FUJIFILM FinePix E550 Digital Camera

I bought the camera off Amazon a few months back for £149 which was very cheap at the time. Camera prices seem to be dropping all the time and i was a bit concerned that i may have payed too much for a now ageing model. How wrong was i! This is the first digital camera i have ever bought after owning many complicated and expensive semi pro SLRS. This camera is awsome! It has a wide range of features for the experienced photographer and a very simple auto mode which is for the point and shoot people. Another good feature which the latest cameras are doing away with is a viewfinder. Everyone knows its virtually immpossible to frame a picture in low light just looking at the LCD screen. Well you can with the viewfinder. It maybe old fashioned but its functional. The screen by the way is large enough for anybody with partial blindness to see clearly. Its also very clear especially good viewing the pictures you have previously taken. Many cameras lately that i have seen have poor quality small screens. The most immportant thing is the quality of pictures it takes. They are perfect and you would believe the camera to be at least 9megapixels.One thing i would say is to get loads of spare Ni-Mh batteries cause all the digital cameras seem to be heavy on them. All in all i have no complaints at all. Allthough being an older model it may be a bit bigger in overall size than the newer stuff. Buy one and i promise you wont be dissapointed.

Although I am reasonably pleased with camera, and the vendor did give a correct description of item, they omitted to say some things it did not come with as what it would have done from brand new, i.e. no rechargeable batts. and battery charger,(and this thing really eats up duracells) not even the wrist strap or plug cover (all these things came with it when new).

nice neat compact little camera. with the option to add on telephoto lens. The instructions are quitw simple and in English but I am still trying to understand all the different options, but thats me and not the camera. The photos are clear and the camera is simple to use even for the amateur like me. Well recommended.

The camera is very easy to use and lightweight, although weight is not an important feature to me.
The current consumption is on the high side, as dry cell batteries do not last very long, and rechargable cells have to be high A/hr rating to get any advantage over the primary cells.
The camera does give very good images, I just used it in auto mode, randomly, in good and poor lighting conditions, with and without flash.
Most images were good to satisfactory.
A case would have been nice as would a charger, those I had to purchase from a separate supplier.
There is a cheap case in Asda for those contemplating buying a similar item.

MY BOYFRIEND AND I HAVE JUST COME BACK FROM A HOLIDAY IN GREECE.I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CAMERAS BUT AS MY BOYFRIEND IS A PHOTOGRAPHER HE RECKONED THAT IT SEEMED TO BE A VERY GOOD CAMERA FOR THE PRICE AND IT CERTAINLY PROVED ITSELF! EXCELLENT CLEAR PHOTOS. THE ONLY DOWNSIDE IS THAT IT USES BATTERIES AT A RAPID RATE

ebay bying is good. Particularly when you may not have sufficeient time to buy.
But the traders are smarter then customers.
This camera had no accessories like battery - charger - bag etc. so buying seperately becomes costlier too.
Anyway GOOD LUCK TO ALL !!!

only 16 MB memory card was available with camera.
I had to correspond to get product-manual. Finally I got it.
Girishkumar Patel

I have bought this item and as yet I have not recieved it and I am really worried because it looks like I have been cheated. I have made my payment via paypal It has been deducted from my Bank account I would expect an answer immediately to my claim.

Paul Bellizzi

Excellent camera, takes picture near enough instantly not like some of the other digitals that have a huge delay and take pic after child has moved.
It is excellent and would recommend to anyone it so easy to use.

This a first class camera giving excellent results. It has a wide range of features and enlargements up to A4 are certainly comparable with those from quality SLR cameras. Unusually, in today's digital compacts,it also has a viewfinder, which can be used when lighting conditions make the LCD display impossible to see clearly.

i dont like because not working they away it show on picture
and if not working there is no away to get on contact with seller

i havnt got item yet and have payed for it 2 months ago i will never buy anything of these clowns again and i hope you can advise all ebay customers i have bought many things from ebay but im starting to dought if this is a save way to buy things

The E550 is now spectacular value at about £50 - mine was a refurb.
It is fast, small, solid feeling, good VGA movies, good flash power, full PASM control and good macro, takes AA batteries but use Lithium or 2000+mAh rechargeables, or it soon stops.
The 12Mpix are OTT, but you can make A2 prints that look pretty good on the wall. I did it with A4 printer, in 4 sections, but mainly I use the 3Mpix/800ISO setting and then A4 prints are fine. You need the 800ISO for poor light and extra flash range, and AUTO will not set ISO800 - you have to select it. Then leave it on AUTO and see the good results. Set a little underexposure for save highlights.
Bad point - the control knob on top moves too easily. I tape it. It is pretty solid so is heavy compared with modern compacts, but I prefer that.
See the Highly Recommended report in dpreview.com.

Which they do - BIG time!
Just do a search and you'll see how many victims like me there are.
Very disappointing Mr Fuji, I will not be buying from you again.

I bought this camera to replace another one exactly the same which finally went wrong after a lot of use over the last 2 years.
The camera has a lot of features, and I found the menu system easy to understand and use, unlike some other digital cameras with lots of features that I have used, where the menus are fiddly. On this one, it's all simple.
It works great as a point-and-fire camera - but there's a lot more to it than that, inclduing fully-manual mode where you set aperture and shutter-speed yourself. There's also several other shooting modes which enhance pictures in certain situations, and these all work well too.
And a lot of other settings you can adjust too, some of which I really like - black-and-white mode, continuous-shooting, exposure-compensation, adjusting the intensity of the flash, manual focus, etc.
All of these features make a real difference to the shots you're taking.
It's also very useful to have a viewfinder (unlike a lot of other cheaper digital cameras) you can use instead of the screen on the back, in bright light conditions.
The video quality is not bad, either.
Overall, a great camera for it's price!

