Introduction
The Fujifilm FinePix F900 EXR marks the brand’s latest and greatest entry in its Advanced Compact lineup of feature-laden compact travel zoom cameras.
You’ll have a hard time telling it apart from the former range-topping Fuji FinePix F800EXR – and a couple of other models for that matter – because externally they’re virtually identical, sharing a very similar case design.
Likewise, the Fuji F900 EXR also inherits Fuji’s 20x optical zoom lens with its 25-500mm focal length range (in 35mm camera terms). Digital zoom can double this to a 40x magnification if you’re prepared to sacrifice a little detail, while sensor-shift image stabilisation is employed to help tame camera shake.
Sharing your photos should be a cinch too, thanks to Wi-Fi transfer to computers and mobile devices, with a new ‘PC Autosave’ feature extending this to automatically back up your snaps straight to a PC or Mac.
Naturally you get Full HD 1080p video recording plus stereo sound, while Fuji’s EXR Processor II is fast enough for a continuous shooting rate of 8fps at full resolution. If you’d prefer quality over speed, then the Fuji F900 EXR will also shoot in raw, or combined JPEG+raw mode.
But where the new camera really earns some bragging rights is its revamped 16 megapixel EXR CMOS II image sensor, plus a super-fast autofocus system with a claimed 0.05 second lock-on speed. The technology’s already been proven in the big Fuji HS50 EXR bridge camera, where normal contrast-detect autofocusing is boosted by the phase-detection method for faster focusing in all shooting conditions.
EXR sensor technology, on the other hand, is a long-established Fuji favourite. Through the process of ‘pixel binning’, adjacent photo sites on the sensor can be paired together to increase light sensitivity and dynamic range, giving you cleaner images in low light, or better shadow and highlight detail in high-contrast situations.
The downside of pairing pixels is that many images captured in EXR mode will only be at 8MP, unless the Fuji F900 EXR’s system system detects optimal conditions and lets all 16 megapixels loose.
However, with other manufacturers now managing similar low light performance without having to resort to smaller images, can the Fuji F900 offer enough to compete against superzoom stunners such as the 20x zoom Panasonic TZ40/ZS30 (£330/US$400/AU$500), 20x Canon PowerShot SX280 HS (£260 / US$330 / AU$300) and Sony HX50V (£350 / US$450 / AU$500) with its impressive 30x zoom lens?
The Fuji F900 EXR is priced at £309.99/US$399.95 (around AU$525), putting it in the same sort of price bracket as these rivals.
Build quality and handling
Fuji compact cameras have usually felt like quality pieces of kit, and the Fuji F900 EXR is no exception. Its casing feels reassuringly solid and is clad in a tactile, subtly rubberised coating to give you extra purchase. An excellent front finger grip and a secure rear thumb indent add even more ergonomic appeal.
Considering you’re getting such a huge focal length range, the Fuji F900 EXR is still very much a compact camera, easily slipped into a pocket or small handbag. However, its retracted lens bulge does make it seem notably pudgier alongside the sleek Panasonic TZ40, and at 232g/8.1oz ready-to-shoot it’s also noticeably heavier.
Although there’s no optical viewfinder, the 3-inch, 920k-dot LCD screen boasts excellent colour reproduction and viewing angles. Brightness is good too, though it’s not quite enough to accurately judge exposure under very bright sunlight. It’s also a shame there’s no touchscreen functionality.
As well as your standard rear buttons for playback, video record and basic shooting settings, Fuji also gives you a jog wheel for faster scrolling through menus and images. It’s great in theory but it’s too thin to rotate with ease, yet at the same time it’s annoyingly easy to nudge it when you’re trying to press nearby buttons, thereby activating unwanted functions.
The main control dial is a much better design. Mounting it at an angle means it’s equally well viewed whether you’re above or behind the camera, and it has enough resistance between each mode to prevent accidental movement.
Modes include programmable auto, aperture and shutter priority options, as well as full manual control. As we mentioned before, you can choose to shoot JPEG or raw files, or both simultaneously.
In addition to a standard Auto setting, EXR mode unleashes the camera’s full arsenal of scene detection tricks, or you can switch to the Scene Presets when shooting events such as fireworks, sport or even underwater scenes using an optional housing.
Entering into Advanced mode reveals the motion panorama function as well as eight effect filters including Toy Camera and Partial Colour.
Performance
Fuji is keen to sell the F900 EXR on its speed, so fortunately a 1.5 second start-up time is none too shabby. But what about that lightning-fast autofocus? Well it’s certainly quick, though it’s worth noting that the quoted 0.05-second focusing speed only applies to the most optimal of environments. Dim the lights and the system hunts for a moment, but is still impressively rapid.
