Casio Exilim EX-F1 Digital Camera Review

Casio Exilim EX-F1

Digital Camera Review

2.2 Unquestionably the most futuristic camera of 2008, the Casio EXILIM EX-F1 offers unparalleled capabilities. It can take 60 full-res pictures in a second, It shoots both standard- and high-def video and, for its most jaw-dropping trick, offers super-slow-motion shooting at up to 1200 frames per second. The EX-F1 looks like an SLR, but it’s actually a rocket-powered point-and-shoot with a 12x optical zoom lens, priced at $999. The killer feature turns out to be rapid-fire still photography, though image quality is good, not great. For more details, read the full review that follows.
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Casio Exilim EX-F1

Model Design / Appearance (7.50)
This is one handsome camera, with an elegantly curved body that seems to be swooping forward toward your next photographic adventure. Of course, that impressive-looking 12x lens is part of the appeal, but we admire the way the glass has been integrated into the overall design to create a cohesive look. Even the few shiny flourishes, including the glossy panel on the top right of the camera and the button panel on the left, behind the lens, are fun highlights rather than intrusive design interruptions.

Size / Portability
(5.50)
The EX-F1 is a substantial piece of hardware, at 5.03" x 3.13" x 5.1" (127.7 x 79.6 x 130.1 mm) and a hefty 23.67 oz. (671 g.) without the battery. It may not have interchangeable lenses, but in shape and size it might as well be a digital SLR, meaning portability is not going to be this camera's strong suit, even compared to other ultra-zoom models. The Olympus SP-570 UZ, for example, with its 20x optical zoom, weighs just 15.7 oz. (445 g.).

Handling Ability (6.00)
Coming to grips with the EX-F1 requires some comfort compromises. The right-side hand grip protrudes roughly an inch and a quarter from the camera body. If you have large hands, that's enough to curl your fingers tightly around the grip, just touching the camera body between the grip and lens, shutter finger well positioned for stills, thumb securely on a dimpled area just right of the movie-mode shutter. In fact, one-handed shooting is very practical with this model, especially when using the LCD rather than the EVF for lining up your shots. Go for the two-handed grasp, though, and you may find finger traffic congestion sets in. Cradle the lens with your left hand and your fingers try to curl into the same indent where your right hand is holding the grip. We found the best two-handed hold required a little delicacy on the left side, basically crooking your index finger and resting the barrel on that. With a little practice this worked just fine, but it did take some fiddling to find that comfort zone, and it's hardly intuitive.


The EX-F1 is comfortable for one-handed shooting,
but a two-handed grip can be cramped..

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (8.25)
Even when you've found a comfortable grip, there's still the nagging problem of that movie shutter positioned on the back of the camera. After working with the EX-F1 for weeks we still hit that button accidentally far too often, sometimes when trying to shoot stills, sometimes just when carrying the camera around. Somebody at Casio made the design decision that being able to choose between shooting movies and shooting stills using separate shutters, without going through the extra step of changing modes with a menu or button selection, was the way to go. And yes, this arrangement does open up the possibility of shooting stills while recording movies. We just wish they'd found a better spot for the movie shutter – maybe over on the left side, where three buttons already find their home – so we wouldn't end up with quite so much video footage of our desktop, or the sidewalk, or the inside of the lens cap.

Other than that snafu, the controls are well designed and readily accessible. Very few buttons serve dual purposes, which makes the typical squinting for blue labels on a black camera body unnecessary. The combination four-way controller/ control dial on the back of the camera is a clever spin (literally) on the standard control scheme. For most operations, we still found ourselves pushing the controller sides up or down, left or right for most operations. However, when you want to whiz quickly through photos in playback mode, the control dial is a much faster solution. We like having this option, and appreciate the intuitive way it works.

The Function Ring around the lens barrel is another well-designed feature. It looks and feels like the zoom control of an SLR lens, and can be used for that purpose, but it’s actually a programmable control that can be assigned to zoom, or manual focus, or changing the continuous shutter speed setting on the fly.


The combination of a central 4-way controller surrounded by a
spinning circular wheel proved very efficient.

Menu (7.50)
There are separate sets of menus for Play and Record mode, which is a mixed blessing: it keeps the display simple, but it does mean you can't change all the settings you might like in one place. In addition to the menus that take over the screen when you press the MENU button, the record mode for stills and movies also offers an always-on Control Panel strip menu down the right side of the screen that keeps frequently used adjustments, such as flash setting, ISO and white balance readily available. It's an arrangement that works very well in practice, since you never have to hunt for a buried menu setting or a particular button to make day-to-day adjustments while shooting.

The on-screen menu displays are well organized and easy to read, with white text on a gray background and a bright red highlight to indicate your position in the menu structure. A navigational problem does comes up when you want to move between two on-screen menu sections – from REC to Quality to Set Up while shooting, for example, Pressing right or left on the four-way controller opens the options for the item that's currently highlighted, but doesn't move you between menus. Instead you have to maneuver the highlight all the way to the top of a column before you can move between sections, which can be time-consuming.

