Has inspired me. But you should know the weaknesses.

That's my 7.Digitalkamera and I am a dedicated amateur photographer. The only clarifying what level of ambition I came from. This review is carried out after 3 months, 1,300 photos, both festivities, as well as vacation photos.

The Fuji 6500fd is an absolute value for Hammer. Around 300 Euro (May 2007) a manual 28-300mm zoom, superior light sensitivity and best in class resolution ... that's nowhere comparable. Heaviest disadvantage: automatic modes largely unusable. In Detail:

The strengths:

+) Extremely high sensitivity. Photos with ISO800 are still outstanding, ISO1600 is also useful. This means that you can work without flash and without tripod at every artificial light. Or with a flash, a large flash range has in very balanced exposure between foreground and background.

+) 28mm wide angle is a must for me. Manual zoom adjustment is incomparably better than all the annoying motor zoom.

+) The 6MP sensor kicks in my resolution 8MP Canon by far. At the same time the FUJI dark parts is distinguished far better, so it has a much better dynamic range, where other cameras drown the mark long ago. And so I get out of the Fuji images with an average of 3MB memory requirements that are far better than from a Canon in 5MB memory footprint!

+) Autofocus is fast and reliable.

+) Face detection works, but you must expect no miracles. If the face is turned away or too dark or too small, then it's just not. But is urgenial: self-timer with face recognition!

+) Good idea: image control with magnifying glass: the final image is displayed immediately with the largest magnification and you can see whether it might be blurred.

+) Handling and ergonomics is very successful and raises genuine SLR feel. Only that I at that time with the analog SLR much less image quality and options had (at multiple price + weight).

The EVF is often criticized, but is quite useful and especially in bright light far more pleasant than to stare at the screen, but it is actually excellent.

The Weaknesses:

Nearly all automatic modes are unusable because the camera the automatic white balance produces a cruel blue / purplish tinge that I wonder if the Fuji technicians are colorblind. The white balance for sun rotated around white space into the blue and the images are almost unusable. After trial and error, I've found:

Almost always in the open air, the white balance for cloudy "the best.

In artificial light, however, the automatic white balance works very well again.

The macro is weak. Since giving better. Video I've actually made none, but should be well reputed.

Of course, a foldable screen, image stabilizer wants (in sensitivity but quite unnecessary), user-programmable buttons, Customer Settings (and perhaps even television channels and Internet). But when one draws the price into consideration is the Fuji 6500 an unbeatable offer.

Bottom line: If you are prepared around a little note and will rely not only on automatic, we achieved excellent photos that exceed all my previous cameras significantly. The camera has impressed me.