In summary
More adjustable controls than any other slimline digicam plus above average imaging performance.Casio has packed a surprising number of controls and functions into its Exilim EX-Z850 camera, which has an 8.1-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom lens. The sensor is larger than average, promising a wide dynamic range and low image noise. The camera’s well-designed, all-metal body sports a bright, 2.5-inch LCD, a very small optical viewfinder and a mode dial with eight positions. . . [more]
Full review
Casio has packed a surprising number of controls and functions into its Exilim EX-Z850 camera, which has an 8.1-megapixel CCD and 3x optical zoom lens. The sensor is larger than average, promising a wide dynamic range and low image noise. The camera’s well-designed, all-metal body sports a bright, 2.5-inch LCD, a very small optical viewfinder and a mode dial with eight positions.
It’s unusual to find A, S and M shooting modes on a slimline digicam, but the Z850 has them, although users are limited to two aperture settings. More scope is provided with shutter speeds, which range from 60 seconds to 1/1600 second in S and M modes. The lens tucks into the camera body when power is off and extends to offer up to 3x optical zoom. Most of the rear panel is covered by the 2.5-inch LCD and buttons accessing record and playback settings, menu, display and drive modes.
For quick access to resolution, white-balance, ISO, and AF zone settings, press the EX button on the side panel. Pressing the Display button lets you toggle between no display, a display without data and a display with data and a histogram, the latter with separate red, green and blue curves delineated on the overall tonal curve. Via the Menu you can overlay a rule-of-thirds grid on the LCD to aid shot composition. The small buttons will challenge photographers with large hands or limited dexterity but they give you access to plenty of settings.
Focusing options are abundant. You can choose between multi-point, spot and ‘Free’ AF. In the former, nine focus areas are displayed on the LCD with selected zones highlighted in green. In Free AF mode, cross-hairs on the LCD are centered on the area of interest by pressing the arrow keys on the four-way controller. Co-ordinates displayed on the screen allow users to re-focus on the same point in subsequent shots.
The camera comes with 34 pre-set scene modes. When selected each shows a sample illustration and brief explanation of what the setting does. Some of them, such as Old Photo, Business Card and White Board, perform automatic fixes to correct colours and/or perspective. Users can create and save their own scene settings and store them in the 8.2MB on-board memory.
Flash options are also wide, with a Soft Flash setting to reduce intensity and a High Power mode that boosts camera sensitivity to ISO 1600. A Flash burst mode lets you record three flash shots with a single flash burst. No slow synch setting is provided.
Nine BestShot movie modes are provided, among them a Past Movie mode with a five-second buffer that records continuously and saves the last five seconds of the action. There’s also a Short movie setting that saves the four seconds before the button is release and the four seconds after. Clips can be edited in the camera to save wanted recordings and frames can be extracted for printing.
The test camera produced bright, colourful image files but biased exposures towards shadows in bright outdoor situations. Although image contrast was not excessive, it was high enough to obliterate highlight detail unless exposure compensation was set to -0.3 or -0.7 in such conditions. Imatest showed colour accuracy to be excellent and resolution to be high, particularly at ISO 100. Noise was well controlled up to ISO 200 but became progressively more noticeable at higher ISO settings.
Flash and white balance performance were generally good, although the auto white balance failed to eliminate the orange cast of incandescent lighting. Close-up shots were sharp and clear, although close focusing is limited to about 65cm at the tele end of the zoom range. Digital zoom images were slightly soft and shots taken with the Night Scene and High Sensitivity settings in the BestShot mode were severely under-exposed. However, excellent night shots were obtained with long exposures in the S mode.
The EX-Z850’s responsiveness was above average. It powered up in just over two seconds and offered shot-to-shot times of just over 2.5 seconds, even with flash. Autofocusing was fast and accurate in most situations. Capture lag averaged 0.3 seconds, reducing to less than 0.1 seconds with pre-focusing.
Continuous shooting capabilities were constrained by the buffer memory, which could only hold three high-resolution images at a time. In the high speed mode, three shots were captured within 6.5 seconds but a high-speed card was required to reach the claimed one frame/per second standard speed for longer bursts.
Specifications
Image sensor: 7.18 x 5.32mm CCD with 8.32 million photosites (8.1 megapixels effective)
Lens: 7.9-23.7mm f2.8-5.1 zoom (38-114mm in 35mm format)
Zoom ratio: 3x optical, up to 8x digital
Dimensions (wxhxd): 89 x 58.5 x 23.7 mm
Weight: 130 g (without battery and card)
Image formats: Stills – JPEG (Exif 2.2); Movies – AVI (MPEG4)/WAV
Shutter speed range: 1-1/1600 second (to 60 sec in SP AE mode)
Focus system/range: Contrast detect AF; range 40 cm to infinity, macro 10-50 cm.
Exposure metering/control: Multi-pattern, centre-weighted and spot metering by CCD; P, A, S and M modes plus 34 BestShot scenes.
White balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Fluorescent (x2), Incandescent, manual.
Flash modes/range (ISO auto): Auto, On, Off, High-power flash, Soft flash, Red-eye reduction; range 0.1-4.3 metres
ISO range: Auto, ISO 50, 100, 200, 400
Sequence shooting: Standard – 3 frames at fps; Multi – 25 1600 x 1200 pixel shots combined to a single image.
Storage Media: 8.2 MB internal memory plus SD/MMC slot; internal memory holds 1 high-resolution image or up to 58 VGA shots.
Viewfinder: optical
LCD monitor: 2.5-inch TFT colour LCD with 115,200 pixels.
Power supply: NP-40 rechargeable lithium ion battery
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Rating
Rating (out of 10):
- Build: 9
- Ease of use: 8
- Image quality: 8.5
- OVERALL: 9