I've been learning my photography skills with this camera fr the past 4 years and have slowly learnt (with aid from the user manual as well) how to truly use this camera. The diversity it offers is really good with choice of CFC (Compact Flash Cards) or SD Cards, along with the zoom options ranging with Macro and Super Macro right up to super telephoto which is obtained with the 10.4x zoom an x2 digital. The image quality is very good considering the range, but now compared to modern cameras (and my new Canon 60D) the image doesn't quite have that crispiness or wow factor. But for the price I reckon you would be very hard pushed to find anything better.

The Auto and Program Auto options are still useful if you just want to point and shoot in varying conditions, along with several pre set options (portrait, Landscape, night time, moving subjects, etc) make this quite a good all round camera. With the addition of semi auto and full manual controls over ISO, Shutter and Aperture it makes it suitable for those that wish to push their skills further or to be used as a second camera by any semi pro already.

The Vdeo is only VGA with mono sound but useful to have for those moments you need to capture something, but the quality of image and sound is severely lacking when compared to modern camera capabilities.

I would highly recommend anyone whos interested in photography to either buy this camera or the model above it. The diversity and ease of use make them highly desirable.

Fuji FinePix S9500A is a good camera, as an alternative for those who do not like to carry heavy equipment or changing lenses, because the superzoom lens will covers almost all you need.

Basically i wouldn't take one in a lucky bag. My s9500, which incidentally was not secondhand but a demonstrator from a leading retailer, is without doubt the worst piece of kit i have ever had the misfortune to waste money on.

The Fuji Finepix S9500 camera takes a bit of getting used to but thats the fun of buying a new camera. Also for best results use a tripod. It's a wonderful camera

I can't add anything more technical then other users have.

I upgraded to this Fuji Finepix S9500 from a Nikon 7600, a camera I was glad to see the back of - the S9500 in comparison is a much more complicated camera and not one you can pick up and take good shots from the off, some understanding of shutter speeds and apertures is needed to use the camera to its best potential.

I've had great fun with this camera over the past 8 months, I've also sold a lot of pictures to guests passing through my B&B business as well as a few through a stock library I belong to. I've also had photographs used in a local newspaper and I'm currently negotiating with a glossy magazine to use a photo I took of a gun dog, I say this to illustrate the point that while the s9500 can not hope to compete with a dSLR, it can still produce images that are saleable, and for the average user, the images produced are of an excellent quality and easily printed up to A3.

I had considered moving on to a dSLR in the future, but at the moment this camera fulfils all I need from it and more.

The Fuji Finepix S9500 Zoom is a good camera for someone moving from a compact digital camera who wants something a bit more advanced.

The Fuji Finepix S9500 is a great all round camera that fills the gap between compact and SLR it does most things well, despite the command dial problem which means losing it for 4 weeks which comes back with an improved part I think its a great camera, Picture quality is what the main thing is here and as I have won a few photographic competitions with this camera and had some pictures put in a national photography magazine I think that says it all about the images it produces.

I have owned my Fuji Finepix S9500 since March 2006. I have mixed feelings about this camera. When it works well it works very well but its performance is erratic. distance shots are almost impossible if there is any haze is present.
I have managed some good macro shots but again performance is erratic, the flip up viewing screen is a good idea but it is difficult to use in normal lighting conditions.
Night time long exposure shots are very good and pointing it at the sky and taking 30 second exposure will reward you with plenty of stars.
Overall though the 9500 is not a worthy successor to the S30Pro, 7000, 602, 6900 linage. At its asking price a Nikon D50 SLR might be a better buy.

You can buy a Fuji FinePix S9500 digital camera from many places on the internet. The cheapest I found was from Savastore at £312.13 including P&P.
Having had issues with Savastore, I opted for Ebuyer.com at £312.47 with free delivery. It is worth the extra 34p for peace of mind when dealing with a known and trusted company.

In the box:

4 x AA Alkaline batteries (lasted less than 1 day)
16 Mb XD picture card (holds only 3 photos in 9Mb Fine mode)
Neck strap with FinePix logo
Lens cap with attached nylon cord 6"
Lens cap clip to prevent the lens cap from swinging loose
Lens hood
A/V cable to view video and images on a TV (PAL or NTSC)
USB cable (high speed USB2)
CD with drivers and image software
Owners manual 143 pages
Quick start guide
And of course the FinePix S9500 camera

First impressions:

Looks and feels like a modern Digital SLR
Heavy enough to be stable when hand held
Feels a bit plasticy, except for the rubberised finger grip and zoom ring
More knobs and buttons than a very knobby buttony thing

The Manual:

It covers all the functions of the camera quite well. It is obvious that it was translated, but if you allow for that you can grasp the meaning with a little thought and by playing with the camera. I found the part about custom white balance setting particularly difficult to follow.

