The Fuji Finepix E550 competes well in the very crowded space of compact digital camera. This camera produces beautiful pictures with only some purple fringing but very low noise, optical distortion or softness. It is also a very fast and responsive camera with an excellent movie mode and a full set of manual controls. The Fuji E550's main weakness is its usability in low-light: the LCD is hard to see, it has trouble focusing in low-light and the shutter-speed is limited to 3 seconds. If low-light performance is important, the slightly lower-resolution Canon Powershot A95 would be better (See also its 3 megapixel sibling the Canon Powershot A75).