An Astonishing Electronic Imager for an Astonishing Price

Author's Rating:

Pros: High Speed Massive feature set massive pallet set (zoom etc..)

Cons: Low light sucks - rolling shutter - small quirks

The Bottom Line: 
If you want to have some serious artistic and experimental fun in pictures and video and are tired of "missing" the shot. GET THIS.

Author's Review
I had the older (slightly more powerful) version of this camera the EX-F1 then I saw this one for a meager $249 and just had to have it as a backup.

This camera has many amazing things going for it (and many BAD things hurting it too)

This camera does its thing at a higher resolution of 9mp (which makes those bad things even worse)

First it flaws. Its buffer is much smaller than the F1 (but its also a fraction of the price of the F1) and it uses the same rolling shutter that the F1 used and at the higher resolution and lower power its worse.

What this means is if your subject is MOVING very very rapidly it will "skew" in the frame if the speed is high relative to your pan/movement speed.

If you have ever seen video from a cheap chinese camera when things start to pan fast or vibrate all the objects in the frame will "distort" and "twist" that is what harms this camera's output.

So for example when I take a picture of a rocket taking off sure it gets it (at 40fps it can't miss) but the rocket becomes "distorted" imagine a parrallegram. DO THAT to what your shooting.

so parts of the object get "stretched"

The buffer could be bigger especially since ram is cheap and casio has no "prime" competitor for this unit any longer since they no longer make the F1.

The F1 could also do 60fps versus this units 40fps but at the smaller buffer 60fps would fill it too quickly also 40fps truly is fast enough for pretty much anything someone who would buy this camera wants to do.

Ok enough of the problems. For as annoying as they are this camera really is an AMAZING machine but I like people to go in eyes open with no surprises.

Plus unless your crazy like me (shooting rockets) your never really going to encounter this problem in what you shoot. Most of what the average person shoots will be moving slow enough relative to the camera's frame of reference to not have a problem.

and while not so easy for me for the average person the solution IS easy. FOLLOW your target. if the relative motion is zero or near zero you will never have this problem.

OK onto the good stuff.

This camera is essentially 3 camera's in one.

Its a Still Photo camera with high speed capability. Its a High Speed video camera and its a High Definition Video Camera.

Lets start with Still Photo's

its a 9mp camera For taking stills its as good as your typical point and shoot maybe slightly lower quality but for your typical user going 5x7 and smaller your NEVER going to see this difference.

It has a 20x zoom lens that starts VERY wide (this is important since most people are going to take "action" shots where they need zoom but also "family" shots where your constantly trying to "move back" to get everything into the scene. With a wider starting point you will be a much much happier shooter.

This camera does not dissappoint. for yout typical shoot the auto focus is fast accurate and response time is FAST. as fast as you can press the button it snaps your shot. very little delay.

It DOES have issues focusing on smaller objects (such as my rockets tends to try and focus on the grass behind the rocket instead of the rocket) but again this is a NICHE issue your average user will not have this problem.

The flash is strong and fast to recharge. the 4AA power is nice. get some 15 minute nimhs and your golden.

Now to is "special powers" when still shooting.

this unit can switch to "high speed" shooting mode. you can select how fast upto 40fps. that means you press the button and BAM it takes a max of 30 pictures in about .8 seconds.

that is faster than you video camera and it does this AT 9 Megapixels. Brings new meaning to high def. Whats the point at .8 seconds?

thats where its SECOND super power comes into play. its what I call Pre Cognition mode.

first most people have NO real need to shoot at 40fps. your typically going to use 10fps for slow things and 20fps for fast things

If your familiar with how camera's work you know the Shutter button has TWO positions. we call this "half press" and "full press"

you push the button half way and it does it exposure and focus calculations. and now you wait. when you see your shot your camera is already set to go you push the button all the way.

Well this camera has this interesting ability.

Imagine a LOOPING tap recorder. record 5 seconds over and over and over again at any point you stop you have 5 seconds from the past

imagine being able to SPLIT that time in half. some before and some AFTER you press the "go" button.

this camera can do this. for example I might say precog 10 images capture 20 images.

what this means is I half press the button and IT STARTS TAKING PICTURES. upto 10 pictures and then it starts LOOPING eating its own tail. 123 123 123 123 123 over and over forever. constantly taking pictures FOREVER. when I finally "press" the button it "SECURES" the last 10 images and then shoots 20 more images (unless I let go early you will learn to judge and do this to save space and time)

so when I finally press the button I have BOTH 10 images from BEFORE I fully pressed the button and 20 images AFTER I pressed the button.

