If I were you I would check into a Canon or Nikon. That Fuji would be good for most shots but really would not let you have that much manual control as even in manual mode it is still pretty much automatic. Your longest shutter is 2 seconds which is good enough to pull off some decent night shots and the aperture is hard to get to with out going through a lot of menus and folders. I think if you look around and check out some of the Canon and Nikons you can find a better camera. Look at www.dpreview.com and check out some of those on there.