Fuji Finepix A205s

I've lost the USB cable for my Fuji Finepix A205s digital camera, and I don't seem to be able to buy one anywhere! I've looked for one in many places, but so far I haven't found anything!

I have the Fuji Finepix A205 (not the A205s) version.

This may not be the best digital camera for family photos, but it is an excellent camera for online auction photography, website images, and for email photos. I bought this camera over a year ago to review for my friends on the eBay Photos/HTML help board, where we were discussing the best-for-the-buck cameras for eBay product photos.

It has all the features you will need at a great price point. Auction photos are a mere 1.4MP, and so I use this camera at its LOWEST setting for online product photos (1.3MP or 0.3MP), and then I downsize them further for auctions.

The important thing to look for in an auction camera is Macro (close-up) focus. Zoom is not important for product photography, and MEGA-pixels are a waste of disk space for auction photos. You only need a lot of mega-pixels if you want quality prints on large sheets of photo paper, and you only need zoom to shoot across the street.

You will need to learn 4 things to use this camera for auction photos:

* Disable the flash (a lightning bolt with a circle-slash over it.)

* Close-up macro setting (the little tulip flower symbol)

* White balance (a light-bulb symbol for those yellowish indoor shots, or a sun symbol for the blueish outdoor photos)

* EV - exposure compensation (plus and minus numbers to lighten or darken the scene, if your camera's automatic exposure looks too dark or light.)

Armed with those settings, I have taken great photos with this camera in very poor lighting situations. No more worries about those indoor winter shots! Of course, you can set the camera on full auto to get great daylight photos.

The downside to this camera is that (1500ma) grocery store batteries won't cut it. You will need higher-amperage (2200ma) alkaline batteries - or better yet, do as I have done and purchase a general purpose battery charger and a couple of sets of NiMH rechargeable AA batteries. With two pairs of rechargeables, I can always be charging one set while using the other. You'll save on battery costs in the long run.

Also, when you learn to use proper camera settings and avoid the flash, battery life improves significantly.

The camera should come with a memory card, a USB cable, and a CD. You will not need any of the other accessories that are available for the camera. At the camera's lowest setting, you'll get 119 photos on that standard memory card before it's time to download to your computer.

If you have a card reader, you won't need the USB cable, and because I have an XP machine, I did not need to install the CD. I could simply plug the camera cable into the USB jack and turn on the camera. Then I could look in MyComputer for the camera drive in the same fashion as looking for a CD drive or floppy drive. After opening the folders in the camera, I am able to highlight the whole group and drag the camera photos to my desktop or MyPictures folder on my computer.

The CD also included the Fuji FinePix Viewer software, so I gave it a try. While that software allowed me to rename, rotate, crop, re-size, watermark, and compress my photos, I found the software a little odd and foreign to use (maybe it was written for Mac users). Since I already had other image editing software on my computer, I decided not to install it when I moved to a new computer.

If you want to see some product photos I took, take a look at the formal review that I wrote over a year ago for my eBay friends at http://www.isdntek.com/demo/camera_a205.htm

I bought the Fuji Finepix A205s camera in April and returned it immediately because the USB cable couldn't be plugged in. Fuji had it for 2 months before returning it. I still couldn't plug the USB cable in! I filed it and forced it in. The LCD screen shows the correct digital camera connection but my pc can't find it. I've downloaded all the relevant updates and reinstalled the software - still doesn't work. Fuji have no email support whatsoever. It's money down the drain - I'll never buy anything else from FUJI!

Overall the Fuji Finepix A205s is an excellent camera. It came with only a 16mb picture card, but the camera was so cheap (under $130.00 on Etronics.com) I was able to purchase a new 128mb card on eBay, which holds over 200 2 megapixel photos. This camera is very easy to use and I recommend it to everyone.

I've had this camera five months, it's excellent, for under £100 you can't get better, if you get a 32Mb card it will hold 50 top quality photo's, It comes with a 16Mb XD card which holds 25 top quality photo, for my personal use I found that 75 photo's was more than adequate.

After reading the 2 previous reviews i purchased the Fuji Finepix A205s and i have to say the quality of the pictures is superb, i did have the axia ix100 which is a good little camera but i wanted more flexibility for portrait and close up work, and the 205s certianly delivers the goods as far as i am concerned, i expected good quality but the quality i got was far greater than my expectations, worth every penny.

The Fuji Finepix A205s is a very good quality digtial camera for money, which produces exceptional quality photos. it has a good zoom, with an equally good macro. it is simple and easy to use, with a nice colourful menu. it will also allow you to take short 20 second movie clips in high quality, and 80 second clips in low quality. it also has an exceptionally fast transfer(50 photos in 2 seconds)

The Fuji Finepix A205s is excellent value for money. Under £100 you get 3X optical zoom and 2mb. A good macro is also included. Good picture quality and used XD card a reliable and sturdy memory package. Worth a look for first time users and great for teenagers and uni students...