1. Overview

 

The FujiFilm FinePix F550EXR / F500EXR (no gps version) has been first announced 5th Jan 2011 as the F300EXR  successor.

Despite its availability, it hasn’t been reviewed yet by popular camera reviewing websites; the purpose of this article is giving a first, non professional review of this potentially rule-setting camera.

Let me point out that the F550EXR and F500EXR are identical except the latter lacks gps and raw shooting.
Due to colour, availability and price considerations I picked the F500 but for the purpose of this review I will just refer to it as F550EXR – as it appears to be more popular.

Why is the F550EXR so special?

This is the first Fuji compact camera to adopt a new generation 16MPixel BSI CMOS sensor, proven EXR technology, 15X (24-360mm) lenses.
And it comfortably fits in your pocket.

The F550EXR also has builtin GPS, which is a nice extra to organize pictures.
There’s even an in-screen feature to help you come back to the exact place a photo has been taken.

If you don’t care of GPS and raw shooting then you can save a few bucks and pick the  Fuji F500EXR.

The F550 (GPS version) is available only in stylish black with some red details, while the F500EXR is available in 5 colours: silver, gold, black, red and blue.

Unboxing

This is what you get out of the package:

- 16 MegaPixel camera
- NP-50 Battery (3.6V 950mA)
- Direct wall plug charger
- Analog A/V cable (mono audio, despite the camera records stereo)
- USB cable
- Wrist strap
- Paper printed Basic Manual
- Optical disc with software and advanced manual

First Impressions

The camera looks slim, neat and stylish with shiny black body and some silver details.
The 3″ display is nicely bright, saturated and gives an excellent preview of photos at 460k  dots resolution, same as many DSLR.
Be advised your fingerprints will stick on the plastic shiny body of the camera (especially the black version .

First time you switch on the camera your left hand finger will eventually block the flash from popping out. This is a bit annoying at first but then you get used to it.
Luckily if you just need to look at the pictures, you can switch on the camera with the play button without having the lens and flash automatically opened.

The battery and especially the connection covers look flimsy, but hopefully that shouldn’t be a problem if you treat them with care.

I noticed the objective is a tiny bit loose when at full telephoto, but since it’s rather long I think this is not an issue.

Camera is very snappy with zooming, focusing or just browsing through pictures being all surprisingly fast operations (it’s powered by some dual core CPU, according to official youtube video).
Wide angle to full telephoto zooming had me seriously impressed: just 2 seconds from 24 to 360mm (15X). If you’re wondering about fine grained zooming don’t worry, I counted at least 35 stops.

While I usually like to play with Manual settings (not so manual after all) I’ve definitely felt in love with the EXR S/N (high Sensitivity/reduced Noise) mode. More on this next page…