After much painful whittling I now have two finalists. The s6000fd is tough to beat when assessing my needs and uses; only lack of IS and it's mass are downers. Among other things, I've been backpacking with a camera And a camcorder & have decided to go with one good camera to do both, so a nice video mode, wide-angle lens, manual controls and good battery life are big deals. The other finalist, Canon's s3is, wins on IS and slightly on battery life, but falls behind on other categories. [e.g. Canon's .avi codec results in videos nearly twice the size, for some reason..

You get the idea.] I do not need this for Christmas so I hope to capture a post-season bargain somewhere. If only they'd announce a smaller version.. but that lens can't shrink much and still do what it does!..

You sum up the conundrum. I too have narrowed it down to those two models. Canon wins on size and IS. Fuji wins on all other aspects. What I need to decide on is how much are each of the other aspects worth in a weighting or scoring system. Any word on if there is a planned IS in the works for the Fuji?..

Thus far Fuji seems sold on the ISO-boost method, since reviewers have been on their case for quite some time. No denying that the video is unusable @ 300mm without IS, but how often would I do that?.

I dumped both camera's avi files to VCD and played them on my TV; nobndy wins that contest. I had really hoped to leave my camcorder at home on future hikes, but the technology has not caught up yet...

Guys, I have a Minolta Dimage 7Hi and until today I thought I needed a replacement due to a faulty CCD on the 7Hi. The S6000fd would have been my replacement camera. Why? Because it also has that fantastic manual zoom ring. Forget about the Canon, those rocker zoom switches are a disaster!!.

And for the movie addicts among you: the S6000fd is a still camera! The movie feature is just an added bonus...

I am currently comparing the Fuji S6000fd, Sony DSC-H5, and the Canon S3 IS. All three models are great cameras, but here is why I picked the FUJI. Although the Canon and Sony had slightly more vibrant and accurate colors, the Fuji had much better focus. Lines and details are much much clearer and more precise in the Fuji pictures. And with the facial detection and manual zoom and focus rings, the FUJI is a CLEAR winner in my book!!! You are right johan, those rocker zoom switches on the Canon and Sony SUCK!!! I've always been a fan of FUJI...

Have you checked out the battery door on the Fuji S6000fd. That was one complaint I heard from a person who did a coupon of the camera. He wrote how easy it is to have the battery door open when you bump or put the camera down. I even checked it out at a store, and found the battery door slides open very easily. There does not seem to be a lock that keeps the door from sliding open. The reviewer even had the AA batteries go flying out when he was using the camera. Dan..

The battery door is slightly indented inward from the upper body, so long as you have shut it properly, the spring inside the battery compartment should be adequate to keep the door in place. Personally, I never did need to concern about the battery door problem.

The lower-than-others resolution of the EVF is my only compliant for 6000fd. It is not a functional flaw, but a "moral" mistake of Fuji. A 235K pixels EVF is the norm of today's DC and really doesn't cost much more than the 118K. FUJI perhaps is trying to maintain a marketing niche for 9100 when they decided to use this EVF. I don't know. But it does "feel" low-tech, doesn't fit in at all with all the superb features of 6000fd.

On other thing I would like to find on 6000fd is programable knobs to adjust ISO, Aperture/Shutter speeds.

Nothing is perfect. I can live with my 6000fd as it is and happily so...

Adam D: ..."Lines and details are much much clearer and more precise in the Fuji pictures."... This is all because the Fuji F6000fd lacks optical image stabilization, and I belive that is great! The optical stabilization in the cheap cameras(like Canon S3IS, Sony H5 etc) is based on magnetic force field. This magnetic force field holds a mobile glass which actually is the part which acts as a image stabillizator. So far so good - when you shoot low-light that could be great, but the thing is that when you shoot at day light you can only turn it off from the menu but this only set the magnetic force field to hold the glass in the center. The magnetic force field, however is something that can not be constant all the time and all the little shaking which are made while we took pictures influence this field and so the mobile lens. The result is that your pictures from S2IS, S3IS, H5 aren't as sharp as the Fuji S6000fd. That is the reason, though the proffesional IS lens for the SLR/dSLR cameras has a mechanical holder to physicaly lock the stabilization glass...

Hello - Im new to this site but I find your comments very interesting I have a Canon 20D with the 100/400 USM IS and the 17/55 IS Im looking for a camera to carry I had the Canon S3 IS didn't like it at all but the Fuji S6000fd looks very interesting to me just wondering how the image quality would compare to the Canon SLR on a 1 to 10 comparison, I would be keeping my 20D great camera any body out there that might have both of these camera's. Thanks REL..

Hi. Almost everything about this camera is sounding great. I thought I would never purchase a new camera at this point without IS, but some of the remarks here have been enlightening about that. Still not sure, but thinking more. Question. The Fuji website is now describing the 6500fd.

Also, how do the 6000 (and I guess the 6500 now) compare the the 9000 series cameras, and what would be a compelling reason to go with the 6000 series or the 9000 series? Lots of questions, I know. Thanks for any answers you could give...

The 6500 is the UK version of the 6000....no difference. If you want proof of the superior quality of the fuji over canon or sony take a look at this site: http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM Just for fun...compare the pictures taken with the 6000 at 400 iso and the s-3 pictures at 100iso.....it's amazing.

Then, contrary to most reviewers say out there, compare the fuji at 200iso to the Canon EOS 400D Rebel XTi at 100iso....again you will be surprised what you see.

Good Luck!!!..

Thanks. Interesting comparisons. Do you think it's worth waiting for Fuji to add stabilization to this? Seems like it would help on the long end...