Fuji FinePix S6500

I bought the Fuji FinePix S6500 as I could not afford a top range camera and find that it is easy to use a very good mid range camera very ecellent optical zoom plus digital good macro facilities excellent battery life loads of feature overall a very user friendly camera. Overall i find this camera fits my photography uses at the price i can afford.

Awesome sensitivity and low noise even at ISO 800 - great for deep sky astro photography with afocal, projection or adapter (F58 to Mxx where xx is the diameter of the eyepiece threads).

A Fuji FinePix S6500 is a good little basic digital camera for general use but with some crucial limitations. Firstly, no PC socket or hotshoe to use an external flash. The inbuilt flash cannot be bounced and can be harsh. Don't know if its possible to fire a slave flash either. Viewfinder is a crude digital image and is not comparable to a traditional SLR's quality. Manual operated zoom is an improvement over the motorised earlier versions and is useful for "cine film" mode. Beware, however, that XD memory cards are horrendously expensive compared to SD cards.This camera is great for most general photography situations, but has limitations in more technical applications

Purchased the S6500 camera 2 weeks ago and taken about 400 shots in various situations to see what it can do. Disappointed with the quality of the lens-does not seem crisp and very disappointed with the quality of the electronic viewfinder. The image quality is so poor through the viewfinder that it is impossible to artistically compose a photo and LCD screens are useless in full sunlight in Australia. I have owned SLR film cameras in the past and was tossing up between an SLR digital and the Fujipix. Chose the Fujipix because it seemed to have all the features of an SLR at half the price. False economy, should have gone for the D-SLR (Nikon D40). In defence of the Fujipix, I like the zoom range of the lens, pity it is not crisp enough. Also the XD cards are quite expensive in Australia. I can live with most of the shortcomings of the camera but not with the poor quality of the viewfinder - it makes taking pictures a nightmare. On paper this looks to be the perfect camera so try before you buy. Have also had a bit of trouble erasing the xD card, keep getting error messages. I take all my photos on 6mp fine. Be very interested in hearing from others who have similar experience or maybe a solution.