Casio Exilim EX-F1

Manual Control Options
There are a full range of exposure modes paired with hosts of manual controls. Parameters such as white balance and ISO can be adjusted, along with the manual exposure controls of shutter speed and aperture. Have a preference on the burst speed? That can be adjusted, too.

Focus
Autofocus – The Casio Exilim EX-F1 has a contrast detection autofocus system that can focus as close as 1.97 inches (5 centimeters) and as far as 19.69 inches in the Macro mode. Normally, it focuses from 15.75 inches (40 centimeters). These specs aren’t just a product of the autofocus system; the Exilim 12x optical zoom lens is involved, too.

The autofocus system can be set to Macro, Normal, or Infinity with the focus button on the left side of the camera. The focus button is in nice reach of the left thumb. The autofocus area can be set to Spot, Free, and Tracking. The Free setting is a spot focus system that allows you to move the spot around the frame freely. It can move to 8,576 points around the frame using the multi-selector.

There is an autofocus assist lamp on the front of the camera that makes it easier to shoot in low light. It can be turned to auto or off in the Setup menu. Continuous autofocus can be set to on and off in the Recording menu.

The Casio EX-F1 has a face recognition system, but its specs are still under wraps. No word on how many faces it can detect, but it detected the two women at the Casio booth. The camera quickly recognized their faces, even though one of them wasn’t looking directly at the camera.

Overall, the autofocus system seems to work well – even though it is pre-production status and could change. It quickly focuses, even when the 12x lens is zoomed in on faraway subjects, and even in the dim and uneven lighting of the convention center.

Manual Focus – The Manual focus can be activated by pushing the focus button on the left side of the long lens. It allows you to focus as close as 5 centimeters. When the manual focus is activated, a box appears in the center third of the LCD screen’s image. When the focus is adjusted, that central box is magnified so the focus can be better judged. The resolution on the LCD screen is conducive to manual focusing. The Manual focus can be adjusted with the multi-selector or the ring surrounding the lens. That ring can be customized to change the focus, zoom, or burst rate. In the Recording menu, there is a focus bracketing option that allows users to shoot three or five images with different focal points.

ISO
The Casio Exilim EX-F1 has a decent ISO range. It has an automatic setting, along with 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 manual ISO options. Most digital cameras offer an ISO setting lower than 100: 50, 64, or 80, for example. The EX-F1 starts out at ISO 100, so let’s hope its noise is incredibly low. This isn’t something we’ll find out at CES: check back in a few months when we get a production-ready Casio EX-F1 we can put through our full review process.

The manual ISO adjustment is effective in movies because the videos are activated with a separate movie button. The manual ISO options are all available at the full 6-megapixel resolution.

White Balance
The Casio EX-F1 has a healthy selection of white balance settings. They come with a live view in the on-screen Function menu: Auto, Daylight, Overcast, Shade, Day White Fluorescent, Day Light Fluorescent, Tungsten, and Manual. The Manual white balance is easy to set: there is an on-screen prompt that tells you to push the shutter to set the white balance. All you need to do is frame something white. The white balance bracketing allows you to photograph three or five images that can lean toward blue or red.

Exposure
The Casio Exilim EX-F1 has exposure modes to suit any photographer’s needs. There is a host of Best Shot Scene modes for those who don’t want to fuss about details like shutter speed and aperture. For those who want complete control over said parameters, there are Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Speed Priority, and Manual modes.

Exposure compensation is available on a +/- 2 scale in increments of a third, and there is auto exposure bracketing available. A live histogram can be viewed, complete with red, green, and blue channels to help photographers judge the exposure.

Metering
The Function menu houses the metering options that include Multi, Center-Weighted, and Spot modes. There is also a backlight compensation button on the left side of the camera that is a one-touch solution for photographing subjects in front of bright lights. This is just a quick way to activate the spot metering.

Shutter Speed
When I first saw the specs for the Casio EX-F1, I thought the shutter speed was a typo. I thought they must have typed an extra zero. But the truth showed up even on the pre-production model: the top speed is 1/40,000 of a second. This is available in the Manual and Shutter Speed Priority modes. The Aperture Priority and automated modes use a much shorter 1-1/2000 of a second range. The EX-F1 uses a mechanical and electronic shutter. The shutter speed can be manually selected using the set button and the sides of the multi-selector. This isn’t as flawless or quick as having a jog dial, but is what most manually-controlled ultra-zoom digital cameras offer anyway.

Aperture
The Exilim zoom lens has a wide f/2.7 max aperture when zoomed out. When the lens is zoomed in, the max shrinks to f/4.6, which is typical of a lens this size. When the lens is automatically controlled, the minimum is f/15. The manual aperture options include f/2.7, 3.0, 3.3, 3.8, 4.2, 4.7, 5.3, 6.0, 6.7, and 7.5. These can be selected with the set button and the sides of the multi-selector, like the shutter speed.