Manual Control Options
The EX-Z57 doesn't offer much in the way of manual control. There is no direct control of either aperture or shutter speed. By setting the ISO rating and changing the EV setting, which changes the exposure, the user can influence aperture and shutter settings and make the image lighter or darker. Manual focus and custom white balance are also available.

FOCUS
Auto Focus (6.5)
The EX-Z57 autofocus mechanism offers a variety of focusing modes. The camera defaults to a standard multi-zone mode which allows the camera to select a focus point from a row of five focus sensors arrayed in a line across the lower part of the composition. A spot mode is also available, forcing the camera to focus on the center of the image. Holding the shutter release down halfway will lock the focus, enabling users to recompose the image for the selected region. The EX-Z57 switches seamlessly between regular distance focus and macro, so it focuses continuously from infinity to 6 cm.

There is an unusual and potentially tricky feature included on the EX-Z57 that will enable users to override the autofocus. When the camera is set to “Auto PF,” quickly pressing the shutter all the way down overrides the autofocus and sets the lens to focus at about six or seven feet. The PF setting is explained below in the Manual Focus section of the review.

Manual Focus (4.0)
The EX-Z57 offers three variations of manual focus. Two are efficient, one is flexible, and none of them are both. The efficient ones are Infinity, which locks focus at far distances, and Pan Focus, which sets the lens to a medium-range distance, with the expectation that many common photos are taken at about that range. In Pan Focus, subjects from 1 to 4.9 meters (about 3 to 16 feet) will supposedly be in focus. At the telephoto setting, the range narrows to 2.6 to 4.8 meters (about 8 to 16 feet). Pan Focus tries for acceptable results, not the best the camera can do. Casio says the manual focus options speed up the camera's operation, so they may be better than missing a shot entirely.

The EX-Z57 also offers a more typical manual focus option, but it relies on the live LCD display, which is pretty fuzzy. It's very hard to see the difference between infinity focus and one meter focus onscreen. The autofocus system consistently does a much better job than the manual focus can do, unless speed is the priority.

ISO (6.5)
The EX-Z57 can be manually set to one of four offered ISO ratings: 50, 100, 200, or 400, or it can be set to automatically choose an ISO setting, based on either available lighting or a scene mode. The EX-Z57's available ISO range is typical of point-and-shoot cameras, although Fujifilm has released some standout cameras with higher top settings, such as the E550 which goes up to 800 and the F-10, which extends to ISO 1600.

White Balance (7.5)
The EX-Z57 offers preset white balance settings of daylight, cloudy, shade, two fluorescent settings, tungsten and automatic. A manual setting is also available, which operates in a typical fashion: after scrolling over the manual option, the user points the camera at a white card (or something close to “true white”) and presses the shutter, saving the setting.

The white balance choices on the EX-Z57 are better than many of its competitors. It's valuable to have separate settings for Cloudy and Shade, and two fluorescent settings are much better than one. The manual setting is very useful in scenes with mixed lighting, or in rooms with brightly-colored walls.

Exposure (7.5)
The EX-Z57 exposure modes are all automated, either in the Snapshot mode or the Best Shot mode. The camera's EV setting allows the user to adjust exposure over two stops in 1/3-stop intervals. That's a standard range for cameras of this type. With the live histogram display, it's a useful way to optimize exposure.

Metering (6.0)
The EX-Z57 uses a multi-pattern metering system which takes separate light readings from several areas of the frame, and evaluates them to settle on an exposure. Multi-pattern systems are usually the best bet for automatic modes. The EX-Z57 is unusual and a bit limited because it does not offer any other options, such as spot or center-weighted.

Shutter Speed (0.0)
In Snapshot and most other modes, the EX-Z57's shutter speeds range from 1/8 to 1/2000 of a second. In Night Scene mode, the slow end of the range extends to 4 seconds, and in Fireworks mode, the shutter speed is fixed at 2 seconds. While this is a limited range, it should suffice for most point-and-shooters.

Aperture (0.0)
The 5.8 to 17.4mm Pentax zoom lens has a maximum aperture that ranges from f/2.6 at the wide end to f/4.8 at the telephoto end. The minimum aperture is not listed in Casio's specs, but it appears to be in the range of f/7.7, which is typical for point-and-shoot cameras relying on small imagers and short lenses. Again, there is no opportunity for the user to set the aperture on the EX-Z57, although the camera can be set to display the aperture and shutter speed settings determined by the camera on the LCD display. 

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