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Steve's Digicams Casio EX-Z300 |
Manual Control Options
The Casio Exilim EX-Z300 has a certain minimalist approach to manual controls. It really doesn't seem to want you to change many settings, though you can do it if you try hard enough. There's no way to alter shutter speed or aperture, and many controls have to be accessed via a menu system rather than through the quick menu. It's not a system designed to encourage user intervention; basically they seem to expect you to the camera's brain, and cross your fingers that your photos come out right.
Focus
Auto Focus (8.50)
The Z300 certainly has no shortage of auto focus modes. To start with, there's auto focus, macro focus, pan focus (for following objects in motion) and infinity. The auto focus area can be set to spot, multi or tracking. Casio has put a lot of effort into its facial detection system, with mixed results. You can prioritize the recognition to speed or quantity: speed will adjust faster, but only up to five people; quantity will recognize up to ten. You can also set up a smile-based auto shutter, which will snap a shot when your subject cracks a grin. This can be set to one of three levels of sensitivity, so that you won't accidentally capture a smirk rather than a smile.
The face detection mode that had the most promise, but actually failed the worst, is family detection mode. The premise of this is that you photograph the faces of your family members, and the camera will recognize them, and give them the highest priority when taking group photos. Apart from the potential land mine of setting the priority of various family members above others; the camera won't even let you customize people's names, leaving you stuck with the generic Dad, Mom, Child, Baby, Grandpa, Grandma, Family, Friend, Work, or Other. Each person can be set to up to three stars of priority (with one star being low, and zero stars being ignore). The biggest and utterly fatal flaw of the system, is that it simply doesn't work. We couldn't get it to consistently recognize faces, even in near ideal conditions.
The Family Detection Mode
Manual Focus (5.50)
Surprisingly for such a generally auto-mode point-and-shoot, the Z300 does offer manual focus. It's adjusted using the left and right buttons on the four-way pad. While focusing, the central area of the screen is enlarged to assist in focusing.
ISO (8.75)
The Z300 has a generous range of ISOs, running from ISO 64 to ISO 3200. These will suit almost any light level, and the competent noise controls means that you won't be to bedeviled by that insidious static.
White Balance (4.50)
White balance controls are usually accessed via the menu system, but can be customized to the quick menu if you need to change them on the fly. There's a pretty good range of choices here: Daylight, Overcast, Shade, DayWhite Fluorescent, Daylight Fluorescent, Tungsten, Auto and Manual. Having multiple variations of fluorescent lighting is useful, as different bulbs can cast different colors of light, though a Flash preset would also have been a nice addition. The Z300 has the unusual feature of a white balance editing mode, where you can go into photos already taken, and adjust the white balance during playback.
Exposure (2.50)
Exposure compensation can be set to the common ±2 EV in 1/3 steps. Auto exposure bracketing would have been a nice inclusion, but at least there's some control.
Metering (6.00)
The metering can be set to multi, center-weighted, or spot, but be careful; this is one of the many settings that gets reset every time the camera is turned off.
Shutter Speed (0.00)
Shutter speed is beyond your control with this camera, relying instead on the auto exposure system. Shutter speeds run the rather restrictive gamut of 1/2 to 1/2000 of a second in normal shooting mode, which is extended up to 4 seconds in night mode. We would have preferred more manual control over this setting, or at least the option of taking one- or two-second exposures while not in night mode, but it was not meant to be.
Aperture (0.00)
Another important setting whose manual controls are sadly lacking on the Z300. At its widest setting the aperture range is f/2.6 to f/7 and zoomed in it alters to f/5.8 to f/15.5. F/2.6 is quite speed for a point and shoot, and lends itself well to low-light and handheld zoom photography.
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Image Parameters