Casio Exilim EX-Z850
Digital Camera Review
Oct 27, 2006
- By James Murray
1.8
The Casio Exilim EX-Z850 was released earlier this year at PMA 2006 and while not the most appealing model in terms of innovative styling, this camera does have some impressive specifications. Housed inside of a metal shell, this 8 MP camera has a 3x optical zoom lens, 34 preset scene modes, a full movie mode with editing in playback and both shutter and aperture priority modes. This camera will certainly appeal to beginning users looking for a camera to grow into with manual control over focus, white balance, exposure and ISO. The camera has a 2.5-inch LCD with 115,200 pixels and a real image optical viewfinder. The Casio Exilim EX-Z850 originally retailed for $399.99, but now retails for $349 on the Casio web site and can be found for even less online.
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Picture Quality / Size Options (7.0)
Image size and quality parameters are both located within the main recording menu. Listed at the top of the first screen of options, both parameters are displayed as text overlaid on a live-view backdrop. The image size options are listed first and allow users to select between 8M (3264 x 2448), 8M (3264 x 2176) 3:2 format, 6M (2816 x 2112), 4M (2304 x 1728), 2M (1600 x 1200), and VGA (640 x 480). These options can be quickly scanned using the up and down arrows of the four-way control; as each option is highlighted the camera will scroll automatically between the megapixel count (8M), the image size broken down into pixels (3264 x 2448), along with the final maximum recommended print size (A3 print). The picture quality options for the Casio Exilim EX-Z850 are as follows: fine, normal and economy settings.
Picture Effects Mode (7.25)
The picture effects settings for the Z850 are fairly extensive, although they don’t quite match the level of control and alteration possible with Canon's “My Colors” modes. The Filter subsection of the Quality menu houses the digital color filters for the Z850 and enables the application of the following tonal washes: black & white, sepia, red, green, blue, yellow, pink and purple. In addition to these settings, there are a handful of presets listed within the Best Shot mode such as Pastel, Illustration, Cross, Monochrome and Retro. The effects are simple to use and while the settings in the Quality menu don’t slow the camera’s processing, the options in the Best Shot mode will drastically reduce the shooting speed and requires users to pause for upwards of ten seconds when capturing images with these effects.
In the recording menu, users can adjust the sharpness, saturation, and contrast up and down two full stops. In the playback menu, the brightness can be tweaked up and down two full stops. There is a keystone correction feature that can be found there as well; this fixes pictures that were taken from an angle. A color correction feature is listed in the playback mode, but it doesn’t work as it should; this activates the keystone feature and is a mistake that Casio should correct.
