Usability of Fuji X10

Shooting brick walls: the Old Museum building in Bowen Hill, Brisbane. Taken with Fuji X10 at 12MP, iso100, 1/1500 sec, F4.0, f 13mm. The dynamic range is not very bad for point-and-shoot camera. There are some clipped highlights on the left side but it is not obtrusive. I can leave with such clipping.

Fuji X10 have solved one major issue for me: weight and size. While the camera is not pocketable, it is very small and light compared to DSLR, so it can stay in my bag. It can produce very fine images. I do enjoy big depth of field, especially in macro. For me the Fuji X10 is a semi-pocketable replacement of DSLR :-)

It reminds me early days with Olympus E-500. Prior to the E-500 I used superzoom camera with a tiny sensor, so the highlights clipping was a real (and frequent) problem. While the E-500 was not famous for the dynamic range, it was significant improvement over my previous camera, and not only in dynamic range. It was joy to use. The camera was traveled through the desert and rainforest, worked under snow and covered with salt at sea, survived nearly 100% humidity during wet season in Queensland and sub-zero temperature in Northern hemisphere. After several years of heavy use it started to fell apart (literally). It was replaced with Olympus E-30 but despite all features I was not happy with the new camera. I still use it but the whole setup is big and heavy, and hence very often would stay home...

On other hand, taking pictures with the Fuji X10 is just a joy. I hope it does not sound very pathetic. I am not a photographer, just a hobbyist, and there are very little external constrains on my images. In many aspects (including image quality) Fuji X10 holds well against my current DSLR, Olympus E-30. Get me right: there might be some measurable difference in favor of the DSLR but in real it is not so obvious.I am talking about my personal experience here. Basically, photos from the Fuji X10 make me happy more often than photos from the E-30.