I found that this camera is perfect for my project, preparing 3d photos on holiday and at the Isle of Man TT, so I purchased TWO and mounted them side by side on a metal bar to take synchronised photos which I then process with a downloaded 3D programme and then set the photo up with a pair of red and cyan glasses so that I can view the photo in 3D.

The camera is small and compact, and of very good resolution, plus each one only needs two batteries.

The video part of the camera is good resolution as well.

3D is back and I am pleased to be part of it all, thanks to my E550s....

I love this camera since I first bought it five years ago!
Great image quality, perfect colour, good manual controls...I love all about it.
I accidentaly droped it a few months ago and damaged the lens. I swear it kind of broke may heart! I still tried to look for a new equivalent camera, but because I could't find one, I ended up buying a second handed camera, just like mine! I'm very happy about it and almost forget it's not my original camera!

The E550 has a lot to be said in favour of it, very little against. Being from the remarkable days of digital imaging from Fuji when they produced the F10, F30, F31, F810 cameras that stood out in quality, beating todays standards of digital imaging, the E550 falls close to these. It turns out a decent 12MP shot with good contrast & definition, vivid colours, giving you what you want at the end of the day, a quality photo. Don't buy the E550 if you want a small, trendy looking, big power draining LCD, gimicky camera that will impress your friends as the E550 is/has none of these features. If you've got discerning friends who know a sharp, crisp, vivid picture, the E550 will make them think you've got a damn good DLSR tucked away somewhere.

seems to be ok for general use.easy to point and click and has some good features to do more.be sure the batteries are powered enough to drive the motor or you will be sorry

This is a very neat pocket camera with a great ccd sensor. I originally bought it to remove the lens assembly for an astrophotography project ... a cheap way of having a high resolution, low noise ccd imager with manual adjustments available - but found it such a neat little package that I used a different camera instead.

As a pocket point and shoot camera, it is excellent. Power on and the lens start up/lens deployment is very sprightly ... ready to snap in a second - the lens cover autmomaticaly opening as the lens races out. Picture resolution is good with lovely crisp blacks and good contrast. There is a 6mpix raw mode but there is little difference between it and the 12 mpix interpolated mode except that the 12mpix jpeg is saved hellishly faster (this is really a 6mpix camera). At 12mpix there is no digital zoom available, so 6mpix fine is your best option if you wish to use it. The lens is adequate with a 4x zoom ... for distant objects a higher optical zoom would be an improvement, but a teleconverter is available, which uses an adaptor ring (available seperately) which attaches in place of a removable ring around the lens body.

Movie mode is fine, with vga 640x480 resolution - but zoom has to be preselected in that mode.

There is a good range of camera modes from full auto to manual, including aperture and shutter priority ... manual focus is also available.

There is a two tier menu system - a normal setup type menu button and a fuji fast menu 'F' button. Whereas this is useful, it splits the menu functions across the two and makes menu selection less intuative until you get used to it.

The 16mb xd card that comes with it is woefully small ... 1 raw (if you are lucky)or less than 3 x 12mpix jpegs ... or about 20secs of video. About 512Mb is a minimum really)

Battery life from the two 2300mAH nimh AA size cells isn't too brilliant, but enough for ten mins video or half a 512mb card of pics ... thankfully they are quick and easy to change - and the camera doesn't lose it's settings if changed smartly.

Overall, if you want a small, neat pocket camera that takes good snaps - this could be for you ... it is a good camera and superb imaging chip constrained by a mediocre point and shoot moderate-zoom lens. It's fast nought to action time and pocket friendly size makes it a handy companion for grabbing those fast acting scenes that you may miss bringing a more complex camera to bare.
It's no digital slr stalker, but if you are a hill walker or off to a friend's birthday party - want a far better pic than your mobi, but don't want to lug a large camera around with you, this svelte pocket companion is well worth considering.

This is a excellent camera that gives very high quality images up to 12mega pixels interpolated from a 6.3 to 12.3 million with a 4 x optical zoom, XD picture card and uses two AA alkaline or NiMH rechargeable batteries . The original retail price was around $400 (£200)in Sept 2004. The E550 can create movies at up to 640x480 VGA res. This quality is truly professional but the camera is designed to be simple in use. It offers a USB port to easily transfer all images to a PC or Macintosh computer for printing, editing, and web publishing.The camera can be used in either fully automatic mode or in manual mode. It incorporates a fourth-generation super CCD HR chip design. The E550 is a brilliant all round point & shoot camera that will appeal to novices and experienced users alike.

The camera sells today in 2008, used and or refurbished from around £60 to £120.

I purchased this as it was selling for a reasonable price ,when i recieved them I found lots of extras like batteries, D type cards, chargers etc ,also the seller was very freindly and very helpful from start to finish, a real pleasure and one to watch for in future.

It's plastic, doesn't feel like it! Great low light performance without flash. Modern compacts are too small to get hold of for many people, if that's a problem then this model is surely not a problem! A fantastic camera, checkout this site, best site I've found so far to check out any worth while digital camera: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilme550/

best camera i've ever had.....this was purchased to replace my broken e550 cos i loved it that much.