Sharp pictures, pretty easy to use once you read the manual, some exposure control, easy to carry and hide. Instant loading. Modest zoom doesn't require 800 ASA at extension.

Reverts to default settings after exposure, or after 5 minutes non-use, but not with everything. Needs rubber grips. Unneeded daylight flashing. Minimal low battery warning.

Wouldn't be without it. My big SLR ruins vacationing, so I picked this up on the way to the airport, carried it unobtrusively on my belt, and brought back 300 sharp clear pictures of Paris. Modest but adequate aperture control if you want it. Not a pro's camera, but this one is with me when the picture is there to shoot. Wish it would stay on No Flash, etc until told otherwise; you risk flashing the Mona Lisa when it automatically reverts to default. An excellent value; a camera this small shouldn't take such nice pictures.

Customer Service

Unneeded

Similar Products Used:

none

high contrast lens, almost no flare even in backlight situations. Very lightweight camera with a good look and feel. I consider the 28 mm zoom very useful.

Surface delicate and slippery. Zoom allows only 4 steps. The flash is almost like no flash.

A sharp and crispy lens with the useful 28 mm setting.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Contax TVS I, Rollei 35S, Minox 35, Canon Super 28

Looks like a tin can - no one gives it a second thought.

Sharp lens!

Nice, truly wide focal length. Puts decent quality 28mm, 35mm, and 50mm lenses into your shirt pocket.

Lots of ways to take control.

The multi-function toggle button on the back is easy to use and instantly understandable.

Incredible value - lots of features and buckets of quality at a relatively low price.

Fill-flash triggers even in bright sunlight with 400-speed film. That's nice, unless everyone in your family wears glasses (like mine). Be sure to turn the flash off any time you're shooting something reflective.

There are five distinct zoom positions, at 28mm, 35mm, 45mm, 50mm, and 56mm. There is a lot of light fall-off at 28mm, enough to be very noticeable. At the next position, there's a chunk of light fall-off on the right side of the picture. At the third zoom position, this is less noticeable. By the fourth zoom position, about 50mm, light fall-off is gone. At full zoom, illumination is very even.

Flare is a problem with direct or near-direct backlight. Oddly enough, at full zoom the flare did not go all the way across the image. At the wide angle setting, backlighting leads to considerable contrast-reducing flare, whether or not the backlight setting is selected.

TIPS: A little bit of gaffer's tape makes this a much better-handling camera. I put a narrow strip above the viewfinder, which keeps the aluminum from scratching my glasses. I put another piece or two on the battery to keep the battery door fitting snugly. And, I double-taped a large square on the sliding cover, which gives my fingers a better grip to slide it open.

There are soem useful tools here, including a manual backlight mode (unlike the Olympus Epic and Pentax 115M, which both sense backlight automatically), exposure compensation (somewhat less useful than one might think), and manual scale focusing (somewhat more useful than one might think). Thoughtful touch: in infinity focus mode, the flash turns off so you get better exposure of distant things in shadows - buildings and mountains, for instance. Exposure compensation is effective, as is the manual scale focusing. Neat tip: the manual scale focusing takes the focused distance into account when setting the exposure. In tricky situations, scale focusing nailed the exposure every time, where the AE was often fooled.

A superb little camera that rewards the thoughtful user.

Customer Service

Not needed.

Similar Products Used:

Nothing really comparable, but a bunch of other p&s zooms that didn't go so wide.

Uncommon Wide angle.
Reliable auto focus.
Accurate AE.
Manual overides.
Decent flash.
Small and compact.
Sturdy alum. body.
Excellent pics overall.
Great for landscapes.
Produces pics with superb detail.

Alum body is slippery.
Viewfinder is small - hard to use with glasses, but not impossible. Manual focus hard to use. Indoor shots tend to be a little dark with 200 speed film.

After replacing my fixed lens Canon point and shoot with a Minolta APS, I was looking for a better value. The Minolta APS always produced lackluster prints and the developing cost hurt as well. I went with Fuji because of the wide angle lens, alum. body, and price. I travel a lot and like to take pictures for memories and not art. This camera has constantly produced excellent pictures time after time. The camera's wide angle has been more the adequate to capture any vista. Very reliable. Wonderful camera to have for pictures you can't afford to be ruined. Plus, you can't beat the price vs quality on this tiny camera. Great camera with superb attributes for people who demand above average results and can't afford to spend a fortune.

Customer Service

Not used.

Similar Products Used:

Canon P&S
Minolta APS

Great lens, nicely constructed, beautiful, accurate focusing

No real macro, larger than I expected (I use a Minox 35GT)

Excellent camera, and a bargain, buy it for the lens.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

none

Beautiful body, beautiful pictures, you can correct all settings (but hardly ever have to). The tiny size obviously brings limitations for the lens specs but not for the quality.

Not really, but just some imperfections to stop it being absolutely perfect.
- What is the difference between the standard default flash setting and the fill-in flash, since it always flashes anyway in "auto-flash"?
-You can have so much fun playing with the manual setting disc that you forget to take the picture! There are quicker ways to set these things, but not so much fun.
- Display illumination for more than just a few minutes after you leave bright light would be handy.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I think it is discontinued after less than 4 years, although it is still in the Fuji US web site. That is a great pity.

At that size you can hardly expect a 28 to 120 mm lens with 2.8 max. aperture. The Fuji compromise is just right.

