Battery Life
Image Quality
Compact Size
Light Weight

Limited optical zoom
Flash can over-power close subjects
Proprietary battery, can't use AAs in a pinch

A great pocket camera. Compact, light, excellent battery life and outstanding image quality. I purchased this camera just before Christmas last year. I've been very happy with the image quality. I use a 256 meg card in it and can take a couple hundred shots on the highest quality setting. The battery lasts long enough to fill up the card 2 or 3 times. On our vacation to the east coast of the US last spring I shot hundreds of pictures and took a few short video clips and never had to recharge the battery.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta Dimage F100

Video quality, image quality, size, weight, ease of use, and more.

The built in memory card will only hold about 5 pictures. Definitely replace that when you get the chance. I have a 1GB card.

I bought this camera for a mountain bike trip to BC this summer, and got rush delivery on it. Off the bat I was impressed with the camera's size, since it is a definite plus to have something small and compact when riding on a bike with the camera.

I've used the camera a lot (for me) in the time I've had it, and it does great for what I need it to do. I'm not an advanced camera user, so I stick to the auto focus, and stock settings rather than choosing to alter them, but if you are so inclined, it seems this camera has a ton of manual options that you can adjust.

In the time I've had it, it has been used for action mountain bike pictures, and has done great! Even at high speeds, everything seems to come out in focus, even in the stock settings, and the camera works great. I couldn't be happier.

I was also impressed by the relatively high video quality it had... I expected it to shoot poor quality, pixelated video.

I would recommend this camera to anyone. It is easy to use, compact, light, and has a wide range of adjustments for the more advanced and those who are technically inclined.

Customer Service

I haven't come into contact with the customer service department yet, I guess that is a good thing!

Similar Products Used:

Canon Powershot A300

Size, build quality, speed of start up and handling, battery life, picture quality (at ISO 50, 100 and 200). movie quality, past movie mode, shutter priority, aperture priority and manual modes. Quick access to ISO WB shutter priority and focus modes, unlimited user setting memory groups.

The flash is very underpowered, noise is high at ISO 400, no auto bracketing.

This is my go anywhere camera and it's very near perfect for my needs. I either have it in my case or in my pocket. I carry it in a slip in plastic case which came with a card reader so it's always ready. If you want to read an excellent review which sums up how I use my 750 and that goes into painful detail about what the camera can do then read http://www.kenrockwell.com/casio/exz750.htm. For me the camera needed to be pocketable, have decent manual overrides and most importantly take good quality photographs. This meets al those criteria. Considering it has a telescoping lens it's incredibly fast to start up so you don't miss a picture, it has a large clear bright usable 2.5" screen, accurate and flexible metering and focuses well. It also has a just about usable optical viewfinder and a very weak flash which is disappointing. It is small enough to pocket easily but quite weighty with a solid all metal construction, this gives it a quality feel..

The lens is very sharp and good to the edges its 35-105 equivalent and I would much prefer it if it was 30-90 or even 27-81, the default contrast and sharpening in camera are too high for my taste but these are easy to turn down. It's quite slow at the maximum zoom being 2.8-5.1 but that's the price you pay for it being a compact. It is a 7.2mp camera which produces really excellent results.

What I want to highlight is how easy this is to use, it has lots of the usual "scene modes" (called best shot by Casio) a couple of which are actually useful e.g. one for photographing a page of print that corrects for distortion in camera. But these are not to be overlooked even for serious photographers because you can create your own and have a picture to preview their effects. So for example if I want to take a picture hand held under Tungsten light on the screen I see a picture I took of an A4 sheet of paper explaining the mode and I am automatically into aperture priority with the camera wide open, ISO400, flash off and Tungsten white balance. When shooting a separate button gives you quick access to quality, ISO, WB and AF area. The four way controller buttons can be adjusted but the default is fine: flash mode, focus mode (inc manual focus) and exp comp. Picture noise is only average on this camera above ISO 100 200 and 400 are not unusable by a long way but there are better cameras out there for high ISO. This is more of a problem with compacts because of the slow lenses. It has 3 continuous modes, 2 gimmick modes and one very slow continuous mode, it’s so slow you are unlikely to use it. The other modes give 30fps for 25shots but only at 640x480 which it saves to one file like a contact sheet. The last mode takes a picture then immediately takes a partial crop which it saves as separate file. I’d rather have 3fps at say 4MP and instead of the zoom mode auto bracketing which is a glaring omission.

