Experience With Casio Digital Cameras?

[Over Achiever]

I'm in the market for a digital camera, I have several features I desire.

*Pocketable (compact/ultra-compact)
*Strong and accessible of manual controls (aperture priority, shutter priority, exposure compensation, manual focus, manual white balance)
*Fast (startup, shot-to-shot, focus)
*Decent/good image quality (decent 8x10" images)
and it also has to be a good value.

I've been looking at the Casio EX-Z750 ... it seems to be in a class of it's own. Relatively good value too. But then I discovered the Casio EX-Z120 ... it's a 7.2 MP (1/1.8") pocketable (1.07" thick), runs on 2xAA batteries (good since I already have rechargables), same manual controls as the Z750. But here's the amazing value ... it's $250 including a 1 GB SD card. Must-buy?

So I'm wondering those that have Exilim cameras ... how are the image quality and overall satisfaction with the camera? Are there other cameras in the same class I should look into? Should I wait and see if there's a good deal on the Z750? Any advice/thoughts/opinions?

Many thanks,
OA

 

[puckhead193]

my friend has one, its 5 MP, its alright. She's happy with it. The pictures are ok. Its small, quick to start up and write to the card... I would check out canon and nikon

 

[Clix Pix]

This past summer I was unexpectedly away from home for an extended period without a camera and finally, before I went totally nutso, I said, "I've GOT to have a CAMERA!" I went out the next day and found a Casio EXILIM Z50 in the local (very rural area) Radio Shack. I bought it without many expectations. I was more than pleasantly surprised by the feature set and the functionality of this thing. Having been a longtime Nikon user, this being my first venture away from the Coolpix arena, I was very impressed. I read reviews of my new camera and other Casios around the 'net and started following the Casio forum on DPreview. One of the first things I did when I finally returned home was to go out and buy me a EXILIM Z750. Why? Because it has even more features and functionality than my Z50 and because like that other camera, is very pocketable, something I really appreciate. I carry it with me all the time now, something I never could quite manage with my CP 990 or 995! Unlike the current CP models it is quite versatile, has fast startup and read-to-card, not to mention that it offers a good feature set (including manual control) and a lot of functionality. The menu on the Casio is so intuitive that I never even needed to look at the manual that came with my Z50, even though it was a totally new camera system to me.

Image quality? While not exactly meeting up to DSLR standards, both of my Casios certainly do just fine for Point & Shoot. The camera, like a Mac, "just works" very well and does what it is supposed to do. Anything that looks a bit "off" can easily be corrected in any image editing program. I am very glad to have a camera always with me, and one which is very responsive and quick when a photo opportunity comes up. We're talking P&S here and the Z750 does very well in that area while providing the opportunity for more control over aperture or shutter speed if one needs it.

Early on in its history the Z750 had a bit of a problem with frequent "lens error" situations, which I think has now been resolved. Certainly with my Z750 I have not experienced that at all.

I am sorry but I don't know anything about the Z120 -- you might want to check out comments at places such as the DPreview site's Casio forum or Google for reviews in other places.

Based on my own experience I would say that the Casio is definitely an underrated and often unnoticed contender in the scheme of things....but this certainly seems to be a product line of merit within the general range of P&S digital cameras.

OTB

 

[Daveway]

I used a relative's Casio Exilim over the summer and found it to have great qualities (size, look, speed) but thought the pictures came out very noisy.

 

[Abstract]

The thing about all these small cameras is that the photo quality is almost exactly the same no matter which brand you get. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

One thing that's great about this is that you can basically judge a camera by its manual features, screen size, physical size, and the availability of an optical viewfinder so that you don't need the LCD all the time.

Just read a review, but don't bother with the parts about the photo quality. Again, they're all so similar that it won't matter much. Read about the manual features, how simple they are to access, etc.

I own a Canon IXUS 40 and it has been great, but I know that Sony, Casio, Nikon, and Panasonic make great cameras as well. Its just that I was used to using another Canon digital camera, so the menus were similar and I was already familiar with the Canon menus out of the box.