Another navigational oddity comes when choosing from a sub-menu, such as the Anti-Shake setting or adjusting flash intensity. The instinctive way to do this is to highlight your selection and then press the SET button in the middle of the four-way controller. That works fine, but it also closes the menu system, when you may well want to make additional settings. To stay in the menu system and make more changes you're expected to simply highlight your submenu choice, then move left using the four-way controller to return to the previous menu. Getting used to this is a minor annoyance, granted, but the number of times we grunted a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" during testing because the menu screen had disappeared unexpectedly indicates this wasn't the best design choice.


 
Control Panel Menu
Image Size 6M, 3:2, 16:9, 4M, 3M, 2M, VGA
Flash Auto Flash, Flash Off, Flash On, Red Eye Reduction, External Flash
ISO Sensitivity Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
White Balance Auto WB, Daylight, Overcast, Shade, DayWhite Fluorescent, Daylight Fluorescent, Tungsten, Manual WB
Exposure Compensation -2 to +2 in 1/3EV increments
Metering Multi, Center Weighted, Spot
AF Area Spot, Free, Tracking
Recording Light On, Off
Display Time Time, Date
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Mode Menu
Self Timer Off, 2 sec, 10 sec, three-shot sequence
AF Assist Light On, Off
Anti-Shake Auto, Camera AS, Image AS, Demo, Off
Face Detection On, Off
Continuous AF On, Off
AE/AF Lock AE Lock, AF Lock, AE/AF Lock
AE Bracketing 3 or 5 shots, increments in 1/3EV
WB Bracketing 3 or 5 shots, color temperature increments
Focus Bracketing 3 or 5 shots, distance increments
Ring Setup CS fps, Zoom, Focus, Off
Save CS Images Normal (batch), Select and Save, Always Ask
Digital Zoom On, Off
Quick Shutter On, Off
Review On, Off
Grid On, Off
Memory Flash, Self-timer, Flash Intensity, Digital Zoom, MF Position, Zoom Position
Quality
Still Image Quality Fine, Normal, Economy
HD Video Quality FHD (1920x1080, 60fps), HD (1280x720, 30 fps)
HS Video Speed 300 fps, 600 fps, 1200 fps, 30-300 fps
Dynamic Range Expand +2, Expand +1, Off
Flash Intensity -2, to +2 in 1/3EV increments
Flash Assist Auto, Off
Color Filter Off, B/W, Sepia, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Pink, Purple
Sharpness +2, +1, 0, -1, -2
Saturation +2, +1, 0, -1, -2
Contrast +2, +1, 0, -1, -2
Setup
Screen Auto 2, Auto 1, +2, +1, 0, -1
EVF Brightness 0, +1, +2
Sounds Startup, Half Shutter, Shutter, Operation (each with 5 sounds and off), Operation Volume, Playback Volume (each with 7 levels)
File No. Continue, Reset
World Time Home, World
Timestamp Date, Date & Time, Off
Adjust Set date and time, 12- or 24-hour format
Date Style YY/MM/DD, DD/MM/YY, MM/DD/YY
Language 16 languages including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Chinese (Cantonese), Korean, Finish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Hungarian
Sleep 30 sec, 1 min, 2 min, Off
Auto Power Off 2 min, 5 min, 10 min
REC/PLAY Power On, Power On/Off, Disable
LCD Priority On, Off
USB Mass Storage, PTP (PictBridge)
Video Out NSTC 4:3, NTSC 16:9, PAL 4:3, PAL 16:9
HDMI Output Auto, 1080i, 480p, 576p
Format Format, Cancel
Reset Reset, Cancel
 
 

 
 
Play Mode Menu
Slideshow Start, Images (All Images, All Images Except Burst, Stills Only, Videos Only, One Image), Time (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 min), Interval (1-30 sec, Max), Effect (Pattern 1-5, Off), Cancel
MOTION PRINT 9 frames, 1 frame, Cancel
Movie Editing Cut Beginning, Cut Middle, Cut End, Cancel
White Balance Daylight, Overcast, Shade, DayWhite Fluorescent, Daylight Fluorescent, Tungsten, Cancel
Brightness +2, +1, 0, -1, -2
DPOF Printing Select Images (0-99 copies), All Images (0-99 copies), Date stamping On / Off
Protect On, All Files, Cancel
Rotation Rotate, Cancel
Resize 3M (2048x1536), 2M (1600x1200), VGA (640x480), Cancel
Trimming Size with zoom control, move crop area with four-way controller, SET to select
Copy Built-in to Card, Card to Built-in, Cancel
Divide Group Divide All Groups, Divide, Cancel
Display Layout Wide, Normal
Set Up
Same as Record Mode (see above)

Ease of Use (5.75)
This is a relatively complex camera, with its multitude of modes and capabilities, many of which have never been seen before. In fact, it takes a 185-page manual to explain it all, which unfortunately is provided only as a PDF file and not a printed document. We’re not big fans of grinding up trees unnecessarily, but in this case the manual is required to take full advantage of your $1000 purchase, and computer-based manuals don’t travel well when you take your camera out to shoot. And if you’re going to create a 185-page manual, wouldn’t it make sense to include an index?

Beyond documentation issues, using the EX-F1 is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The dual control-dial system on top of the camera – one for exposure modes, one for shooting modes – organizes choices well. Similarly, the three-position selector around the movie shutter makes changing between standard movie, high-def movie and high-speed movie modes crystal clear.

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