F100fd a decent upgrade to my dsc-w7?

[VokinLoksar]

I had my sony dsc-w7 for several years now and think it's about time for an upgrade. The major thing that bothered me about this camera is that it is virtually impossible to take a good night shot with it. I've been reading reviews and comparing prices on current camera models, and found the Fuji F100fd for $147.44 with rebate. Obviously, the camera is now almost one year old and is being replaced by F200EXR, but for that price I can't see any reason not to go for the F100fd instead.

The question is simply how much of an improvement would the F100fd be over my current camera? Is there anything else out there that is significantly better, even if it's more expensive (let's say up to $250). I don't need any fancy features, just a good quality P&S.

 

[rdp6]

I have the f100fd. I like it, but can't say I have taken many night shots with it. I usually use it in the semi-auto mode with ISO clamped at no greater than 400.

It is a 5% moon illumination evening, I'll take a couple of photos (full auto and clamped at ISO 800 and again at 1600). pm me your email address and I'll send them to you.

 

[rdp6]

OMG I took some bad photos. But I did take 5 of the same scene with different auto, auto with manual override, and night mode settings. I'll send them straight from the camera. That said, I tried to photograph the (big?) dipper. Couldn't see it in the camera LCD, didn't see it in iphoto, either. Tried "enhance" for giggles, and wow! Far more stars than I remember seeing. They must have been night or fireworks mode: ISO 200, 3s exposure.

(later)

I looked through some earlier photos. We had a very clear evening just before the full moon in Feb. I could not get a decent shot of the moon with the f100fd, but I didn't think to use the day/sunshine program. I did however get pretty good 1080p video and stills with my camcorder with 1/2000 shutter.

I can upload poorly-lit photos if you like. I saw the dpreview comparos around Christmas last year. The f100fd's night shots were less noisy than most. I figured that if it could handle them better than the competition, then my indoor shots would also be less noisy. I don't keep my house lit with studio lighting, so I chose the one that dealt with poor lighting (only the lx-3 seemed to look better to me) and am happy.

BTW I just got my rebate check on Monday. I mailed the rebate forms, etc on 7 Feb.

Photos are at http://www.box.net/shared/nb23c54emb

 

[Zenmervolt]

I've had an F100fd for a year or so now. It's a great little camera for what it is. It can't match my DSLRs, and it's not quite as good as the earlier 6mp Fujis, but it's still very good. I'm not sure what sort of night shots you're talking about, but for normal use I think it does nicely and I've gotten shots that are quite usable indoors and without flash. I wouldn't go printing them at 8x10 size, but for web use or printing at 4x6 they are perfectly fine.

ZV

 

[melijak]

I just ordered one from Amazon for 244$ -100$ rebate yesterday. For this price its a steal - according to the reviews I read anyway. If I wanted to spend more, I would get the new panasonic dmz..something. The one with 12x zoom for 399$