PRO Photog buys Fuji E900 for walk around camera-Big mistake!

I thought I would love this camera. It's has 9 megapixels,more than my Canon 20D's that I use professionally.
I bought it locally and paid more than $100 more than i would have paid online.But at least I will be able to return it!

This camera has a few redeeming features.
*It's lightweight and small
*It uses 2-AA batteries. I have a drawer full of AA NiMH 15 minute rechargeable batteries.Battery life was very good using them too.
*It has an optical finder..Sure beats trying to look at the screen in bright light.
*Fast start up and fast response time.No hesitation,no waiting!

Picture quality. I had hoped that the quality would be very good.Instead what I got was purple fringing around whites,bright lights and EVEN blacks in a room with some black furniture pieces.It looks like everything is outlined in purple neon,
I found 200 and above grainy.400 and above was not pretty.

I was interested in the RAW capability since professionally I shoot RAW for better quality and adjustments.
Fuji made the biggest mess of RAW I have ever seen.
They give you an LE edition of RAW conversion software.Forget your expensive edition of Photoshop CS2.It will not open these raw files as Fuji has the exclusive.For $200 more you can buy Fuji's "REAL" RAW converter that will allow you to do adjustments(I assume).
What I got after about 8 minutes of opening ONE RAW file was a MASSIVE 50 meg TIFF File that I had to bring into Photoshop to adjust.The quality in the image was not there at all.Pixelation,fringing,missing pixels looked like glitter on a black pair of pants.
I was sad..This digicam was not the be all end all point and shoot for the purse that I had hoped it would be. It made me sorry that I had sold my reliable Olympus C-8080 which had nice RAW albeit slow and too big for the purse...

The Fuji has a decent movie mode.So did my Olympus though.
On Monday I will be returning this to the camera store for a refund.
I am looking at possibly purchasing the Fuji F10 or F11 digicams.The F11 is not available in the USA ,only overseas but a few e-tailers have it online.
I'll have to consdier if buying a grey market F11 could be too risky if it ever breaks.Fuji USA doe not service grey marjet Fuji cameras.
I saw a HUGE gallery on photo.net that impressed me enough to consider purchasing the F10 or F11 cameras without trying them. Both cameras have incredible resolution from 80-1600! Sounds like what I really want. The Fuji f10 and F11's do not use the same sensors as their E900 so that is probably where the difference in quality comes in.

If you are a casual user that wants a camera with the specs of this camera
especially the compact size,optical viewfinder and usage of regular AA rechargeable batteries and won't be making large prints,using RAW or considering high end stock sales,this camera is worth considering.In good lighting conditions this camera produces nice results.The macro mode is quick to access with a one touch button and I was pleased with the few macro images I shot.

But my needs are to get that grab shot when I am out and about to sell at one of the fine art galleries I am with or to place with one of my high end stock agents.With the output of the E900,they would find the grain and noise unacceptable.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON XD CARDS!!!

Be sure to properly eject your XD card from your computer desktop.If you don't do this the right way your XD card will not be readable next time you put it in your camera.What a drag it would be to go out all ready to shoot and find your XD card can't be read or formatted!
This issue,after doing a bit of research seems to be within the XD card iteself.I had this problem(and was able to duplicate it 3x) using the Fuji 1 gig card.
So,if you happen to screw up,put the card back in and restart the procedure and eject it from your desktop and then reformat in your camera.
I have NEVER had this happen wih the scores of Compact Flash cards I use in my other cameras.