The Batteries:

It takes 4 AA batteries. I recommend getting a set or two of 2500mAh rechargeables, because the supplied Alkaline batteries lasted less than a day.
Batteries are very quick and easy to fit in a compartment on the base of the camera.

Picture Cards:

The S9500 takes either XD, Compact Flash or Microdrive picture cards.
The manual seems to imply you can only use XD OR CF, but I tried putting one 500Mb XD, and one 500Mb CF card in at the same time, and it works fine. You just need to set the media type using the setup menu to switch from one to the other.
If I did not already own XD cards, I would have opted for CF cards only, as they seem to be available cheaper than XD.

Turning it on:

A switch on the front right side of the camera is used to put the camera into OFF, Playback or Photography mode.
One minor niggle here is you have to go via Playback mode to get to Photography mode. It would have been better to have a separate ON/OFF switch.

The controls:

The left of the camera has a rubber flap covering connector sockets for USB, AV and DC power.
Also, there is:
A MACRO button - toggles between normal, macro and super macro modes.
An auto/manual focus selector switch.
An INFO button which displays a graph over the current view in either playback or photo mode. The graph shows the highlight/shadow distribution within the image. Apparently a nice smooth graph which rises in the middle indicates a correctly exposed image.
A button to release the flashgun to its operational position.

The lens barrel simply has a rubberised zoom ring and a manual focus ring. Although the camera's lens is quoted as being 28-300mm focal length, it is in fact 6.4-66mm focal length - (28-300mm is the equivalent on a standard 35mm camera). The lens has a 58mm thread mount for standard filters, and the plastic lens hood has a bayonet mount.

On the top right of the camera at the front is the shutter release button, which has a screw thread for a manual cable release, so you don't need to fork out for an electronic one.

Behind the shutter release / ON button there are three small buttons for flash options, exposure options and shot options.

Behind these three buttons is the option control wheel and the main function select wheel.

The option control wheel is used in conjunction with the three buttons to set the various flash, exposure and shot options when taking photos.

The main function select wheel has:
AUTO - which allows the camera to set shutter speed and aperture automatically.
P - Program mode which allows the user to alter the Aperture/Shutter combinations while maintaining correct exposure.
S - Shutter priority allows selection of shutter speeds between 1/4 second and 1/4000 second.
A - Aperture priority allows the aperture to be set between f2.8 and f11 - (seems there's only up to f8 in full auto).
M - manual setting of shutter between 30 seconds and 1/4000 second, and aperture between f2.8 to f11.
Video (camera symbol) - allows video to be taken at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 resolution, at 30 frames per second.
Night setting (moon and star symbol) - lets the camera decide on settings most appropriate for night shots.
Landscape (mountain symbol) - lets the camera decide on settings most appropriate for landscape shots.
Portrait (head symbol) - lets the camera decide on settings most appropriate for portrait shots.
Normal light (N) - lets the camera decide on settings most appropriate for everyday sunlit shots.
Anti shake (shaking man symbol) - lets the camera decide on settings which will tend to reduce camera shake. ie. high shutter speeds and ISO settings.

On the back, the camera has:
The media slot cover - behind which is the XD and CF slot.
Menu and joypad control.
F button to allow the setting of picture resolution, ISO (80 to 1600), and Color (Normal, Chrome or B&W).
The Electronic Viewfinder - with dipoter correction wheel.
LCD viewer. The EVF is like the eyepiece on any camera, except it shows a small LCD screen. This means you can't frame a shot without having the camera turned on. The LCD screen is about 1.75" x 1.25" and gives the same info as the EVF. The LCD is more suited to indoors use, as it can be difficult to see in bright light, but it can be tilted up or down to allow viewing from above or below. The dipoter control wheel is for us folk with poor eyesight, and it allows adjustment of the EFV so it can be seen sharply. The only thing is it is too close to the eyepiece, causing you to move your eye away when you use it.
Exposure locking knob and selector dial.
EVF/LCD toggle switch to change between the two options.
Focus checker button which magnifies part of the screen so you can more accurately set the focus.

Sports mode:

There is no sports mode. The manual indicates that to take photos of say a car moving quickly, you would need to focus on a point where you expect the car to be, lock focus on that point, then pan the camera until the car is at the focus point and use high shutter speed.

Personally, I prefer complete manual control (except auto focus - that is useful), instead of all the program options. The program options are very good and will usually give you a great photo, but you can't beat a bit of knowledge and manual settings.