Imagine this scenario. your child is up at batt at the little league game. You want to catch them HITTING the fall is "sliding" into home.

SO you aim half press get yoru focus good. you "wait" when you SEE them hit the ball you "PRESS" the button.

ever done that? missed it ehh? well not anymore. usually your "too late" you did not guess correctly with this camera it gets ALL the shots at say 15fps 10 before and 20 AFTER you pressed the button and saved EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

Think about that. For something you know is coming it means you never ever have to miss it again. not only can you get the shot you can get the SWEET shot the ball as it touches the bat. BAM. 8x10'r

thats what I call the "money shot" the shot thats so nice you want to print it LARGE. 8x10 :-)

Not only that but the 20x zoom means you can REALLY reach out their and frame the exact shot you want.

It also has special modes where you can set it and walk away when it detects motions it gets shots before and after. Great for bird feeders etc..

The possibilities are utterly endless.

If you love taking pictures you going to simply DROOL over the possibilities of this function. (careful no drool on the casio)

It can also high speed shoot with FLASH. 10 frames at 5ps. that means the FLASH goes bang bang bang 10 times 5 times a second for 2 seconds. Not bad. NOT the flash is weak it won't have the reach it does "one shot" but it opens up chances to take interesting pictures for sure.

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Next up is High Speed Video.

the videos are small. they are low res. they are blocky but Holy Crap you can shoot at 1000fps.

Imagine seeing butterflies wings FLEX and FLAP yes they really FLEX quite a bit more than you think and its mesmerizing to watch.

or watching a balloon pop or a paintball leave the barrel if your kids marker.

Science Experiments for school and just for fun. RECORD neon lights actually "flickering" on and off so fast you can not see them without this high speed video.

While not overly useful its an insane amount of fun!

whats even more useful is the slower modes. at 120fps it will record 640x480 thats DVD resolution video (dvd is 720x480) at 120fps or video slowed down 4 times. Your golf swing at 120fps your kids bat swing at 120fps your daughter's high dive at 120fps.

Skipping A stone SO many things you can do with this capacity.

240fps is even faster and only slightly smaller (448 pixels IIRC)

then you have 30-210 mode.

this is where you start off recording at 30 frames per second and with the press of a button without stopping it slows it down to 210 fps.

this is great for say recording sports. you record at full speed and when the ball gets to home plate to switch to 210fps for the swing and hit. Tons of fun to be had with this for many function to show the dramatic difference from what you see at full 30fps and what actually happens at 210fps.

The higher the speed the more you can slow things down and this means you can catch faster objects but it also means SMALLER image size.

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Next is Video Camera mode. this unit can record 720p high def video and it records very nice 720p video. especially with that 20x zoom lens and wide angle starting point.

it does have 2 flaws. it records largely uncompressed video so its HUGE limiting how much you can record even with very large memory cards.

the next bad one is LIGHT sensitivity. its VERY bad in low light. very bad. in fact if there is not enough light don't even bother.

BUT if you do have enough light the video is spectacular especially considering its coming from a $400 camera.

During the day spectacular as well.

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while the camera's has a lot of flaws (and it does have a lot) those flaws are largely very small especially compared to its MASSIVE list of features and super powers.

It can simply do things NO other camera can do. Period. End of discussion. Truly an amazing piece of hardware.

If your going on vacation this is most definately a camera you want with you. Just watch the low light when recording video.

Most of the issues can be resolved once you are aware of them and what causes them.

Make sure you PRACTICE with this camera. while the menus and operation are very simply and easy they are not always intuitive. you need to KNOW how to do what you want to get it done quickly. if you just pick up and go with no practice you will miss shots trying to "figure out" how to do this or set that.

so practice. remember digital is free. the batteries are rechargeable and hard disk space is CHEAP.

Another drawback is your work load will climb.

in high speed photo mode every time you TOUCH the shutter button BAM you have 30 pictures to sift through at home. do this 100 times and you have 3000 images to go through.

I regularly come home with 2 8gig cards FILLED with images. the "lab work" at home can be quite daunting.

So learn to "let off" the shutter once you know you got the shot and use only as many FPS as you know you need to get the shot. 40fps for your kid at bat is a waste 10fps is enough. Moment the action is done let off the shutter. you might then only have 10 shots to go through instead of 30.

Once you practice with this camear. Learns its quirkes and annoyances and its "special powers" and harness them you will wonder HOW we ever got along without them.

SO much potential in such an affordable package. Such a versatile power package.

if you desire to have "fun" experimenting with these kinds of features you will NOT regret buying this camera.