Review on Fujifilm FinePix F505 16 MP CMOS Sensor and 15x Optical Zoom Digital Camera + 4 GB Class 10 SD Memory Card (Black) by Kenneth Foster

I've tried both the F500 and F505 and the F505 is currently much cheaper on Revain ($149 for the F505 vs $190 for the F500). The F505 is the same camera as the F550EXR Fujifilm FinePix F550EXR 16 MP CMOS digital camera with Fujinon 15x ultra wide-angle zoom lens and GPS geo-tagging, but without GPS geo-tagging. The F500 is also physically the same as the F505, but comes with "slimmed down" firmware. You lose the ability to capture a RAW image, and the size of the 360° horizontal panorama is reduced from a height of 1080 pixels to 720 pixels. With the F500, you also lose some other "best shot" features. see manual on Fuji website (same manual is used for F500, 505 and 550). GPS is a nice feature, but GPS cameras tend to be slow to fix and can tag your image with a location hundreds of miles away if, say, you haven't received a fix since boarding a plane. If you really need GPS functionality, get the F550 or one of the newer models (F600/F700 series), they all use the same sensor but are more expensive. The image quality is excellent on this and all Fuji models with the 16 megapixel camera. EXR CMOS sensor (F500, F505, F550, F600/700, HS20EXR series, etc.). I also have a Panasonic DMC-ZS10 and the Fuji is almost as quiet (noise) at ISO 1600 as the Panasonic at ISO 400! Of course, this takes advantage of the Signal-to-Noise EXR mode, which drops the output power to 8MP, but overall the Fuji performs much better in low light, producing brighter (better exposed) images with less noise. Of course it will outperform almost any DSLR, but among the compact models this is very good. One annoyance is that the flash always pops up when you turn it on. You can either press it down or select no flash to turn it off, but if you press it down you'll either have to turn off the camera or pull it up with your fingernail to use it again. Conclusion: This is a great compact camera and I now carry it everywhere with me instead of my Panasonic ZS10.