Customer Service

No experience

Similar Products Used:

A lot, but nothing that gives this much at this size.

great lens with 28mm focal length at the wide end, exposure compensation (+/- 2 stops), manual focus if necessary, and metal body.

flash always fires in auto mode and most of the overides have to be reset after each frame

This is the best point and shoot camera I have ever used, alhough I would not recommend it for someone who is not familiar with all the features of SLRs. All of the manual overrides and will just confuse people who are just not interested. I tend to think of it as a budget version of the so-called "posh point-and-shoots", like the Contax TVS, Leica Minilux, Nikon 35ti, etc. At first the autoflash firing even in broad daylight was annoying, but I'm now in the habit of turning the flash off most of the time. Although the flash is not powerful, it does a great job for fill flash and I now use that alot more than I used to. The exposure compensation really comes in handy and I'm using it just as much as I do on my SLR. You have to mess around with the controls more than you should on a point and shoot, but fortunately they are well laid out. It takes a little while to get used to, but when you do the Fuji DL Super Mini gives excellent results.

Similar Products Used:

Pentax IQ Zoom EZ-R
Rollei Prego 70

Metal Body
Wide angle (28mm)
Optics

Noisy zoom mechanism

This camera was not as small as I was hoping it would be; it's a little larger than the Olympus Stylus Epic. Nonetheless, this camera is still small enough that I can grab it and run out the door. Regardless, with the silver body and a design similar to some digital cameras, this is still an aesthetically appealing camera.

This camera is able to produce great pictures! I have not had the opportunity to tinker with the manual settings yet, but with the point & shoot features, I was able to get crystal clear (not grainy) photos with beautiful color saturation.

This camera produces some of the best pictures I have taken on a P&S. It is well worth the price.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Pentax IQ Zoom 105
Fuji Discovery
Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom

- small
- fantastic pictures!!!
- comparable 2 my SLR ... no joke!

Metal body is a little slick when the whether is hot & your fingers begin to perspire ...

Gr8 camera @ a great price .. c if u can pick one up off eBay!

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Canon Sureshot 120
Olympus Stylus Epic QD

Lens Quality
Size
Versatility (eg manual focus, exposure comp)
Exposure accuracy
Quality of results

Quite noisy
Lens speed (only F4.5 -7.5)
Flash fires all the time
Overexposure with fill-in flash
Vignetting at 28mm
Reliability?

The bottom line here is that for the money (this camera is discontinued and available for peanuts from shops which still have stocks) this is a very good compact and one which is fun to use. I'm fairly critical of my photo gear and only use slide film, so any failings a camera may have I discover pretty quickly.
I wanted a quality small camera to replace my much-loved XA. I bought a Minox ML which was superb but totally unreliable. After going through 3 (all with faulty shutters) in 5 months which were replaced under warranty, I gave up, got my money back and decided to try something new. I could not afford a GR1s, so this Fuji which is rated as a 'best Buy' here in the UK for only $150 seemed a steal, and although I have had the camera replaced under warranty, on the whole I am very happy with it.
The lens is very nice and sharp, but I consider it to not be as good as my Nikkor's (contrary to the comments of some other reviewers). Being a cheap compact, I didn't for one moment expect it to be. Once you're used to it the exposure system is accurate and good enough for slides. It seems that the metering is very centre weighted, almost like a partial metering pattern. This caused me problems until I tested it more thoroughly, but now I have total confidence and my slides are usually well saturated and 'punchy'. The camera is quite noisy when focusing and zooming, much more so than my previous choices, and that is disappointing. Candid work is only possible in fairly noisy surroundings. It's small size makes it easy to carry everywhere, and I have taken the advice of another reviewer on this site and attached strips of gaffer tape to it to make it more tactile. It also helps to tone-down the shiny aluminium exterior. The controls are different but very easy to operate once you are familiar with them.
The flash is good when under control. It has a tendency to overexpose in daylight fill situations, and this can be a problem because, irritatingly, it appears that the flash wants to fire all the time. You have to programme yourself to cancel the flash as soon as you turn the camera on.
As the maximum aperture on the lens is only F4.7, I have found that using ISO 100 film can cause camera shake problems. I have switched to 200, which has amazed me with its quality, and helped prevent some of the shake and vignetting I was getting with 100.
The only other problem I should mention is some vignetting at 28mm which can make the sky in slides look like you've used one hell of a polariser! But again, once you know about it, you can work around it or use it to your advantage.
A final note of caution; The LCD on my first camera packed up after only 2 months, and I read from other contributors on other websites that this has happened to them too, So perhaps the reliability is questionable. The second camera is only 3 months old so I am not able to confirm its reliability yet. However, as my benchmark for reliability is my FM2n, I think I may be forever disappointed on that one.
To sum up: This is a great little compact which will deliver the goods if you work within its limitations. My review may sound negative, but I don't feel that way about the camera, I just want potential users to be aware of any problems which they may experience. If you want this Fuji to be a pocketable SLR - you are almost certain to be disappointed. If you want a versatile, easy to use, quality compact that produces fantastic results at an unbeatable price - You may just have found what you've been looking for!

Customer Service

Very Good, the LCD on the back of the camera stopped working after 2 months and the camera was replaced within a week of sending it off.

Similar Products Used:

Minox ML
Olympus XA