Casio Exilim EX-V7

Viewfinder
The Casio Exilim EX-V7 doesn’t have the space for an optical viewfinder, but uses the live view on the LCD screen. The screen measures 2.5 inches across and has plenty of resolution at 230,000 pixels. The size and resolution of the screen are great, but the refresh rate isn’t anything to envy. Subjects blur easily when the camera is moved – not because the camera can’t focus (although it does have its issues there too), but because the refresh rate on the screen isn’t very fast. The display information on the live view can be changed by pushing the top of the multi-selector (labeled Disp.). The screen can be blank, show basic info, and show the full info with a live histogram. Grid lines can be added too, but only through the setup menu. Overall, the V7’s live view is great – unless you move the camera.

LCD Screen
The Super Bright LCD screen on the V7 is large and endowed with enough resolution for enjoyable viewing. The screen has good contrast, and is helped out by the camera’s ability to brighten even more. In the setup menu, users can choose from 0, +1, +2, Auto 1, and Auto 2 settings. The automatic screen brightening settings don’t provide much info on how they are different, but I was told by Casio reps that the #2 setting is for more drastic changes like walking out of the basement into daylight. I couldn’t test this in the convention center, but the screen is supposed to automatically adjust its brightness according to the environmental lighting.

The screen has a wide viewing angle when held out to the side. It’s a different story when held above or below eye-level though; the image quickly solarizes into a negative. Thus, this Exilim isn’t made for holding up at concerts; it would be better at holding around a corner and sneaking a picture or two.

Flash
Located in the top right corner of the front is the skinny built-in flash unit that casts decent light at best. The flash isn’t that powerful; it can reach from 0.3-7.2 ft when the lens is at its widest. When the lens is zoomed in, the flash is only effective in the narrow range from 3.3-4.6 ft. The intensity can be adjusted +/- 2 in full steps within the recording menu, but the flash still doesn’t reach farther than 7.2 ft at its most powerful setting. There is a Rapid Flash mode that uses the flash in a burst of pictures, but the flash intensity is toned down to save power; in this mode, light can only reach 6.9 ft. There is a Soft Flash mode that is easier to access and succeeds in diffusing the harsh lighting enough for a good portrait. Auto, On, Off, and Red-Eye Reduction are the other flash modes available with Soft Flash and found by pushing the bottom portion of the multi-selector. There are no major bright spots in the frame as far as I could tell. The flash’s range makes it hardly usable in many situations though.

Zoom Lens
The internal 7x optical zoom lens is the flagship feature of the Exilim Hi-Zoom EX-V7, making it one of a handful of ultra-zoom / ultra-thin digital cameras. Casio makes a big deal out of the V7 being "the world’s thinnest 7x optical zoom digital camera," but this isn’t such a feat when Kodak has a 10x digital camera that’s thinner (although it uses internal 3x and 5x lenses that have a 10x range, but a gap between the two that shows up as a big jump in the live view). The Casio lens can deliver 10x zoom too, but only with a reduced resolution of 3 megapixels. However, more should be made of the EX-V7's image stabilization system - a key feature the Kodak lacks.

The zoom lens is made of 12 lenses in 9 groups, with 1 aspherical lens. Its range moves from 6.3-44.1mm, or an equivalent 38-266mm in 35mm photography. The Casio V7 moves throughout this range via the zoom control located to the right of the LCD screen. This control looks like a vertical bar, and slides up to zoom in and down to zoom out. This unique control is surprisingly comfortable and very sensitive too. I coaxed 37 different focal lengths out of it, which is very impressive.

The lens’ aperture range isn’t very good. The largest it gets is f/3.4, which it retains throughout the zoom range but still doesn’t get in much light when compared with the standard f/2.8. This could cause quite a few blurry images from slower shutter speeds, so Casio added an Anti-Shake setting in the recording menu. It consists of the following options: Auto, Camera Shake, Image Blur, Demo, and Off. The Camera Shake mode is the V7’s true CCD-shift optical image stabilization system, and it works quite well. It doesn’t completely eliminate blur in every image, but it makes a noticeably positive difference.