FinePix F700 Digital Camera

Summary: This is not a horrible camera, but Fuji really needs to rethink the desin. same can be said for their software. while there are some good features with this product, the CCD they chose to use just plain old gave up twice. as i mentioned above, we had 4 of them. 2 of them had to get the CCD replaced once, 2 had to get them replaced twice. now Fuji will not support them at all. they do not carry the parts for the f700. if you send one in, they send you a letter that offers you an upgrade for about $50 under current list price. the software makes me want to pull my hair out. sometimes, when you plug in your camera, the software works, but more often then not, it wont. i found it much easier to disable the program and go into the camera like a hard drive. the other problem with the software iis, it like to hide your photos. that way, when you cannot find them, you have to use their program to see or print your photos. word to the wise, if you buy this unit, only install the drivers.

Summary: I bought this camera a year before my wedding. I planned on giving it to a non-professional friend to snap as many pictures for me as possible during the event because the camera seems very easy to use and a novice could take excellent pictures without knowing anything. I bought an extra battery and battery charger, and over 1G in memory so I could have MANY MANY pictures taken on one day. I really invested in this camera.

For 9 months I took thousands of pictures with this camera. YES thousands. I take a lot of pictures and my camera goes with me everywhere. I was generaly happy with the outcome and glad I had it for the upcomeing wedding. I even used it to shoot two of my friends weddings as a suppliment to their professionals with much success! One said mine were just as nice as the professionals so I knew the camera was taking great shots.

However at the 9 month mark it broke. It started taking eerie and abstract green/purple photos. It was under warrenty so I sent it back to Fugi to be fixed. They said it would be back in time for the wedding in 3 months (they said 4-6 weeks tops). I was happy to hear this.

The wedding came and went. I borrowed what turned out to be a less superior point and shoot digital camera that would accept my memory cards and batteries (I made a deal with the store that I could borrow a compatable camera because they were the ones who sold me and were helping me with my F700). This camera ended up taking pretty horrible pictures and was not very user-friendly especialy indoors.

After the wedding when I finally got my camera back 6 months later and took it home I discovered that the "new refurbished model" they gave me took VERY blurry pictures. The focus was not working correctly. Oh joy divine! I had to send it back to be fixed again. This time it took only two months to recieve another refurbished model which did not have focusing issues.

I have owned this referbished camera now for two years and I am mostly pleased with it. It does have a few broken pixels on the viewing screen and Im not always happy that the pictures sometimes are just a tiny tiny bit blurred and the flash sometimes washes out everything when you use macros. I also feel like it doesnt take the same quality pictures as my original camera that broke did. The original one really took great pictures and this "new" one is slightly off. But otherwise it takes decent pictures. This model is REALLY good about not producing red-eye which is something I love about it.

However, Im still very upset about what happened to the original because I bought it specificaly for my wedding and then it didnt even get used and the "replacement camera" I used took really bad pictures but I couldnt afford to buy a new camera and pretty much had to accept the replacement with graditude for the event.

Im rating it a 6 because it is a good camera when it is working although it's not perfect. The fact that it broke with less than a years use and that the first replacement sent to me was also malfunctioning I can not rate it any higher than a 6. If it hadnt ever broken and i had my original camera I may have given it a 7 or 8.