Camera Labs

So, how does it work? I've just spent the better part of a spring day comparing the F100 images directly with my F30 under various conditions.

Unfortunately, no, they did not manage to repeal the laws of physics. At ISO 3200, the 12MP F100 with its necessarily smaller pixels gives rougher images than my 6MP F30. And as for the ISO 12,800; forget it, it's a gimmick. The images are so rough as to be useless. This irritated me; borders on deceptive advertising.

On the basis of my (so far, very limited) experience with this camera, I would rate it one of the best in its category. The minus one star is for the lack of manual shutter/aperture controls (available on the F50, F30 and other earlier Finepix models) and for apparently not controlling noise any better than Canon at ISO levels up to 400.

I'm a professional photographer and I've owned a Fuji F10, F30, F50 and now the F100. The F50 was the only dog of that group. The F100 I feel has just as good low-light performance as my beloved F30 but with twice the resolution. You can look at my blog at http://rickleephoto.blogspot.com and click on the "Produce" tag and see that weeks #122 and up are shot with the F100 at ISO800. The color and sharpness are stunning. With the F30, I always had the camera set on minus 1/3 or 2/3 stops to avoid overexposure. I think that problem is solved on the F100. I love the extra wide-angle we have now. That really extends the usefulness of the camera.

Most people will never need to choose an ISO past 400, maybe 800 at nightsky. [ ... ] no one will ever need an ISO of 1600 or 3200. Thats just nuts to think people expect 1600 ISO to have clean images.

Then you have never shot at ISO 1600 with a Nikon D3 or Canon 1D III