Flash:

The in-buit flash is released with a button on the side of the eyepiece housing. Unlike most in-built flashes, this one is a good 3" from the centre line of the lens, and so it will reduce the likelyhood of red eye.
There are a number of flash options with internal eg. - red eye preflash - full auto - slow synch - fill in.
You can also set the camera to use external flash within the menu system - external hotshoe and socket are non-functional until you do this. Use of external flash requires knowledge of guide numbers, ISO and distance combinations, but this is always supplied with flashguns.

The pictures:

With my 1Gb of combined memory, I can take 220 shots on the best resolution (RAW mode is available as an option in the menu system, but it would reduce my number of pictures to around 50).

I will probably only ever use the 9F mode, which is the highest without going to RAW because you can always reduce the quality later, but you can't increase it, and 220 is enough pictures for me in one go.

When I got the camera set up and had managed to force myself to read a little bit of the manual, I was out there in the field behind the house doing some shots on full auto.

I found that the autofocus was sometimes a bit unsure when the lens was at its longest zoom setting, but this would probably be cured if manual focus was used (the default is the autofocus setting, where the camera is allowed to pick which parts of the image it should attempt to focus on. It can't always do this).

I tried long shots, macro close ups, and just about everything in between.

The images are recorded to the memory card fairly quickly after shooting, and an orange light flashes on the back until writing has completed. The image files contain all the information about the picture size and all the camera / lens settings, as well as the date and time to the second. This is called the EXIF info, which is viewable using most modern photo manipulation software, as well as the FinePix viewer software supplied.

You can also take video (AVI format), but my 1Gb would only give me about 10 minutes at the best resolution. Still, this is a nice to have feature for small clips. There is a slight problem with the video, ie. the microphone is close to the motor for the autofocus, so you get squeeks, beeps and whirrs over the sound of your video as the autofocus constantly tries to update.

To get the pictures/videos onto a PC, you can take out the cards and put them into a reader or use the USB cable and software provided. The FinePix viewer is a fairly simple album management program which starts up automatically when you plug in the USB cable. There is also a piece of software which is supposed to be for use with the video clips, as it came up with messages saying a key had to be purchased before use, so it was immediately deleted.

The file size of pictures taken in 9F mode is around 4.5Mb, which is pretty big.
The image quality, with one or two exceptions, is extremely good indeed. The exceptions being when I was trying to photograph grass at a distance on full zoom - the camera couldn't do it. To be fair, the manual does say that in some circumstances, like shiny surfaces or low contrast images, focus can be impossible using the auto setting.

I have rated the battery life at 10, but this only applies to high power rechargeable batteries. The rating for alkaline batteries would be a 2.

On the whole, it is a very capable prosumer camera, giving excellent photos under most conditions.

Some exceptions are:
Autofocus at long zoom - can be a bit iffy
Backlit high contrast subjects, eg. trees against bright sky - purple fringeing.

Anticipating my SLR move to digital, I tried out several models and read the reviews in magazines and online. Everything left me dissatisfied. Either cameras were at silly prices, making the total cost of ownership over 5 years far more than sticking to film and scanning prints and negs, or resolution was too low, so that I couldn't get decent enlargements. All except the priciest cameras had one or more real drawbacks too. Typically they felt 'wrong' to handle, or used poor cards, or were slow to start up and focus, or something else gave me that nag that means you won't ever be comfortable using this camera.

Then the Canon EOS350D came along. I'm still using film SLR's: a Canon EOS30E (that wonderful eye-control focusing!) and my old EOS650 (tough and intuitive to use); the 350D compares quite well with both in use, and works quickly and has a useful resolution, but it was TOO small and light, hard to grip and lacking stability. I felt more comfortable using my old cameras or a super compact digital; the kind that slips into a breast pocket. Overall, I reasoned in October 2005, that it was not quite time to make the changeover yet.

So I decided to get the well-reviewed Fuji S7000 to do digital work as a stop-gap, despite several serious flaws that the reviewers cover well.

Then the S9500 came out, and so - with an upcoming trip including California, Las Vegas and a once-in-a-lifetime Grand Canyon visit with both plane and helicopter trips, I bought one.

At the 9Mp max resolution the two 1GB cards I got were good for 420 shots each, so I could be snap-happy and forget processing costs. No need to lens swap: my big zoom wasn't any better than the S9500's lens. No film changing in the plane either, I thought!

And so it proved - but I could hardly believe the other advantages! Five packs of 2400mAh AA batteries and a multi-voltage charger powered the camera, extra high-power flash, CD player and MP3 player AND my torch! A borrowed laptop downloaded shots safely from the cards to CD, so I could take thousands at no extra cost (I edited back home, binning about two thirds and selecting about 100 for printing, with print charges LESS than with film processing!).

