Fujifilm FinePix S9600 > Reviews > An outstanding camera, a great investment

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Excellent
Range & Quality of Features	Excellent
Ease of Use	Easy
Overall Look & Design	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Picture quality, manual features, movies, tilting screen, robust feeling, fantastic zoom and picture size
Disadvantages:	Size and weight can be a hindrance for some people, although I actually like this .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Fujifilm s9600 is a phenomenal camera. I bought it a couple of months ago from Amazon and have not had a single problem (apart from delayed delivery). The item itself is not an SLR, but the quality of pictures it produces is right up there with the semi-pros in my opinion. I am only a photography enthusiast, so like to fiddle with options and manual controls when I can, but often flip it to Auto mode when a quick photo is needed.

The s9600 has a fixed lens, so is therefore more of a bridge camera - absolutely perfect if you want outstanding picture quality without the expense of additional lenses. When deciding what to buy, I was debating for quite a while whether I should go for the Canon 400D or this. In the end I came down on the Fuji due to its amazing zoom capacity (10.7x optical) and macro all in one. I just couldn't justify the cost of the Canon and all the other equipment I would need to have this range of focus.

Pretty much all of my images so far have been bright, clear and sharp. When taking photos indoors in the Automatic mode, it is easy to get blur as the slightly longer exposure time requires the subjects (and you!) to keep perfectly still. This is particularly difficult when photographing animals, but the great thing about the s9600 is that you can quite easily just slip it into manual mode to compensate for this by adjusting it all yourself. However, practise may be needed for good results!

The fantastic 9.0 megapixels allows for any image to be blown up to almost any size you like for printing. As far as I'm aware, there is not yet a commonly available computer monitor capable of viewing an image in its entirety. This just shows how large these images are. Of course, any image can be viewed on any PC; it's just that when you see them on screen, you can zoom in further before reaching 100% magnification. My family is still astonished when I show them a photo taken at 10.7x zoom and then zoom in further on the computer to reveal, for example, a person sitting on a bench in the background which they didn't even know was there!

A nice additional function is the zoom capability during the recording of movies. This works very well and the sound quality is also excellent. A movie function is not something you would get with most SLRs. The tilting LCD screen has worked wonders in large crowded places such as music gigs, allowing perfectly framed pictures to be taken above the crowd. Having only had small, compact cameras before, the manual zoom is a superb function. It really does allow more maximum flexibility and creativity, as does the manual focus.

I really can't praise this camera enough. Although I have not yet had time to fully explore every feature, everything I have used so far has been easy, quick and given great results. I suppose the only downside would be it's large size and weight, but if you are serious about getting quality, then this really is the way to go.