Though the camera’s 6.3 megapixel imaging chip might not impress when stacked up against the sensors from some competing models which boast up to 10 megapixels of resolution, images I got out of this camera were rich in color and impressively sharp, even in a range of difficult shooting conditions. I’d take the Fujifilm S6000fd over many higher-resolution competing superzoom models, and even over some digital SLRs.

The Fujifilm Finepix S6000fd is a very capable camera, packed with features that an experienced shooter will find very useful. In the hands of a beginner, the full capability of the camera won’t be realized, but it provides an excellent camera for someone who wants to “grow into” digital photography. There are enough automatic features to take “easy” shots, but then when the photographer is ready, so is the camera.

The Fuji FinePix S6000fd takes the “guts” of the popular FinePix F30 and puts it into a SLR-style body. It offers a 28 – 300 mm lens, manual focus and zoom rings, a big LCD, manual and automatic controls, and better than average high ISO performance. Yeah, it’s missing image stabilization (Fuji really needs to get on the ball in this area) and you need to go out of your way to get the best results at ISO 800 and above, but I ended up really enjoying using the camera.

I must admit I didn’t really know what to expect from the S6000fd (having used some of its predecessors), and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a well designed, well executed and surprisingly versatile photographic tool. It’s probably not the best ‘point and shoot’ model in its class (you’ll get better results if you know what you’re doing), but the combination of features, output and unusually able high ISO performance means that – whilst far from perfect – it can easily hold its own against some of it’s more ‘high profile’ competitors.

The Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd is one of the best digital cameras out there for portrait photography, but it doesn’t do well in other areas. It lacks image stabilization and its zoom ring is difficult to smoothly control, so movies are jumpy. The zoom and focus rings are great to work with when shooting still images, but don’t function well at all while shooting video.

If you’ve ever wished for a “photographer’s camera” with all the features you’ll ever need to learn and grow, including long zoom, wide-angle coverage, full exposure flexibility, ... the Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd Zoom is probably the best there is currently.

The Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd is a solid superzoom that captures high-quality images with its wide, 10.7X optical zoom lens. Unfortunately, the camera lacks true image stabilization.