And the camera did all I could ask of it. Once I got used to the button layout and the menus, it was as easy to use as my film cameras, and it performed stunningly in bad light without flash, switched on too fast for me to notice any delay and focused reliably, even in light too low for my film cameras to 'see' to focus - only my dedicated Canon flash with its infra-red light focuses better (and that uses the same AA cells!). I used film only for the few ultra-wide-angle shots I wanted and when I needed that big flash.

So how does it compare with the SLR-Ds I tried? I didn't test any of them to the limit as the professional reviewers did, but I couldn't tell any practical difference between this 9500 and SLR's costing twice as much and with smaller-zooming lenses. No doubt the SLR's were better, particularly in CCD noise and lens quality - that's what you pay the extra for. But even when editing in Photoshop, I couldn't find anything to make me think, "if this had been a 650D/Dynax, etc., I could have..." And that's where it counts.

I won't now buy a digital SLR this year, or next, or probably until we get 24x36mm CCD's at 20Mp and under £500 for the body. And then I expect to buy Canon, just to use those lenses I'm keeping while I use my old film cameras to fill the few gaps this fixed-lens 9500 can't cover. Why aren't I selling them? Have you looked at what non-digital SLR's are now fetching on eBay? I wept!

Meanwhile, I can thoroughly recommend the Fuji S9500 as the perfect compromise between price and usability. It covers almost everything my semi-professional use can invent for it, that a full digital SLR could do. But I do wish it had my Canon EOS30E's eye control focusing!

Ever since I got the Fuji Finepix S9500 Zoom camera I take it everywhere with me. It doubles as a great camcorder too, so lightens the load on most trips.

What made me choose this camera was the manual twist barrel 10.7x optical zoom. I never liked the push button zooms you get on most cameras as these take too long to compose a shot - and they are not very precise either.

The S9500 allows you to compose a shot so fast you get the shot you are after. Only yesterday I was out with the camera on a 9.5 mile walk along a river, with the camera round my neck. The camera was off when I scared a moorhen out of cover from some reeds, and it half flew, half ran across the river. I brought up the camera, switched it on, and zoomed in to compose the shot in such a quick and swift movement I managed to get a shot of the moorhen skimming across the water with the ripples from each footstep in its wake. The cameras wake-up time is so quick!!

The features on the camera help get that perfect shot, but for a novice the number of features can be daunting, and may never be touched with the program mode left on AUTO - which is perfect for the point and shoot aspect of photography which most of us do anyway. With so many features I end up taking more than one shot of a subject using the different program modes - I find this helps with getting to know the camera and what program mode to be in for a particular shot. OK, this does sound like too much fiddling around, but you do not have to do this - there are the basic "Landscape", "Night", "Portrait"... etc modes for those of you who just want to get the shot over and done with :o)

So far I have been lucky enough to use the camera in most circumstances - landscape, portraits, macro, and action shots, and I find the camera so great to use in all these scenarios. OK, some of the pictures have not come out as expected - but that is just user error :o)

The option to show a grid on the display is very useful for taking landscape photos etc. I no longer have to worry about having to rotate pictures due to not holding the camera level as I can use the display against the horizon for reference.

The menu system is a breeze to get round, with loads of extra features here too, but I have not used many of these features yet, getting only as far as using the User-Setting white balance, timer, and a neat battery discharge feature :o) But there are so much more to play around with and change.

The flip-up LCD is excellent to use. At first I thought I would have liked one that rotates fully like the Minolta A200, but have since changed my mind - the flip-up is just enough, although I would like to be able to face the LCD inwards to protect it, as most of the time I use the view-finder screen for taking shots when out & about. A neat trick is to purchase a plastic cover you can get for the Sony-PSP and trim it to size and stick it to the LCD - protects it nicely from scratches, and is easily removed if you want to replace it.

The video mode is excellent, and saves you have to carry a camcorder round, unless of course you know you will be doing more movies than stills. But the quality is excellent and I can get about 5 minutes on my 512mb XD card.

The things I would like to see changed, which I am sure can be done by a simple software upgrade - but first I need to explain a feature I use on the camera which lets you choose how long a picture stays on the screen for after you have taken it. I have this set to indefinite until I press the "OK" button, which then takes it off the screen and allows me to take another photo. While the picture is on the screen I would like to be able to: 1) Delete the picture - this will save time in the transfer of pictures, or going into view mode to delete it. 2) Allow me to add a voice comment without having to go into view mode.

In essence this camera is excellent, and I am glad I waited for it to hit the shops. I love it. I purchased the Lowe Pro Rezo 140 case for it, and it fits in perfectly with just enough room for some accessories - so I recommend this case :o) I also recommend Uniross 2800mah rechargeable batteries - I have a 2 packs of 4 and they seem to last forever - I can go a whole day of zooming, switching on and off, taking photos etc, and a single pack will last all day, taking in excess of 140 pictures.