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Not for indoor action (2009-12-23)
Excellent all around camera however it has two significant drawbacks. First, the flash does not acutally charge until you press the shutter. This is OK for posed stills but creates a problem when shooting motion requiring a flash as the subject frequently ends up not centred. Second, if you are using the flash regularly, (say shooting indoors at reception) you burn through batteries fairly quickly. 200 shots took three sets of 4 AAs. Fuji could improve this camera tremendously by adding a hot shoe for a separate flash and a battery pack that can keep up with constant use. Otherwise this a good camera for the money.

The best camera for the amateur photographer (2009-11-18)
Hi,

I bought this in Germany immediately after seeing it in an electronics store. Well the initial days were tough for me to get good pictures because I don't know much about photography and the camera settings. I have spent few days in educating myself on digital photography.

after two months.... my photos are praised by many people, by my friends and people whom I don't know. What I like most is

1. strong colors in pics
2. The optical zoom (I love it)
3. Built-in shooting modes (no need to scratch head)
4. face detection and image stabilization
5. Adjustable image sizes based on mega pixel selection
6. All buttons seems to be perfectly placed

What I don't like
1. The lens cap is always an obstacle
2. Some times the images are blurred for no reason.
3. The slowest shutter speed is only 4 sec. There is no bulb feature.
4. Some times the colors are very light that they don't look good (May be I have to learn)

Totally this camera was the best for the price (I bought for much low price at the time).
For a beginner and amateur photographer this will give great experience.

Cheers
Gunasekhar

pretty good camera for the money (2009-09-16)
Easy to use and the image quality is pretty good, battery life is good too.

Good camera. . . (2009-08-19)
The S8100 Fuji is a good camera. . . just like a true SLR except the fact you can't change lenses, everything else is very good.

Great Camera! (2009-07-29)
If you don't have the money for an SLR but want something better than a point and shoot, then this is the camera to get. I've had this camera for over a year and have taken absolutely amazing pictures with it. I've taken well over 12,000 shots with the camera, so I know how the camera will perform in certain conditions. I mostly keep it in the manual modes, so I don't have much to say as to how it performs in the automatic modes only that when I used them, the camera produced good shots, nothing special but still good nonetheless.

First the lens and auto focus:
The 18x optical zoom is generous, definitely getting you close to your subject, however you get a bit of lens distortion at the full focal length. You can tell that the picture was taken from a distance Not a bit deal to me, an annoyance to others. Auto focus works well, fairly fast in daylight, but takes a bit longer in low light. An AF assist beam helps quicken the time in low light which can be turned off if you prefer. Manual focus leaves a lot to be desired, its somewhat buried in the menus, uses the zoom control in combination with the exposure button, and is very slow. Most people won't be using the manual focus so its not that big of a deal, especially since the auto focus works so well. You can select different areas to focus on, continuous focusing, and of course the face recognition. I don't often use the face recognition feature, just because its easier and faster for me to point the camera at the person, focus, then move the camera back and take the picture. It is cool however to see the camera find the faces and remove the red eye, if any, after the picture is taken. On a side note, the camera "remembers" the faces so when you go to review a picture that you've taken with face recognition you can press that button again and the camera will zoom in and show just that persons face, press it again and it will cycle through the faces of others if it found those as well. Macro and super macro modes work excellent. The super macro mode opens up a whole different type of photography. You can get extremely close to the subject and see details that you would certainly miss with other cameras

Resolution:
Its ten megapixels, what do you expect? The image size is about 1.5 to 2 megabytes at full resolution, i can fit around 700 pictures on my 2 gig card. Other image sizes are also selectable on the camera if you want to save space. I was a disappointed that I couldn't shoot in raw, but then again this isn't an SLR, so don't expect it to be. One disappointing part of the camera is the noise from higher ISO settings. I don't usually go above ISO 400. ISO 800 is grainy and grows worse as you go higher. Unfortunately, the auto modes will often set at ISO 800, and in burst shooting ISO 800 is the lowest you can set.

Body:
The camera feels well built. The rubber grip makes it easy to hold and feels much nicer than the textured plastic found on other camera models. The camera's not heavy, but not light either. Buttons are easily accessible and are also surrounded with a rubber grip.

Misc:
Video; I consider this a bonus on a camera, cameras are supposed to take pictures, camcorders take video. Video quality is fair. You can't zoom while recording.
Burst shooting; works great, provides a really cool effect, however as mentioned earlier the noisy ISO 800 ruins the details of the group of photos.
Flash; works well, only mentioning it because of how it's activated. The camera can't raise the flash you have to manually raise the flash with a button on the side. I love that it does this because if i want it off i push the flash down and thats it. Other cameras take a few button presses to turn the flash on or off.


Sadly my camera is failing. I've taken it in for repair but it would cost upwards of 300 dollars to fix. The main circuit board is fried as well as a few of the motors that run the lens barrel. Even though I've only had it a year and it's already broke, I still rate it four stars because; one, I've not seen anyone else with this problem, and two, I've used this camera excessively, well beyond that of an average user. The camera would sometimes get warm/hot after taking several hundred pictures in a row. I figure this was what was frying the circuits. Again the average person won't take as many pictures as I do each day so this will most likely not happen to you.

This is a great camera, it's served me well and I'm sure it would serve you well also.