I purchased this camera from Best Buy on Thursday, and have shot over 30GB worth of photos and videos with it in just 4 days.The highlights: This camera has every shooting mode under the sun. It will shoot 9 megapixel stills, up to 7 megapixel stills at the incredibly fast rate of 40fps, HD 720p video, and slow motion video ranging from 30-1000fps. It also has a 20x zoom (although I find the zoom to be only slightly longer than my Canon S3 IS "12x zoom", but the wide angle is much wider).
The camera is very easy to setup and use, although I am still trying to figure out some of the more advanced features (like the ability for the camera to automatically take photos when an object enters the frame).
Image quality is pretty good, about the same as my Canon S3 IS. It does much deeper blues and reds than the Canon, and doesn't have as bad chromatic aberration, but it's greens are a little too blue for my taste, and the off-whites need some more yellow. Noise isn't as high as I expected, but do realize this is not a DSLR, it's a small lens and a small sensor.
Lighting seems to be key with this camera. In direct sunlight, it takes amazing photos and videos, but in low-light, the high speed videos begin to suffer. I haven't had any that I took under normal lighting conditions come out unusable, but a few that I took in a very dim office nearly are.
My only complaints are minor, but here they are:
When shooting video, even with continuous AF off, it will still occasionally try to refocus, I find this very annoying
I cannot seem to find the settings to turn on move-in CS (motion-sensor triggers the camera)
While the latest firmware drastically improved write speeds for video, shooting single stills seems to take a long time to write to my class 6 memory card
I really don't like the proprietary USB connection, it is very difficult to find the right angle to get it to plug in because it's so narrow
Pleasant surprises:
Unlike the S3 IS, it remembers your photo and video settings very well, and if you set photos to manual focus and then want to take a video, the video will "pick up" that setting as well
The big 3" screen on the back is beautiful, with the Canon I mostly used the viewfinder, not so with the Casio
Startup time is faster than I expected based on other reviews, from power on to first shot isn't noticeably longer than the S3 IS
The flash is very bright and VERY fast, up to 5fps
Editing videos on the camera is ridiculously easy, hands down the best video editing GUI I've seen on a camera, makes it very easy to just keep the part of the video you want
Build quality is very good, I especially like the rubberized grip, it's much more secure than the Canon, and easier to hold despite it's heavier weight
I'll post a further review after I've spent some more time with it, and hopefully a few of my little quibbles will be fixed in upcoming firmware.
Pros:
Very nice HD quality (if you have good lighting).
Great outdoor photos.
Great high speed photos (if you have good lighting).
Cons:
Bad pictures in low light or indoors.
Bad video indoors.
Goes through batteries very very quickly.
One really frustrating thing is that you could have a really bright screen on the viewfinder, but when you go to take the picture, all the light just goes away. The picture gets really dark. My old casio (pocket point-and-shoot) used to have a best shot selection that corrected this, but I can't find it on this camera.
If you want to take pictures of you kid playing soccer, this is a great camera. Set the high speed and get all the action.
If you want to shoot in low light, or indoors, look for a DSLR.
If you do get this camera, get 8 rechargeable batteries so you always have four charged and ready.
Buy Casio Exilim EX-FH20 9.1 MP Digital Camera with 20x Optical Zoom and 3-Inch LCD (Black) Now
Let me just start by saying, aside from the amazing array of features on this camera, it's tons of fun. The SLO-MO is my personal favorite, well, that and the burst mode. While it does have brilliant stills, the video is amazing to shoot with. I love the 30-210 fps mode because it shows the drastic difference between regular speed (which is brilliant already) to slow motion, which really seems like you're entering a wrinkle in time, seriously.Yesterday I went to a gymnastics meet, and wow, did it blow my mind. Being able to look back and see the girls hurdling down toward the vault at normals speed (which sincerely looks like fast forwarding) and then click right over to 210 mid-shot for some mid air hang time. I can't even believe how gorgeous it is. I'm pretty sure I'm a cinematographer right now, and I won't stop!!
I am actually using this camera for work, as I'm working on marketing, and even while it's my job to hype it I LOVE it just as a p&s camera and easy video, for my own personal use.I wanted this camera to take pics of my daughter's basketball games, but my Nikon could not capture the "action" shots I wanted. To be fair though, I did not have a lens fast enough to capture the pics I wanted, and I did not want to spend a $1000+ to get one.