I have a spare battery for this but never carry it, this goes for weeks without the battery level moving and you can take hundreds of shots between charging.

I will touch on the movie mode this is very impressive for such a small camera although like most compacts you can't zoom whilst shooting. This also has scene modes and also has 2 other modes short movie and past movie. Short movie lets you decide how much time before and after you press the shutter release it will record; this is not so useful for me but the past movie mode is great. It’s used for those waiting for the dolphin to jump moments. You just keep the camera pointed at the scene then when what you want happens you press the record button and it starts recording with the previous 5 seconds of activity already recorded. It’s not time travel it’s constantly recording 5seconds of activity to the buffer. It doesn’t get used that often but it’s there in my pocket for if I do.

It also has a sound recording mode which again is useful in a device you have with you always but I use my phone for that.

It has some impressive in camera picture and video editing facilities which mean if you are out and about you could crop and resize for sending via your mobile phone or PDA if it took SD cards which mine doesn’t.

This camera has now been replaced by the Z850 which has an 8MP sensor and some useful extra features. .8 of a MP doesn’t make too much difference both will print well over A4 without a problem Most importantly the flash is improved and there is a video light too; the screen which is pretty good here is much brighter on the 850. The 850 adds 800 ISO and less noise at higher ISO. As soon as it came out I got one, then exchanged it for a second and then sent it back. It is a great camera and the improvements are really useful, but (and this is not just my opinion) the 8MP CCD is not as good as the 7.2 and the images it produces are not of the same quality, and that is even more apparent in the movie mode. SO I’ll stick with this until something better comes along.

For me the improvements from the 850 would be welcome especially a better flash if they stuck with a smaller but better CCD. I’d like to see a “pro” version. Not that I am a pro but if Casio could remove some of the snappy features and add some usability. For example if the short movie and sound record were moved off the mode dial then aperture and shutter priority could have there own position instead of being a sub set under manual. Also instead of pic quality on the quick acess metering mode would be useful As I’ve said 30-90 is a much better zoom range than 35-105 especially if this could get an extra half stop out of the lens. Bluetooth would be great meaning if out and about I could transfer that money shot to my phone and send it to Reuters thereby making my millions :)

So in summary if you want a compact, well made, quick to use, versatile camera which takes great photos and is easy to use with some creative possibilities then you will not be disappointed by either this or the Z850. For me the marginally better low ISO image quality of this one pushed me this way, for a lot of people the Z850 offers more.

Customer Service

Excellent

Similar Products Used:

Pentax 330RS, Casio EX850

Wonderful camera, small, ready to shoot very fast, I caught a pic of a moose darting across the road while riding my bike. I reached into my jersey pocket, pulled it out, turned it on and shot within a few seconds. Many options to keep you busy having fun while shooting away. You can aford to play as you just delete what you don't like. I like this camera as you can see from my rating. I hope my problem with the LCD is just an isolated issue. If I continue to have problems with this LCD or have a continued delay in getting my camera back, I would most likely adust my rating downward.

Well the camera was sent back to Casio upon my return from vacation, August 15th. I was told Casio is awaiting parts, and I should wait 10 business days before contacting them again. I overnighted the camera back to Casio $40 expense, but it will be returned to me UPS ground, so another 3-5 days for shipping back. As you would assume I'm bummed about buying a new camera and having it fail within a couple of weeks and then have to wait about a month (hopefully) to get it back. I hope the problem with the LCD is just a one off and not a weak point.

I obtained this camera just before leaving for a couple of vacations the end of July. The first vacation, week long houseboat trip on Lake Powell, the camera worked fantastic. I was able to use its many options, Sunset, Twilight, etc. to create some wonderful shots. The second vacation a week long bicycle ride in the upper panhandle of Idaho and the camera again was working great, until half way into the vacation the 2.5" LCD went bad and was not usable. I was able to continue taking pictures, and found out how important it is to have a viewfinder. Upon returning home and uploading all the pictures to my computer, I was pleased to see I captured all the sites I wanted to record. I can use Photoshop to adjust and play with them, so I did not lose anything.

Customer Service

Waiting on Casio to repair...the camera worked great for a week and a half. This is their time to shine!

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Cannon Powershot S30

small, light, fast, good pictures, 2,5" screen, long batt life, X 3 optical zoom

Not for bad light-situation

It´s a good and fast snapshot-camera