 5 MP, there are over 800 shots! For serious amateurs and professionals this camera has a feature usually found in SLRs: it will produce images in RAW format! This means someone with a powerful image editing software can do more remarkable things with their photos than one can do with JPEG or other formats.

In Picassa, the photo editing software from Google, using the zoom bar allowed amazing magnification from the highest resolution shots whilst retaining sharpness and color. Remember that scene from the film "Blade Runner" with Harrison Ford where he takes a photo and directs his computer to do enormous magnification of the image to help him get a clue? You can nearly do that with this kind of resolution and pixel count.

Hint: for uploading images to blogs, etc., use no more than the 5MP resolution - the site may choke on the higher resolutions. Well, let them eat cake! You've got a high res camera now, baby!