Exposure metering is another of the camera’s fortés, and is very hard to fool. Combined with the EXR system’s dynamic range enhancement it makes the Fuji F900 EXR particularly good at preserving highlight and shadow detail in high-contrast situations. Here the lens is prone to some chromatic aberration (purple fringing), but unless you’re a hardcore pixel-peeper, it’s by no means distracting.
EXR mode also copes well in low light. Sure, images will be mostly shot at 8MP – as they are in high contrast situations – but grain is well subdued and colour speckling all but eliminated right up to ISO 1600 sensitivity.
The camera will soldier on as far as ISO 12800, though only at 4MP resolution and with hideous levels of image noise at this setting.
Extensive noise reduction does, however, have the usual knock-on effect on detail. Even at low sensitivity settings some detail smearing can be spotted, but venture past ISO 800 and things get progressively more painterly. Considering you’re likely to only have an 8MP image to work with, there won’t be much scope to shrink images to improve sharpness, either.
Break out some of the special effects and results are a slightly mixed bag. ‘Pro Focus’ takes a series of shots of your subject in an attempt to mimic the shallow depth of field and blurry backgrounds in a DSLR image. It just about succeeds, providing you don’t look too closely for sharpening outlines.
However, the panorama feature is less impressive. Rather than panning as far as you like, you’re forced to pre-select between 120, 180 or 360 degree sweeps. Vertical height is also restricted to 1080 pixels, but at least the joins are pretty seamless.
Wireless image transfer is another instance of a feature that works well enough, but just isn’t quite up to the finesse of rival systems. You’ll have to install Fuji’s mobile app and connect to the Fuji F900 EXR’s Wi-Fi hotspot in order to receive images, just so long as you’re quick enough to do so before the camera has enough and times you out.
Verdict
The Fuji FinePix F900 EXR is an example of a very good camera that is just starting to lag behind some exceptional competition. We’ve got no complaints about the stellar speed and accuracy of the new autofocus system. Likewise the EXR CMOS II sensor delivers the goods, but at a cost.
Granted, halving resolution to 8MP in high contrast or low light situations still leaves you with a large image packing decent detail, but it’s a compromise that competing manufacturers don’t have to make.
The camera’s Wi-Fi abilities and some of its effect presets also leave you feeling just a little underwhelmed.
We liked
The Fuji F900 EXR nails the basics, producing good image quality backed up by speedy autofocus and accurate exposure metering.
Optically the camera is strong, thanks to its highly versatile focal length range, minimal lens distortion and well controlled chromatic aberration. Raw capture is also nice to see on a camera in this sector.
We disliked
It’s the extra features which let the side down. Some effects such as the motion panorama mode feel outdated, while the wireless image transfer is just fiddly enough to put you off using it on a regular basis.
Although image quality is good, the EXR processing trickery is no better than alternative systems, yet it has to resort to smaller images to maintain clean shots and good dynamic range.
Final verdict
There’s no doubt that the Fuji F900 EXR is a highly competent camera and a great travel companion with its excellent zoom lens, autofocus performance and decent image quality.
Taken in isolation, the lack of a touchscreen, sub-standard panorama feature and somewhat awkward wireless image sharing aren’t deal-breakers.
But factor all these together with Fuji’s ageing EXR system capturing so many images at half resolution, and the Fuji F900 EXR finds itself lagging slightly behind the best cameras in the class. And for a full price of £310 / US$400 (around AU$525), that’s not a good position to be in.
Consider buying the excellent megapixel Panasonic TZ40/ZS30, Canon PowerShot SX280 HS or the Sony HX50V instead.
First reviewed 12 August 2013.
Image quality and resolution
As part of our image quality testing for the Fujifilm F900, we’ve shot our resolution chart.
If you view our crops of the resolution chart’s central section at 100% (or Actual Pixels) you will see that, for example, at ISO 100 the Fuji F900 is capable of resolving up to around 22 (line widths per picture height x100) in its highest quality JPEG files.
For a full explanation of what our resolution charts mean, and how to read them, check out our full explanation of our camera testing resolution charts.
Examining images of the chart taken at each sensitivity setting reveals the following resolution scores in line widths per picture height x100:
JPEG
Full ISO 100 image, see the cropped (100%) versions below.
ISO 100, score: 22 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 200, score: 22 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 400, score: 20 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 800, score: 18 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 1600, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 3200, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 6400, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 12800, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
Raw
ISO 100, score: 20 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 200, score: 18 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 400, score: 16 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 800, score: 16 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 1600, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 3200, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)
Noise and dynamic range
We shoot a specially designed chart in carefully controlled conditions and the resulting images are analysed using DXO Analyzer software to generate the data to produce the graphs below.
A high signal to noise ratio (SNR) indicates a cleaner and better quality image.
