January 24, 2006 – Casio announced on Monday the UK and European release of the Casio Exilim EX-Z600, a 6 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens, a 2.7-inch TFT LCD and a “SUPER LIFE” rechargeable lithium-ion battery (NP-40) that promises a battery life of up to 550 images with 50 percent flash and the LCD turned on, or 240 minutes of continuous movie recording.
Dimensions of the slender silver-toned addition to the Exilim line are approximately 3.5 in. x 2.25 in. x 0.8 in. The Casio EX-Z600 has 8.3 MB of flash memory, a slot for an SD or MMC memory card, a USB port that also has A/V out, PictBridge compatibility, and a microphone for recording audio in movie mode, with a still image or alone as voice recording dictation.
The point-and-shoot Z600 also includes Casio’s Anti-Shake DSP technology that minimizes image blur from hand-shake when shooting, which is particularly useful in low light. Unfortunately, Anti-Shake is disabled when shooting in anything other than Auto mode. The camera also features a MACRO mode with focus distances of 15 cm to 50 cm at wide angle zoom and 40 cm to 50 cm in telephoto.
There is also a Movie mode on the Casio EX-Z600 that shoots at 30 fps in High Quality mode and 15 fps in Long Play mode. Digital zoom is available in either mode, but there is no optical zoom available while operating in Movie mode, which is typical with most point-and-shoots of this nature. The EX-Z600 also has an in-camera Movie Cut feature which allows users to make simple cuts from beginning to a middle point, between two points, or from a middle point to the end point. Casio admits that this process is slow, however, and acknowledges some quirks: Movie Cut will not work unless the free memory on the camera’s memory card equals the memory of the uncut movie, and Movie Cut overwrites the original movie with the new edit, which cannot be undone. The Casio EX-Z600 also has a Motion Print feature which allows users to print still images from their recorded movies.
Representatives for Casio US told DigitalCameraInfo that a US release of the Casio EX-Z600, as well as a price and shipping date, has not yet been determined.
