I completely disagree with the reviews that this camera is not for beginners. Before I bought this camera I was looking for a couple of things in a digital camera. (3 megapixel, at least a 3x optical zoom, and most important it had to be easy to use) I wanted to be able to easily figure out how to use the features without looking in a manual ever. THis is the simplest digital camera I have found. I played around with every camera at bestbuy, and circuit city before I bought this. I paid $275 in November 2003, and have been 100% satisfied with it since then.

Bought this camera as i have a 9 month old daughter, and want to catch all those important firsts and the cute pictures. I have to say this camera, in my opinion, is not worth the $230. First off, at fill zoom, the lense fish eyes when printing large pictures. Second off, unless you use the flash, and even then sometimes, the picture is blurred unless the subject stays absolutely still and you have this camera on a tripod. The subceptibily to not being able to autofocus due to camera shake is ridiculous. This camera without the use of a tripod is really not there because of how sensitive this is to camera shake.

I really needed a new digital camera, . My Olympus 560 had been dropped on cement while I was working my eBay business, plus I do web development. My camera was about eight years old. My partner's camera only cost him $150.00. But it really was not a camera like my Olympus. I liked the zoom feature, also being able to look through the view finder and to see is what you were getting.. I had to look at the LCD screen and image what the picture would look like. I owned an Pentex 35 mm camera, I am an amateur photographer. I consider some of this new digital camera's an insult. I hate my partner's camera, even though it had 3 times the pixel image than my camera. The new camera would be using much larger memory cards. The maximum memory card I could get for my old Olympus was an eight Meg.

So I went shopping. First I went on the web and looked at recommendations and reviews. Then I went to several local stores. Some of this digital camera was so small I considered them a Kodak throw away. Then I saw the camera of my dreams. I read about it but never saw one. It was a Fujifilm S3100, it had all the features I was looking for. Not only could you look through the view finder but it gave you the option of seeing the pictured object in the LCD. It had a video option, it had zoom, it had capability of 128 meg cards. It fit in my hand well. I got so exited about this camera that I stopped another shopper from buying another camera and told him about all these camera features. So I sold the camera basically to this person. The price was the same if a little higher than Amazon. Yet the accessories in all these stores were twice the price than amazon. I needed a charger, a carrying case and memory, I got them at amazon for ½ the price than the stores, plus no SALES TAX.

Someone wrote in on Amazon, about downloading with batteries is a problem. No problemo, all camera's used up batteries, big deal, that is the life of a digital camera user, but that is why you have rechargeable batteries, dah. Plus the Fuji offers a 5v transformer option, a video output option. My camera is a 6X zoom, 4 .0 Mega Pixels. The camera internal software is child's' play. The software is ok, but I am an experienced Photoshop user, so I just download from the camera acting like a drive. All in all I give this camera 9 stars (9 out of ten). I would give it a ten but I had to pay for it, it was not free.

after dealing with cheap cameras, my dad surprised me when he bought this one. i thought, man it looks like an slr! hands down, this camera is amazing. the flash always comes out perfect. at long zooms, i don't get any blurriness. it has great color and it's awesome on batteries. it's too bulky to fit in your pocket, thats the only bad thing, but i have a gateway dv-s20 for that.

it takes amazing pics, trust me, you won't be dissappointed!

I have had this camera for 5 months now, and I love it.

The things I love:
1. The clarity of the pictures is awesome. The colors are so vibrant.

2. The camera is very flexible with some manual settings, yet the autofocus works so well I haven't had much use for the manual settings.

3. I love that I can just plug it into my laptop with the included usb cable and see my pictures in an instant without having to use their software.

4. I like how it fits in my hand - very comfortable.

5. The menus are easy to navigate and smart in that whatever menu you were on last when you go back to the menu it is still on that item. For example if I was setting the white balance, and I chose a setting then took a picture and didn't like that setting, i just push the menu button and without navigating again through the menu it is at the white balance options already.

The thing I would change:

The viewfinders accuracy.

I can't tell if the object is fully focused or not. This may be something I need to learn. This object looks perfectly focused but then when you download the picture onto your pc you notice it was slightly out of focus. not super blurry but slightly and that is annoying to me because if I knew I wasn't focused perfectly I would just refocus. This happens to me about 10-25% of the time.

The accuracy is a little off also in that you take a picture and think, "that was nice :)" and you are happy. then when you actually download it you are amazed at how beautiful it is. So *if* you get the focus right you will be thrilled with your picture.

Excellent camera for the price. Would definately buy it again. I've had so much fun with it these past 5 months. :)