Casio Exilim EX-Z300 Digital Camera Review

Casio Exilim EX-Z300

Digital Camera Review

Nov 26, 2008 - By Tim Barribeau
2.1 The Exilim EX-Z300 is a slim and shiny 10-megapixel point-and-shoot camera from Casio, that has an impressive zoom ratio of 4x, and a maximum aperture of f/2.6, which should let you shoot at very high shutter speeds. However, once we got it into our labs, we found that it performed slowly, and while it did very well in some tests (like resolution and manual noise) it also really struggled with others (such as automatic noise and white balance). These uneven test results and slow speeds coupled with the annoying user interface made this a less than favorite. For full details on the $299.99 camera, follow the link below.
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Casio EX-Z300

We take pride in testing cameras to their limits, and so we've put the Casio Exilim EX-Z300 on the metaphorical rack to see how well it performs. The Casio excelled in our resolution, dynamic range and manual noise tests, but struggled in other areas.

Color (8.47)
We photograph the industry-standard GretagMacbeth color chart at a bright 1700 lux, and run the resulting images through Imatest, a highly regarded image analysis application to determine how accurately the camera has captured colors. The results are displayed in the chart below, with the outer ring of color representing the captured color, the inner area the chart color corrected for luminance, and the inset rectangle the original, unprocessed chart color.


The Z300's capture of the GretagMacbeth


This information can also be seen below in a different form, with the chart color in the square, the captured color in the circle, and the difference between the two shown by the length and direction of the line conecting them. As you can see, the Z300 did well on purples and greens, but struggled with some blues and oranges. It also under-saturated the image a bit, so your pictures may seem a little washed out.


The greens and purples are very close to their ideal value

As you can see from the graph below, the Z300 did relatively well in color accuracy compared to other cameras. We looked at the slightly older Casio Exilim EX-Z1050, the touch-screen Samsung TL34HD, the high-end Panasonic Lumix DCM-LX3, and the gorgeous but expensive Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 as representatives of a variety of cameras you can get with different features and price points.

Casio Exilim EX-Z300 Color Scores


Resolution (11.64)
Resolution is more than just a measure of megapixel count; it's the bottom-line sharpness in the images the camera produces, influenced by the sensor, optics, image processing and other factors. We photograph an industry-standard resolution chart, and feed the resulting images through Imatest, which measures resolution in terms of the number of line widths per pixel height (lw/ph). This represents the number of alternating black and white lines that can be discerned clearly before the image deteriorates into a gray mush.


A segment of the industry-standard resolution chart that we use for testing

The Z300 grabbed 2774 lw/ph horizontally and 2202 lw/ph vertically, without any appreciable under- or over-sharpening. As you can see in the comparison graph below, this is an excellent result, putting it above all the other models shown. This exceptional sharpness translates into more options for cropping and enlarging.

Casio Exilim EX-Z300 Resolution Scores


 
Dynamic Range (8.30)
Dynamic range is a measure of how well can reproduce both blacks and whites in the same image, without dragging either into gray or losing detail. A camera with poor dynamic range will either under-expose the whites or over-expose the blacks, and  will result in a washed-out image. We test dynamic range by photographing the backlit Stouffer chart, which has forty tabs running from black to white, and analyze the resulting images through Imatest.

In the graph above, you can see how dynamic range falls as ISO increases. What is unusual is the sudden drop between ISO 64 and ISO 100. We expect there may be some odd digital processing at ISO 64 that artificially boosted the apparent dynamic range. Apart from that sudden plunge, it's a gentle and pleasant curve overall, and one that indicates almost no difference in noise levels between ISO 800 and ISO 3200, which is good for low light photography.

Casio Exilim-EX Z300 Dynamic Range Scores

White Balance (6.21)
What our mind accounts for easily, but is trickier for a camera to deal with, is the way different sources of light can cast different hues. Light from incandescent bulbs tends toward orange, for example, but our minds adjust and we see it as white. We test how the camera deals with this by leaving it on auto white balance mode and shooting under a number of different light sources, and then shooting the same light sources using the camera’s presets. You can see the results in the illustrations below, though be aware that the color differences have been greatly exaggerated to reveal the color-shift trends.

Auto White Balance (5.92)
The Z300 did excruciatingly poorly in the automatic section, except for one section, which pushed the camera's total score in this section up considerably. The one area where it achieved exceptional results was under indirect sunlight. Alas, under flash, daylight and tungsten light sources, it crashed and burned worse than a NASCAR driver with a hangover.

   Exaggerated White Balance Errors


Auto WB - Flash Illumination 

  
Auto WB - Fluorescent Illumination 


Auto WB - Daylight illumination

 
Auto WB - Tungsten illumination 

Preset (6.51)
Once again, the excellent score in indirect daylight pushed up the overall total, compensating for disappointing results with fluorescent and tungsten light. The camera doesn't offer a flash preset, hence the missing result below.

 

   Exaggerated White Balance Errors (Presets)


Fluorescent Preset WB - Fluorescent Illumination 


  Cloudy Daylight preset WB - Daylight illumination


Tungsten preset WB - Tungsten illumination

Even with two excellent results, the overall performance of the Z300 is decidedly sub-par, worse than any of the cameras we're comparing it to. So unless you're shooting in daylight, you may have trouble with odd hues in the images you use.


Casio Exilim EX-Z300 White Balance Scores

 

Physical Tour Page 3 of 15 Noise and Video
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