For more more details on how to interpret our test data, check out our full explanation of our noise and dynamic range tests.
Here we compare the Fuji F900 with the Fuji F800, Canon S110 and Nikon P330.
JPEG signal to noise ratio
As we can see from this graph, the Fuji F900’s JPEG images contain weaker signal to noise ratios than JPEGs from the Nikon P330 at every sensitivity setting, and weaker than the Canon S110 at every sensitivity except ISO 6400. The Fuji F900’s JPEGs contain similar signal to noise ratios to the Fuji F800’s, with the F900’s coming out slightly stronger at ISO 100 and 6400, pretty much the same at ISO 400 and a little weaker at other sensitivities.
Raw signal to noise ratio
The Fuji F900’s TIFF images (after conversion from raw) are again not as impressive as the Fuji F800’s, containing weaker signal to noise ratios at every sensitivity except ISO 3200, where the two cameras’ TIFFs perform almost identically. The Fuji F900’s TIFFs contain weaker signal to noise ratios than the Canon S110‘s at every sensitivity setting. The Fuji F900’s TIFFs show stronger ratios than the Nikon P330‘s TIFFs at ISO 100-400, but at ISO 800-3200 the Nikon’s TIFFs are stronger.
JPEG dynamic range
Again, the Fuji F900’s JPEGs aren’t the most impressive of the group, showing significantly less dynamic range than the Fuji F800’s JPEGs at every sensitivity except ISO 100, 6400 and 12800. The Fuji F900’s JPEGs also contain less dynamic range than the Canon S110 and Nikon P330‘s JPEGs at every sensitivity setting except ISO 100.
Raw dynamic range
This chart indicates that TIFF images (after conversion from raw) from the Fuji F900 contain greater dynamic range than the Fuji F800 and Nikon P330‘s TIFFs at ISO 100-400, but are weaker at ISO 800-3200. Similarly, the Fuji F900’s TIFFs have slightly stronger dynamic ranges than the Canon S110‘s at ISO 100-200, but are weaker at ISO 400 and above.
Sample images
Click here to see the full resolution image
Thanks to the camera’s aperture priority mode you can force a slow shutter speed to capture motion like this.
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Here the EXR Auto mode plumped for dynamic range enhancement and has maintained plenty of shadow detail without blowing any highlights.
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Shots like this expose the Fuji F900 EXR’s small sensor limitations. As the grass extends off to the horizon, detail becomes progressively more smeared and painterly, even at minimum ISO 100 sensitivity.
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Despite the harsh sunlight, the camera’s exposure metering has exposed the shot perfectly.
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A compact camera’s nightmare, but the Fuji F900 EXR has coped pretty well. Even at ISO 3200 a slow shutter speed of 1/12-second was needed, but the camera’s image stabilisation system has prevented any motion blur.
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This is a rare occasion when the camera’s autofocus didn’t quite do the trick, missing the foreground greenery and targeting the path instead.
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When the 20x optical zoom reach isn’t enough, Fuji’s Intelligent Digital Zoom doubles this and, in this shot at least, detail has been well retained.
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The camera’s sensor is capable of extracting bags of detail, helped by some contrasting background bokeh blur from the shallow depth of field in this scene.
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Maximum wide angle, equivalent to 25mm. It’s wide enough to get most groups into frame… or a weir.
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At maximum 20x zoom reach it’s amazing what such a small camera can pick out. This scene is barely visible in the wide angle shot.
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Snapped indoors at ISO 500, image noise is nicely subdued and the photo looks very clean, even if some of the beer mats are less so.
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Another example of the detail this sensor is capable of resolving, especially with a 5cm minimum macro focus distance.
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This bright sunny day really put the camera’s LCD screen brightness to the test, and judging by the grain and slight sharpening artefacts, the sensor was having a tough time as well.
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While there aren’t any obvious joins to this panorama, a 1080-pixel resized height and forced 120, 180 or 360 degree pan width do limit the feature’s appeal.
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Macro mode, capable of focusing down to 5cm at wide angle.
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Here’s an example of Fuji’s ‘Pro Focus’ effect, which blurs a background to give the shot a DSLR-like quality. Here it’s done a reasonable job, although some slight camera shake has taken the edge off the subject sharpness.
Click here to see the full resolution image
The camera’s Partial Colour effect here is set to extract only red hues, with the remaining tones turned monochromatic. In areas of high colour contrast this can look good, but the effect can’t cope with more subtle colour boundaries.
Sensitivity and noise images
JPEG
Full ISO 100 image, see the cropped (100%) versions below.
ISO 100 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 400 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 800 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 1600 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 3200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 6400 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 12800 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
Raw
ISO 100 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 400 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 800 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 1600 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
ISO 3200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)
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