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A pocket camera for people who appreciate photography, May 21, 2005
Reviewer: PhotoGraphics (Arizona) - See all my reviews
I have been giving less and less credibility to the so-called digital
camera reviewing websites lately as digital cameras get past the
gee-whiz-gadget stage and become true instruments of photography. The
review sites are ok when they talk about their interpretations of
published specs but they leave me cold when it comes to how good a digital
camera is at making a memorable photograph. Yes, things like start-up
time, internal memory capacity, and battery life are good to know because
if a camera scores really badly on certain specs it can become a chore to
use. But how well a digital camera helps create a photograph is still the
most important thing that needs to be considered.
I have preached the mantra that "more megapixels doesn't mean a better
picture" for years and I still believe it, but I also believe that some of
the newer high megapixel cameras are also now giving us better lenses and
processors, which are the two main things that make one digital camera
better than another. And I've resisted getting suckered into the hype
about some manufacturers putting exotic-sounding names on their lenses.
All that really means is that they paid to license the lens name, it
doesn't mean each lens is hand made in the Black Forest by old bearded
craftsmen.
The same review sites mentioned above seem to kiss the feet of anything
with the name Canon on it to the point of putting their independent review
status in severe jeopardy. Yes, Canon makes some good cameras but they
really don't have any more real experience in the business than most other
DIGITAL brands and in my estimation they consistently fall just slightly
short of the mark. Yeah, most people buy them, but then again most people
eat at McDonalds.
So what do I think is the very best all around consumer digital camera on
the market regardless of price? To me it's the Nikon D70S - priced right,
near perfect design, and slightly more accurate at capturing images than
the Canon counterpart. But I don't want to lug a huge camera and a bag of
lenses around with me all the time, that's why I was so excited when
high-quality pocket-size digital cameras were invented, so I could leave
my old Nikon SLR on the shelf and be prepared to make good photographs
wherever I happened to go.
Since I put the old film cameras into semi-retirement, I have had digital
cameras from Panasonic, Canon, Olympus and HP and they were all adequate
but suffered from that "chore" syndrome mentioned above with their
horrendous shutter lag, dismal startup time and wretched battery life.
This time around I wanted a camera I could truly carry in my pants pocket,
yet has a good (no make that great) lens, excellent battery life, as many
manual features as I could get in a tiny package, and something that
didn't feel like a plastic toy.
I considered Panasonic Lumix, Canon, Nikon and Sony. The other brands I
looked at had some good stuff but didn't seem to fill my desire for a true
photographer's quality instrument. Sony got booted off the list fairly
fast. They are such a fine company, why can't they make a camera that
actually takes a great picture?
I am intrigued by Lumix, the quality of the pictures seems first-class, I
love the image stabilizer, and they are very feature-rich, but most of the
pocket-size models feel just a little cheesy. Canon makes pocket cameras
that take good pictures, but I feel Canon is resting on their reputation
instead of trying to build a product that's worth the asking price.
And Nikon would have come in a strong second, just missing first place
because of weak ergonomics. I never seriously considered Casio, ok maybe
for a watch or calculator, but I asked myself what they would know about
photography. Turns out they know a lot. They've actually been making
digital cameras longer than almost anyone, and when it comes to the right
buttons in the right place they are geniuses. I'll go further than that,
the whole concept of the Exilim EX-Z750 is genius. It you total up all it
offers I would have to give it the honor of being the only perfect
pocket-size digital camera on the market.
As soon as I touched on I was impressed by its quality. It feels like it's
machined out of block of solid aluminum (its not). The controls give you
nearly everything you will every want using buttons that make sense and
don't require you to go many levels deep in the menu. I love the HUGE 2.5"
LCD screen but no LCD screen is fully useful in direct sunlight no matter
what anyone says, so Casio thoughtfully brought back the optical
viewfinder.
It seems 9 out of 10 reviewers who mention the optical viewfinder say they
hate it because it's so tiny. Who cares? It's there when you need it, and
it's sharp and clear. If it makes the difference between getting a
priceless picture or missing it, I'll take a tiny viewfinder instead of
none anytime.
The EX-Z750 starts up and is ready to shoot by the time I get my finger
from the off/on switch to the shutter release. Can't be any faster than
that. I have still not found any instance where shutter lag has caused me
to miss what I wanted to capture, in other words there really isn't any
shutter lag in real life.
Rather than go into every detail of the camera, I'll mention a few of the
biggest high points that sets this camera apart from every other one in
the category.
1. The EX-Z750 remembers the zoom position when you turn it off and back
on again. I have dreamt of a feature like this! There are so many times I
have had the camera all set up and had to turn it off to wait for
something to be ready, only to have to turn a camera back on and make
several readjustments. With the EX-Z750 I can turn it back on and
EVERYTHING is set exactly the way I left it.
2. Some cameras have some limited function to remember other favorite
settings, the EX-Z750 seems to have the ability to remember nearly
everything without having to commit it to a special "favorites" position
on a switch or dial. So if I like -1 saturation (and this camera is
slightly oversaturated in its default position) I can leave it at -1
forever.
3. You can turn the camera on and off with the on/off switch, or you can
turn it on and off using the "record" "play" buttons to go directly to
that mode. How cool is that?
4. The EX button makes it possible to very quickly adjust four of the most
important shooting parameters without ever going into the menu mode.
5. The movie mode is incredible, and offers several unique features
including a unique pre-movie that's already recording before you push the
record button ... kinda like the way TIVO works ... it's weird and
insanely brilliant. After seeing the quality I wonder who in their right
mind would lug along a camcorder no matter how small it is on those trips
to Disneyland when the EX-Z750 can take outstanding still pictures AND
decent video in a camera you can hide in the palm of your hand.
6. Live RGB histogram? On a camera the size of a deck of cards (smaller
actually)? WOW!
7. Battery life is one of the best in the industry.
8. 30 scene modes! Yeah I know I said I wanted something to take
professional quality photographs and I wanted manual overrides, but
sometimes you don't want to spend 10 minutes setting the camera like when
the sun is setting in 30 seconds. I can't believe how versatile the scene
modes are.
Last but not least, the picture quality is shocking. I compared two
pictures taken at the same time of the same scene with the EX-Z750 and the
$1300 Nikon D70S. I showed them side-by-side to several people who should
have been able to tell the difference. Nobody could.
The negative side? Slight oversaturation as it comes out of the box. For
snapshots it may help most people make a blah picture look a little more
exciting. For someone more critical, just set the new default to -1 and
you've got yourself a low-price, pocket-size D70S. To the reviewers who
can't figure that out, get over it and go get a job at McDonalds.
The other small negative is that I love panorama assist. I take a lot of
panorama pictures and I can't figure out how Casio missed putting in this
one obvious feature. Must be some fear they have of absolute total
perfection ;-) I rate the Casio EX-Z750 a 10 out of 10
Footnote: I've had the EX-Z50 for a week now. I've taken it on a trip and
taken a variety of photographs and even submitted a few to be judged. The
sharpness of the lens on this little pocket camera is unbelievable. The
realism of colors is uncanny. Overall I can say photographs taken with
this camera are so far beyond my expectations I would call them thrilling.
I'm still going to buy a digital SLR but I'm in less of a hurry now that I
see what I can do with my pocketable Casio.
Return to Casio Exilim EXZ750
7MP Digital Camera
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