a very fine finepix

Fujifilm has a new line of Z series digital cameras called the FinePix Z100fd. It comes in four colors and they also improved on past FinePix Z cameras: a diagonal sliding lens cover, Z illumination lamp, a higher zoom, and a new high rez LCD with a micro thumbnail view. The coolest feature has to be the way the lens cover slides diagonally and the way it lights up. Aesthetics are everything!!!
It also feels very solid due to the camera being made of stainless steel. The battery door is made out of plastic, but if it is locked, it should be fine.
The Z100fd fits nice in one hand. The shutter button is easy to press, and so is the smaller face detection button right next to it. The face detection system is very nice. With face detection on the camera adjusts both focus and exposure to capture faces clearly and accurately.
This 8 megapixel has a regular flat body, image stabilization and IrSimple, which is their image transfer technology. It also boasts a 5x optical zoom.
There are several modes:
Auto: adjusts exposure around current conditions.
Manual: auto exposure with some overrides.
Scene: 16 shooting presets in the main menu
Movie: video recorded up to 640x480 at 30 fps
It uses SD/SDHC or xD-Picture Card memory cards. Fuji finally gives customers options instead of having to buy a Fuji only XD card.
The menu button is in the wheel dial and gives access to all the modes and also it accesses the dual image stabilization, flash, self timer, and macro modes.
Next to it is the zoom buttons, to view images both in playback mode or zoom in shooting mode. Under it is the playback button. it is the smallest button and it is a little tough to reach using one hand.
The menu is very easy to navigate through. Turn on the camera and you see what mode you are in: auto, manual, preset, movie or playback. Next to this icon are several icons, showing what features are turned on.
Then you pick from the three modes: auto, manual, or movie, or you can pick one of 16 scene presets.
The LCD is average: 2.7 inches and 230000 pixels. With the screens high refresh rate, it is easy to track fast moving images and confirm focus even in low light.
There is no optical viewfinder, but the screen brightness is clear in sunlightand can be adjusted from -5 to 5.
There is hardly any shutter lag, at around .03 This makes the camera worth the price of admission, being able to grab the precise moment you try to catch.
Focusing speed also the fastest i have ever seen.
Start up time is another story, it takes over 3 seconds.
Overall, the ability to focus and shoot fast is the most impressive part of this camera.
The Z100fd has a nice 5x optical zoom. You can also zoom 180mm with digital zoom and when you turn on the digital zoom, the zoom display lets you know you went past 5x and image quality is degrading.
The battery is under par, though, it took about 100 shots and needed a charge. It comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and charger. It charges to full in about 2 hours.

CONCLUSIONS
The Fujifilm FinePix Z100fd is a very fine camera in all aspects. Overall, the Z100fd is a solidly built camera that performs well for a compact point and shoot.
I would recommend this camera to the casual user who needs a slim, affordable, solid, quality camera for general use.
The major flaws are: the battery life is short and the 3 second start up time. Other than that, peformance is first class.

Below is directly from Fuji web site:

Specifications:
Number of effective pixels 8.0 million pixels

CCD sensor 1/2.5-inch CCD

Storage media Internal memory (approx. 54MB) xD-Picture Card™ (16MB - 2GB) SD memory card SDHC memory card*2
File format Still image
JPEG (Exif Ver 2.2*3)

Movie
AVI (Motion JPEG) with sound

Audio
WAVE format, Monaural sound
(Design rule for Camera File system compliant / DPOF-compatible)

Number of recorded pixels Still image: 3,264x2,448 / 3,264x2,176 (3:2 format) / 2,304x1,728 / 1,600x1,200 / 640x480 pixels

Lens Fujinon 5x Optical zoom lens, F3.8 - F4.8

Lens focal length f=5.9mm - 29.5mm, Equivalent to 36-180mm on a 35mm camera

Digital zoom Approx. 5.1x

Aperture Wide Angle: F3.8 - F6.4, Telephoto: F4.8 - F8.0

Focus distance Normal
Wide Angle: approx. 60cm/2.0ft to infinity Telephoto: approx. 1m/3.3ft to infinity Macro
Wide Angle: approx. 9cm/3.5in. to 80cm/2.6ft Telephoto: approx. 30cm/1.0ft to 80cm/2.6ft
Sensitivity Auto / Equivalent to ISO64 / 100 / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600 (Standard Output Sensitivity)

Exposure control TTL 256-zones metering

Exposure modes Programmed AE

Shooting modes Natural Light, Natural Light & with Flash, Portrait, Landscape, Sport, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Underwater, Museum, Party, Flower, Text, Auction

Image Stabilization CCD-shift type

Shutter speed 4sec. to 1/1000 sec. (depends on Shooting mode)

Continuous shooting Top-3 (max 1.4 frames/sec) Final-3 (max 1.4 frames/sec) Long-period
Focus Auto Focus

White balance Automatic scene recognition, Preset (Fine, Shade, Fluorescent light (Daylight), Fluorescent light (Warm White), Fluorescent light (Cool White), Incandescent light)

Self-timer Approx. 10sec./ 2sec. delay

Flash Auto flash

Effective range: (ISO AUTO)
Wide Angle: approx. 0.7m - 3.6m / 2.3ft - 11.8ft Telephoto: approx. 0.7m - 2.9m / 2.3ft - 9.5ft Macro: approx. 0.3m - 0.8m / 1.0ft - 2.6ft Flash mode
Red-eye removal OFF: Auto, Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Slow Synchro. Red-eye removal ON: Red-eye Reduction Auto, Red-eye Reduction & Forced Flash, Suppressed Flash, Red-eye Reduction & Slow Synchro.
LCD monitor 2.7-inch, approx. 230,000 pixels, Amorphous silicon TFT color LCD monitor, approx. 97% coverage

Movie recording 640x480 pixels, 30 frames/sec. 320x240 pixels, 30 frames/sec. with monaural sound

* Zoom function cannot be used during movie recording.

Photography functions Face Detection (with Red-eye removal), Best framing, Frame No. memory, Manner mode

IR Communication IrSimple™ / IrSS™

Playback functions Face Detection, Slide show, Scrap book view slide show, Trimming, Blog mode (with Image processing function), Multi-frame playback including Micro Thumbnail mode, Sorting by date, Image rotate, Voice Memo

Video output NTSC / PAL selectable

Digital interface USB Full-speed

Power supply NP-45 Li-ion battery (included) / CP-45 with AC power adapter AC-5VX (sold separately)

Dimensions 92.0(W)x55.7(H)x19.8 (D) mm / 3.6(W)x2.2(H)x0.8(D) in. (excluding accessories and attachments)

Weight Approx. 138g/4.9oz. (excluding accessories, batteries and memory card)