Great camera so far

Author's Rating:

Pros: Zoom range, wide angle, automatic exposure, screen, picture quality, compact, strong flash.

Cons: Bigger, heavier than ultracompacts with smaller zoom ranges; delicate touch required on zoom button.

The Bottom Line: 
Recommended for anyone wanting a long zoom range in a compact camera.

Author's Review
I bought the EX-H10 because my wife and I had been happy with my Exilim EX-Z700, a very compact and handy camera, but always wanted more optical zoom than its 3X zoom. So when the EX-Z700 started to behave badly (after nearly 4 years), I started my shopping with a built-in bias toward Casio. The EX-H10 is thinner and lighter than its main Canon (SD-210) and Panasonic "compact super-zoom" rivals, and fits nicely in my shirt pocket, though it's still bigger and heavier than ultra-compacts like the EX-Z700. Its zoom range (10X) is a bit smaller than the Canon and Panasonic, but still quite adequate for our use, and I like its wide 24mm bottom. My decision swung finally to the Casio when I saw it was about $140 cheaper than the competing Canon at Amazon.

We have had this camera for little more than a week, but so far we are quite impressed. We enjoy the big LCD viewing screen, and the operation buttons don't seem any smaller than on other cameras (I can use them quite well with my big fingers, if I'm careful). You must have a delicate touch on the zoom button to reach the desired magnification without jerkiness and lots of little adjustments, but I suppose that's the price you pay for a 10X zoom range.

We already are familiar with the basic Casio operating system, but I think anyone could pick up this camera and start staking good pictures right away. This camera also has some new features that I have not had time to play with yet (including face recognition, which seems to work well). We like the new separate video recording button, which saves some fiddling when you want to film video. And while some reviews said you can't zoom while filming video, I have been able to do so. There also are a couple of separate scene-selection buttons on top, which I haven't yet learned about yet but which I think can be programmed for other purposes.

The automatic Best Shot (BS) setting works great. It has captured some very nice pictures under difficult conditions such as backlighting and in dark rooms, choosing the best exposure and flash settings automatically. The flash is powerful enough to light subjects about 12 to 15 feet (4 to 5 meters) away, and perhaps even further. There is almost no shutter lag, and recycle time between pictures is quite quick (I think less than a second with my cheap, slow memory card).

I give this camera 4 out of 5 stars for picture quality because I am not a professional photographer nor a camera reviewer, so I cannot compare its quality to that of other cameras (Canons tend to get great reviews for picture quality). I can only say that my wife and I are very pleased with the photos we have taken so far, including landscapes, family snapshots, party candids, and a macro closeup of a stunning butterfly.

I cannot assess its reliability because the camera is new, and its dependability remains to be seen. Our previous Casio worked great for over three and a half years, but then it suddenly started overexposing and banding some pictures (not all) recently for unknown reasons. Does that makes it a reliable camera or an unreliable one? I don't know.

Overall, I would confidently recommend this camera to my friends.