Why do I no longer own a Fuji Finepix 6900 Zoom?
While I know many people are extremely satified with their Fuji Finepix
6900 Zoom,
I found two particular areas lacking: focus in low light and hot pixel
noise. This page was originally put together
in order to gather consensus from other Fuji Finepix 6900 Zoom owners
to see if they had the same problems.
When I found out they did, I tried to communicate with Fuji about the
issues, and even arranged a test shoot with them.
Fuji declared the performance to be adequate but offered a refund for
my camera as a gesture of goodwill.
Poor focus in low light
In low light, my Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom had serious problems getting focus
- even when the image
was visible on the EVF. In this image, the Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom claimed
it had focus. Often my
Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom would focus on the background or claim it had focus
when it did not.
I tried similar situations with different 6900 cameras and the result
was the same.
This image is a crop of a 3MP image at the F2.8, 1/4 second, ASA 100.
Hot pixels at long exposures
All Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom cameras exhibit consistent hot pixel noise at long
exposures (approx 0.5 seconds
or longer). This image is a crop of a 3MP image at F4, 1 second, ASA 100.
Hot pixels at long exposures
All Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom cameras exhibit consistent hot pixel noise at long
exposures (approx 0.5 seconds
or longer). This image is a crop of a 3MP image at F4, 1 second, ASA 100.
High noise / Hot pixels at long exposures
The graph below was send to me by Grant Zelych based on measurements from
his Fuji FinePix 6900 Zoom.
It clearly shows the number of hot pixels measured on his camera. Grant describes:
The following curve illustrates the Fuji 6900 hot pixel problem. It was
created using a series of 17 MByte,
6 Megapixel *.tif images taken for the purpose and hot pixel counts from
these images using the utility "Dead
Pixel Test", and the default threshold. The utility is available
at the following URL:
http://www.starzen.com/digicam/download.htm
To quote the utilitys documentation: "This tool allows you to check your
camera
for dead pixels. It also reports hot pixels which depending on the length
of the exposure and
the threshold used in the test can be attributed to normal noise."
The graph was generated in EXCEL using the hot pixel count measurements and
the recorded image
exposure duration. The hot pixel problem is such that a photo taken of
a featureless black wall will look
like a "starry night" for exposures greater than about 1.0 second.
