Introduction
The Casio Exilim EX-Z60 competes against all the major brands in a tough market segment. Despite such challenges, the EX-Z60 offers a solid, all-around product at an attractive price for those who want the style and size of an ultracompact digital camera. In fact, I bought my wife the earlier Casio EX-Z50 for just this reason six months ago.
In a previous review, I mentioned that I normally don't get too excited about point-and-shoots. This is still true, but just to be sure I decided to give one of these new ultracompacts a spin to see if it would be worth toting one around instead of toting a standard compact point-and-shoot or DSLR. It's definitely fun to use such a small and capable piece of equipment. For simple snapshots, this Casio did a fine job. Nonetheless, this review approaches the Casio Exilim EX-Z60 from a DSLR perspective (specifically, thinking as a photojournalist).
Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 Features and Design
Some compact cameras aspire to function as their big DSLR brothers and sisters do. Others seek to keep it simple, and the Casio Exilim EX-Z60 is an excellent example of the simple approach. There are only a few buttons to think about, and when you toggle through the control menus, helpful reminder balloons pop up to confirm your changes. When I bought a Casio for my wife, this was one of the big selling points, because I knew she would not bother to memorize all the flash control options, focus modes, or whatever. With the helpful reminder system, you don't have to know anything other than "Push one of the buttons." This makes the system totally intuitive. Selecting a setting is "iPod-like," which basically means, "Click the center button to select." Easy, and that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.
Left: Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 Controls
Right: Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 BS (Best Shot) Button
In fact, although the automatic shooting mode is the default capture mode, Casio makes things simple by hiding all the other modes (movie, scene modes) behind the BS (Best Shot) button. And instead of a list of modes, Casio uses a grid of image icons to represent scene modes like "Landscape," "Night Portrait," etc.
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One feature fast becoming standard on compact digital cameras is image stabilization. The Exilim EX-Z60 definitely gets an extra stop or two of "hand-holdability." I did not test the camera with image stabilization (IS) turned on; if you have it, you will most likely leave it on all the time. From years of using the IS feature on other cameras, I know that the limits of the technology, practically speaking, are around 1/5th to 1/15th of a second (handheld). Because of the sharpness of my Casio images made at these speeds, I am confident the EX-Z60's image stabilization works as advertised. (Keep in mind, however, that even with IS, sometimes you just have to shoot faster to get a sharp photo.)
Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 main menu Quality tab
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Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 detailed playback display, with histogram |
Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 Best Shot (scene modes) menu |
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Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60 "EV Shift" (exposure compensation) |
Camera Performance and Image Quality
The Exilim EX-Z60's autofocus performed very well for a compact camera, although I found that with landscapes and general outdoor situations, the single point autofocus worked better than the multispot mode. Indoors with people at parties, dinners, and so forth, the multispot mode worked fine. As they say, "Your mileage may vary."
As with anything designed for simplicity, you trade off some control for ease of use. One area that I found a bit frustrating was the autoexposure. Now I should say that for a casual point-and-shoot camera it probably performs well enough for most people who will buy it. However, compared to the trustworthy Leica D-LUX 2, which I also reviewed, the autoexposure performance is a bit erratic and easily thrown off by slight changes in the framing of the scene. Often I would shoot a few similar frames and get roughly halfstop variations between at least two of them. However, this is something most casual snapshooters probably won't even notice.
On a related subject, I found the exposure compensation to be somewhat inconsistent too. Although the results often were decent, I found it difficult to trust. In digital photography there's always the concern about maintaining highlight detail while simultaneously achieving enough brightness in the midtones.
As with the autoexposure, the Casio's default color saturation may or may not be to your liking. The blues and reds in particular were a bit too bright and oversaturated for my taste (see below). But to be fair, the color wasn't so bad that I disliked the images. The camera does offer some in-camera sharpening, saturation, and contrast control so you can salt and pepper it to your taste.
The Exilim ZX-60's 3x optical zoom lens is respectably sharp, and I think you'd expect as much. Distant objects, such as radio towers and windows in buildings, all had distinct definition when viewed at 100 percent. There is a slight oversharpening of edges visible in the files, but for JPEGs this is not out of the ordinary. In macro focus mode, the camera produced crisp images from edge to edge with pleasing focus fall-off (blur) in the background.
Just about every digital camera review nowadays gets tough on noise, and I'll make no exception for this review. Still, sometimes you just have to get the shot. The Casio EX-Z60's ISO 400 setting is usable, although there is apparent noise. The noise is most visible in the shadows and has a "chunky" feel (see below). As with all current digital cameras, more light generally helps. And since noise is a personal preference, download some sample files, look in the shadows and smooth tonal-areas, and decide for yourself. Remember that noise is one of the compromises that have to be made for compact cameras and their tiny image sensors. For snapshot purposes, I think the Casio is about average for noise.
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| Casio Exilim EX-Z60 noise samples. Click on detail photo (right) for high resolution sample.
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Sample Images
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