Casio Exilim EX-Z700 Digital Camera Review

by Emily Raymond
Published on November 22, 2006

Navigation
Intro	Testing / Performance
Physical Tour	Components
Design / Layout	Modes
Control Options	Image Parameters
Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions
Conclusion	Specs / Ratings
Photo Gallery

 

This digital camera powers up in the auto mode, also known as the Snapshot mode. The Z700 assumes automatic settings, but users have the option of changing settings and having the camera “remember” them in the setup menu for the next time the camera is turned on. Ironically, the auto mode is also the most manual mode on the camera. In some of the preset modes, the white balance or ISO is unavailable. In the auto mode, though, there is full access to everything on the camera. The auto mode performed well in optimal lighting conditions, but tended to blur subjects in low light.

 

Movie Mode (6.5)

The Casio Exilim Z700 has a movie mode that is listed with the other modes in the Best Shot menu. The Quality menu lists the mode’s resolution settings: 640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps, 512 x 384 at 30 fps, and 320 x 240 at 15 fps. Casio recommends using SD cards that have a read/write transfer speed of at least 10 MB per second. Otherwise, a few frames can be “dropped” when using the top two resolution settings, according to the user manual. This could potentially happen if recording to the internal memory (which wouldn’t make much sense anyway because you can only really fit a few seconds of video on it), but didn’t happen in my testing. The top resolution is television-quality, but the next step down doesn’t look quite so good. It’s not horrible, but there is definitely a difference. The lowest quality setting is great for email but still has an incredibly choppy frame rate that will spawn any viewer’s motion sickness. The Z700’s movie mode doesn’t have optical zoom, but does offer digital zoom. Warning: it makes the movie look awful, no matter what video size you’re using. Another downside: the audio. The monaural audio doesn’t pick up much at all unless the subject is within about 6 ft of the camera. Even still, the audio comes out muffled in playback. Playback on the camera is possible with options to play, stop, fast forward, rewind, and scroll through frame by frame. Users can select frames for printing and can edit the movie so that only the beginning, end, or beginning and end are saved. Overall, the movie mode wasn’t very impressive but the editing features were a nice touch.

 

The Casio Z700 normally takes a shot every 1.5 seconds or so, but it speeds up significantly when the burst mode is activated. In the recording menu, there are normal speed and high speed continuous burst modes. The normal speed shoots 1 fps, while the high-speed takes 3 fps. Both max out at 3 frames, unfortunately. It takes another 5-6 seconds to write to the memory card before the Z700 is ready to take its next burst of photos. Also grouped in the Continuous section of the menu is the “rapid flash” mode, which shoots three pictures with the flash in one second. This is very fast for including the flash, although the flash tuckers out and dims in the succession of photos. Of note is the camera’s self-timer, which has three options: 2 second delay, 10 second delay, and a triple self-timer.

 

The camera’s playback mode is accessed with the rectangular button at the top of the back side. The last picture taken is always the first to show up. Using the square-shaped multi-selector, users can push right and left to scroll through the individual pictures and movies. Pushing up shows shooting info and histograms. Pushing down deletes pictures. Deletion is done individually or all at once, but it is not possible to delete batches of photos at once. One nice feature about the multi-selector is that if the right or left side is continuously held down, users can scroll very quickly through lots of photos. There are other viewing options too such as thumbnails or on a calendar.

 

Pictures can be magnified up to 8x, which is plenty close to check the focus. There are lots of editing features included on the Casio Z700. Users can rotate, resize, and trim photos. There is also a keystone correction feature, but its access is very non-intuitive. In the playback menu, it is accessed with the Color Correction option. The actual Keystone option doesn’t work at all. As for the color correction, there is none. It seems like this glitch could be easily fixed with a firmware update, although this problem exists on several other Exilim cameras released this year and nothing has been done for months.

 

Playing back movies comes with some editing options too. Users can cut the beginning, middle, or end. They can also print individual frames or “nine frames” with four small frames on the top and bottom and one larger frame printed in the center of the sheet.

 

The Casio Exilim EX-Z700 has a decent slide show mode that can display all images, selected folders of images, all stills, all videos, or Favorites – which can be tagged to individual pictures through the playback menu. The slide shows can play for 1-60 minutes, with each picture showing up for 1-30 seconds or at an alarmingly fast rate that will give you a headache (also called “MAX”). There are 4 transition effects and options to display them randomly or to turn off the effects altogether. Overall, the playback mode is one of the best aspects of the Casio EX-Z700 with its display modes, editing options, and slide show.

 

Scene modes are the bread and butter of a Casio Exilim digital camera. Most compact digital cameras have about 12 scene modes, but Exilim models have two or three times that much. The Z700 weighs in with 34 scene modes and a total of 37 Best Shot modes (the other three being snapshot, movie, and voice recording). The Z700 has two new scene modes that its predecessors did not have. The Auto Framing mode automatically tracks moving subjects and outlines them for closer shots. The Z700 also adds a layout mode that lets users put several pictures into a single image as a sort of photo collage.

 

Here’s the grand list. Portrait, Scenery, Portrait with Scenery, Children, Sports, Candlelight Portrait, Party, Pet, Flower, Natural Green, Autumn Leaves, Soft Flowing Water, Splashing Water, Sundown, Night Scene, Night Scene Portrait, Fireworks, Food, Text, Collection, For eBay, Backlight, Anti Shake, High Sensitivity, Underwater, Monochrome, Retro, Twilight, Layout-2, Layout-3, Auto Framing, Old Photo, Businesscards and Documents, and Whiteboard.

 

Scrolling through the laundry list is a workout for the thumb on the multi-selector. Not to mention the eyes. The mode menu displays thumbnails of sample pictures; the text title appears when highlighted. If users move the zoom ring while highlighting a mode, the text explanation appears. For example, the “For eBay” mode states that it “Takes photos optimized for selling items on eBay.”

 

Some of the modes are basic, such as Portrait and Scenery. Then there are the more interesting ones. eBay is a fairly new mode included on this year’s Exilim digital cameras. It saves images at 800 KB for optimal web posting on the popular online auction site. The mode does not, however, automatically rotate pictures – which would be a nice feature. That can be done in the playback mode though. The Old Photo mode uses the keystone feature to straighten photos, the saturation to liven colors, and the trimming function to save them at the 2-megapixel size. Unfortunately, this isn’t much resolution so those old photos won’t look good in anything larger than a 4 x 6, and even that image size is really pushing the limit.

 

If users take the time to make a few flash or ISO adjustments, they can save their work using the Register User Scene mode. This selects images in the playback mode and saves them in the Best Shot menu; the camera then uses the same exposure settings when accessed. If the internal memory is formatted though, these modes will disappear.

 

Overall, the scene mode selection is good. The more, the merrier, right? It depends on what you prefer. If you will only use about three of those modes, scrolling with the multi-selector through vast numbers of thumbnails will drive you mad. If you enjoy trying all the new flavors of image presets, though, the Casio Exilim Z700 is your camera.