Casio - Exilim EX-Z4 review

In many respects the Casio Exilim EX-Z4 is an evolution of compact cameras such as the Canon IXUS. For one thing it's tiny, with the same profile as the IXUS but 4mm slimmer, and for another it has a lovely big 2-inch TFT screen.

Casio has used an Li-Ion battery that is smaller than the Compact Flash storage card used by Canon, and instead uses an SD card. Or rather, it has an SD slot but you don't get an SD card with the Exilim EX-Z4, although you do get 10MB of internal memory.

That may sound generous, but if you set this 4-megapixel camera to the fine setting, you'll only squeeze four photos into the memory, and on the regular setting you'll manage six photos. This is little short of pathetic as there isn't much point in buying a 4-megapixel camera if you use it to take low-resolution photos.

Anyway, you'll need to budget £30 or so for an SD card to make use of this camera, and although that's not a great deal of money, the Exilim EX-Z4 isn't a cheap camera in the first place.

The overall impression of the Exilim EX-Z4 is that it looks absolutely lovely. This impression is probably assisted by the fact that our review model was in the limited edition red (blue is also available), rather than the ordinary silver colour, as the choice of colour worked very well indeed. It contrasts with the aluminium controls and the chromed buttons and really raises this camera above the herd.

This tiny camera doesn't have space for a regular USB connector and instead has a small connector on the bottom of the camera. The picture transfer and battery charging functions are carried out using the supplied docking unit, as shown in the photo, which is a neat solution if you're at home using your own PC, but it could prove to be a pain if you're out and about as you are unlikely to be able to dock the Casio with another PC.

The big display is a real help when you are changing settings and framing your shots, and you have enough space to leave the histogram showing light levels on your screen and still see what you're shooting at.

Unfortunately the Casio is a competent camera, rather than a good camera. As with so many digital cameras the flash is too bright at close range, but that's a minor annoyance. The real issue is that every picture was fairly clear but lacked the sharpness that we expect at this price point from a 4-megapixel camera. The Exilim EX-Z4 is a lovely little camera but you can get better results elsewhere.

Casio - Exilim Card EX-S500 review

The Exilim Card EX-S500 is one of those digital cameras designed to look good in the hand. It is very thin indeed (its dimensions are 90 x 59 x 16.1mm) and should slip easily into any pocket, where its 115g of weight will hardly be noticed. When you first switch it on, and the lens pops out, it looks ridiculously proportioned in relation to the main body of the camera. Our review model was a rather nice grey colour but there are also white- and red-bodied alternatives.

The raw headline specifications are pretty encouraging: 5 megapixels, 3 x optical zoom (plus 4x digital providing a maximum 12x zoom), MPEG-4 video capture and voice recording. Still images can be shot at resolutions of 2560 x 1920, 2560 x 1712 (3:2 ratio), 2304 x 1728, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200 and 640 x 480 pixels, while video is captured at 640 x 480 (High Quality), 640 x 480 (Normal) and 320 x 240 pixels. You can keep on shooting video until your storage space is full. Interestingly, you can take a still image at the same time as you are shooting a video.

There 8MB of built-in memory and a slot for an SD card. You will need to buy one of these pretty quickly if you want to be able to take anything like a serious number of pictures when out and about as Casio doesn't bundle a card with the camera. The 2.2-inch LCD screen on the back makes framing shots very easy and it's great for sharing newly taken images or movies with others.

Using the camera is easy. While much of the back is occupied by the screen, Casio has still found room for a four-way navigation and selection button, an extra pair of buttons for making menu choices, and five more well labelled buttons.

But for all its stylish looks, good general features and ease of use, one of the most attractive features is the 'Bestshot' system. The camera has 33 pre-configured settings for shooting different types of images. One of the buttons on the back of the camera is dedicated to calling up the selection, with sample images that help describe the function of each setting on offer in a 4 x 3 grid on the huge screen.

The labels indicate best use for these settings; things like scenery, portrait with scenery, candlelight portrait, soft flowing water, splashing water, and so on. You can also add your own settings to the library. This makes the Exilim Card EX-S500 one of the best of the current crop of point-and-shoot cameras.

You get a charge cradle which can be used to dock with a PC and send AV data out to a TV (the slim camera casing really doesn't have room for AV or USB connectors). Carrying this might be a bind at times, but a PC card reader is just as good for transferring data to a computer.

Casio - Exilim EX-S770 review

Casio is perhaps one of the first names you'd think of when looking for a compact digicam; its Exilim range has in the past achieved rave reviews for an effective combination of quality and usability.