I saw a camera similar to this reviewed in the NYT by David Pogue, and was very interested since from his video demo it seemed like I could finally capture the pics that I wanted. After much research, and indecision I finally decided to bite the bullet. I received it Friday, I took it to my daughter's practice this weekend, and WOW, I have pictures that I could never have taken before. I can capture the shot of when the ball is just leaving my daughter's hand for a lay up, and she, the ball, and the basket are all in perfect focus caught just at that fraction of the second like you see in magazines. The 40 fps is amazing, and when you review the pics, it looks like those flip books that they use to sell at Disneyland. I like to take pics, but I am not the best photographer, with 40 (or 30,15, 10 whatever you want to set the fps at)even I can capture the shot I want.
The pics are sharp not DSLR sharp, but pretty darn good! Previously when I use to take pics, I would get blurred images, but now, I can see everything, its like that fraction of second captured.
The down side of this camera is that it can take a few seconds to write those 40 pictures to your card, and theoretically I could miss that next picture while waiting, but I have so many other pictures now that I CAN use, it doesn't matter as much as I thought it might.
The high speed video, and slow mo work as promised, and are a lot of fun. I haven't played a lot with it since I am more interested in the still side of the camera. What I have played with though is pretty amazing.
Some of the negative reviews that I have seen on the internet seem to slam the camera because there is a softness in the picture quality on some shots, but they seem to be comparing this camera to a DSLR which technically it isn't. For what I want it for action shots of kids (basketball and gymnastics), plus casual pictures this camera is GREAT!
This camera does eat through the batteries, so rechargables are my next purchase.I have been filming my golf swing since since 2004 with a standard Canon 30fps camera, and while it gave me great results for so long, it was time to upgrade when this model came out.
Yes, golf is my game, and this camera fits the bill perfectly. While it's not a very good still camera (my 3 year old 5meg Canon is much better), there is no other option for high speed recording.
The Casio takes pictures at 480x360 at 210 fps, which is the typical resolution I record at. Once in a while I mess around with 1000fps (like taking a nice close-up of the ball... fantastic for sand shots), but in reality, 210fps is what you want. You need a fair amount of light to record at 210fps, as you MUST have your shutter speed faster than that (for obvious reasons). The Fh-20 forces a minimum shutter speed based on your frame rate. If I recall correctly, 1/250 is required for 210fps.
I very much recommend the Fh-20 over the fc100, because you can manually adjust the shutter speed, while the FC-100 takes it's best guess. You can also adjust the ISO with the FH-20. So in lower light conditions, you can jack up the ISO (while getting a grainier picture), but keep the shutter speed at a fast enough speed to get a decent picture.
In good lighting conditions, you'll want the shutter speed at 1/2000 or faster. I generally keep it at 1/5000 during the summer in full sunlight. I've messed around with 1/20000, but there's really no point.
You then record to a memory card, and you can then play back on the camera. For a golf swing, I generally don't record more than 3 swings at a time, as it takes too long to fast forward through the swing. You can then trim the video to one swing, or get rid of the extra meaningless video. The Casio has pretty good playback ability on the camera itself, and the display is bright enough in full sunlight. I don't even bring my laptop to the range anymore.
As far as swing analysis, I then copy the videos to my laptop later and can view them with analysis software. About the only limitation is that when you record in 210fps, you cannot play back at 210fps. Therefore your videos will ALWAYS be in slow motion.
The lens is pretty wide, so you can set the camera up very close to the subject and get it in frame. Great for those tight quarters at the driving range. Of course, the closer the camera, the more parallax error there is in the video (google it!!).
A couple of limitations with the camera: There's a 4 gig file limit regardless of memory card size, which corresponds to about 11 minutes of 210fps high speed video in one take. IIRC, that's = to 18 min of high def video. If your intent is to set it and forget it while at the range, that won't work (beyond 11 minutes). It's not a big deal, but something to consider.
Secondly, the still camera is pretty poor. I didn't buy it for that, so I really don't care. There's a thread on which discusses this more in detail and I had uploaded a picture of the same object with my canon vs casio, and you can clearly see the difference.
This camera also features high def mode and standard video. They seem to work pretty well, but I don't have any experience with any other high def cameras to give a valid review on the quality.
Anyway, like I said, this is THE camera to get for sports analysis. You will NOT be disappointed.
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