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Every once in a while a carmaker will shoehorn a honking hot engine into an economy car, resulting in such curiosities as the 230-horsepower turbocharged Dodge Neon. Fujifilm had much the same idea with the FinePix E900 ($420 street): Take the 9-megapixel Super CCD of the FinePix S9000 superzoom EVF and install it in a coat-pocket compact.
The result in both instances is a heap of fun and performance, with a few rough edges. First, performance: We are happy to report that the little unit’s imaging is on par with the big unit’s, with Excellent resolution and Extremely High (just shy of Excellent) color accuracy. Fine, but while several 8MP compacts deliver similar resolution and color, nearly all produce digital noise that’s off the charts by ISO 200. Not the E900, which has Very Low noise at ISO 80–100, Low at 200–400, and only Moderately Low noise at 800—a truly stellar performance for a compact. Moreover, we tested the E900’s resolution at ISO 800 and found a nearly unnoticeable drop in resolution—just some extra grain and slightly lower contrast. And the lens has low distortion—essentially none at longer focal lengths.
That’s where the fun comes in. The E900 is a truly useful low-light candid camera, particularly if you keep the 4X optical zoom (32–128mm equivalent) at the wider end where it’s faster. Adding to the fun are the very fast startup, capture, and write speeds; you can essentially fire off shots as fast as you can lift your finger off the shutter button and press it again. The autofocusing is also quite fast, and while lacking a focus-assist lamp, it can focus in very dim conditions as long as there is a detail to lock onto.
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