The superbly compact EX-S770 has clear intentions of continuing this trend. It's one of the most stylish and slim models we've seen and, with a 7-megapixel CCD, it offers enough detail for most people. The sleek silver/grey exterior houses a wide range of control buttons, the sheer number of which appears a little daunting at first, but after spending a few minutes with the camera you discover that most are pretty well conceived.

Despite housing a wide range of features for tweaking and adjusting settings to build the right shot, Casio has done a good job of making the most important of these pretty accessible. A range of display modes on the LCD gives you a choice of a clean picture, histogram display or a vertical mini-menu. This offers quick access to flash and shooting modes, ISO sensitivity and auto white balance adjustment.

When you get used to the layout and operation of the controls it only takes a few presses to make adjustments for your environment that other cameras often bury amongst a flurry of sub-menus. It's very usable, then, and it looks great, so how about the photos?

First it's worth mentioning that the LCD display, while very large and very colourful, is more adept at previewing your photos than replacing the viewfinder. A fairly poor refresh rate makes it a little difficult to see how changes to settings like white balance and exposure are actually affecting the shot. This is particularly apparent when using the 3x optical (plus 4x digital) zoom, when the image starts to look a little grainy and you start to see artefacts and ghosting on screen.

The resultant photos are good for the most part. If you take the time to fine-tune settings for the lighting and environment you're in, you can improve things quite a bit, but the automatic setting has a decent pop at this for you. Macro shots were particularly impressive; very sharp with vibrant colours and fantastic detail.

Regular landscape and portrait shots require a little more care, as bright colours can appear slightly washed out and for ultra-sharp images you'll ideally need a tripod or have the camera resting on something solid. Night shots were reasonably good: ISO sensitivity reaches 800 which was fine for close-up shots but you'll start to lose detail if you're snapping distant objects in poor lighting.

This is more of a point-and-shoot solution then, like many modern compacts. There are plenty of settings to fine tune if you know your photography and in doing so you can achieve better results.

A few niggling issues, such as the fact that you're only provided with an electronic manual and you can't plug the camera into a PC without the docking stand, could have been avoided, but overall we were impressed by the usability, portability and quality of Casio's latest Exilim.

Casio - Exilim EX-Z1050 review

Last year Casio's portable yet powerful Exilim Zoom EX-Z1000 became the world's first 10.1-megapixel compact camera, putting professional quality photography in the hands of the everyday user. The EX-Z1050 takes this a step further by making comparable technology even more affordable, in a smaller form factor shell available in a range of colours.

Utilising a similar design and control layout to much of the current Exilim range, the majority of the device is taken up by the impressive 2.6-inch LCD display on the back, complemented by a small array of buttons that manage to offer total control without overwhelming you with choice. A traditional flick-switch handles the 3x optical (4x digital) zoom and, thanks to the innovative tool layout on screen, the directional pad is more than adept at handling the rest.

As is now the norm for the Exilim range, you're given instant access to all of the most important settings via the control bar on the right side of the display. Simply use the control pad to scroll down through focus, ISO, white balance, quality settings and more to carry out quick adjustments with ease, eliminating the need to browse through menus away from the viewfinder before you snap a photo.

You'll find even more settings through the photo menus for further fine-tuning, and through the playback menu you can build slideshows, print layouts, view a calendar of time-stamped photos and edit your snaps or perform quick corrections on the move. If you'd rather not get involved in the more technical aspects of photo control, a dedicated 'best shot' button takes you to a well structured thumbnail display of common environments, such as sports, parties, pets, underwater and more traditional portrait, landscape and night scenes.

This makes the EX-Z1050 great for beginners by offering a further degree of control, something that's one of the biggest strengths of the Exilim range. The structured menus and intuitive presets combine with some effective anti-shake technology making for an extremely forgiving camera that'll do a great job in a range of environments. We saw consistently sharp and vibrant results in a number of different settings, all of which are well represented on the colourful, sharp and responsive LCD display.

It's impressive enough that Casio has crammed this much performance into such a portable device, but the fact that the price is in line with many of today's mid-range compacts makes it even more of an achievement.

Bearing in mind the target market of such a camera, which we would expect to consist of a mix of talented beginners and enthusiastic amateurs, there's very little to criticise about the EX-Z1050. Minor points such as the lack of direct charging (you need to carry a separate adaptor box to plug the battery into) or a carry case in the box aren't enough to detract from the excellent combination of performance and usability, and this camera should appeal to a wide range of photographers.