Casio Exilim EX-Z850

Summary: I have owned the Casio Z55, Z750, and purchased the Z850 as an upgrade to my Z750.

Picture quality and features have been improved compared to the Z750 which was

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Summary: I have owned the Casio Z55, Z750, and purchased the Z850 as an upgrade to my Z750.

Picture quality and features have been improved compared to the Z750 which was a great camera in its own right. The HUGE negative is that the video quality is horrendous.

Before someone responds that I "shouldn't expect perfect quality in a compact camera" I'll stop you there. The quality on the Z750 video was great in both HQ and NQ modes at 640x480. The Z850 quality is WAY WORSE than on the Z750 and other similar cameras being sold today.

There are 2 huge problems with video. First, there is a terrible issue with image noise in HQ mode that doesn't exist in NQ mode. This could be fixed via firmware but no word yet from Casio on that. Second, and way more annoying is an aliasing issue that does not exist on the Z750. Aliasing, or stairstepping is very apparent on anything that should look like a straight line on a video. It looks terrible in stills but is even more distracting when in motion. This happens with Image Stabilization on and off. Could also be fixed with firmware but again no word from Casio. If video is important to you, wait to purchase this cam until Casio fixes the problem or purchase the Z750 as it's still a great camera.

If you don't care about video this is the best compact camera you can find by far. My rating would be a 10 if video was the same quality as the Z750 but until Casio fixes the video issue, my rating must be lowered a lot because this flaw is inexcusable as I use my cameras for video a lot and there's no reason the video on an "upgraded" camera should be way worse than its predecessor.

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Summary: I love this camera. This is the 5th digital camera i have bought since 1999. I have had 2 from the Nikon Coolpix line, one from the Sony DSC line, ...

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Summary: I love this camera. This is the 5th digital camera i have bought since 1999. I have had 2 from the Nikon Coolpix line, one from the Sony DSC line, the Canon PowerShot line, Minolta Dimage 7i, and this is the first time that I have been able to get so much power packed into such a small package, at a very very reasonable price.

The quality is sharp, the action is very fast. I bought a 4GB SD Card and can capture 40 mins of 640x480 MPEG4 video, or over 400 shots at the highest quality. I can adjust not only aperture and shutter speed, but also, ISO, white balance, Gain. You can edit pix and video right in the camera and there are some fun features that I'm still discovering. The multiple levels of flash power is a plus, as is the LED camera light that is surprisingly useful in low-light situations.

I shot a 25 min video and projected it with the RCA output from the docking station into a projector for an advanced video class and the quality was shockingly clear and good picture/color quality.

The manual focus was tough to figure out at first, as it zooms in to allow a clearer focus, but while in MF mode simply pressing left or right on the dial will adjust the focus. I use it more for fine-tuning after an auto focus; but have generally found that the focus metering (with many options) was quite acurate and did not constantly re-focus like I've seen on so many cameras.

Let me say it again; I am completely amazed at this camera's capabilities. And don't be intimidated if you just want snapshots; I would still think that it's completely worth while if I didn't even care about the manual capabilities. It is VERY easy to use in fully automatic. And its unbelievable that you can get this camera for $350. I have been looking for a camera that I can keep on me all the time and be able to shoot digital pictures or video on moments notice, and finally, here it is. I swear I feel like I've been waiting for this camera to come out for 5 years.

I wish it came with a soft case though, as I'm a bit paranoid about scratching the LCD screen.

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Summary: I researched this camera a lot before I bought it and it is everything I was hoping it would be. It is a nice small size especially for having such ...

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Summary: I researched this camera a lot before I bought it and it is everything I was hoping it would be. It is a nice small size especially for having such a beautiful 2.5" screen. The zoom is fast, the lag time between shots is very short, and the menus respond immediately and are easy to learn. It has a beautiful metal casing and the buttons are large enough for most fingers. Also, the battery lasts a very long time which is a huge relief for me compared to my last camera. It has so many different features I haven't even used them all yet!

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Summary: Here is my personal review of the Sony DSC-T30, Canon Powershot SD700IS and the Casio EXZ-850. I will post this review under each product as I have owned and tested ...

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Summary: Here is my personal review of the Sony DSC-T30, Canon Powershot SD700IS and the Casio EXZ-850. I will post this review under each product as I have owned and tested all three. If you don?t wish to read a long drawn out review here it is: I liked the Casio the best, the Sony came in Second and the Canon came in third. I arrived at this conclusion by considering 3 main things: 1.picture quality 2.ease of use 3.price. Starting with #1 as much as I wanted to like the other more reputable companies, the Casio continued to surprise/please me. The picture quality right out of the box is Great. I needed something to supplement my Nikon D200 when I need to take a quick picture of my daughter, wife, travel destination, etc. Sometimes I don?t have the ability, or energy to haul out my d200 as great and almost perfect as it is. I like my pictures ?hot? and vibrant which the casio delivered with no effort whatsoever. You pull it out, turn it on with one hand and snap away. It was also the fastest of all three. No real lag between turning on , zooming, and shooting. The sony was very slow zooming compared to the casio, and both the sony and the canon required two hand operation, which is hard with a baby in one hand. The sony took very good pictures but not as good as the casio. The canon was a major disappointment for me. It requires too much tweaking to get good pictures. One example of this is my human subjects were coming out looking orange and underexposed. Skin tones were not natural looking and the exposures were boring. When you take it out of auto mode and bump up the exposure, it looks better but not great. When you change the color settings from auto to some of the others, there was always a tradeoff, such as when you go to neutral, it fixed 75% of the skin tone issues, but then added gray to the rest of the colors, just not appealing to the eyes. The one good thing that I can say about the canon is that when you need to crop and zoom in photoshop, the images were SLIGHTLY smoother. But I don?t do much of this except for the purposes of my test. Like I said, for me this camera is just for a quick point and shoot. The Sony picture quality was a close second to the casio and the canon was a distant third from the casio. I did not try video on any of them as I have a sony minidv camera for that. #2 ease of use. The casio wins in all aspects, one handed operation is great. Camera feels great in my small-medium size hands, I liked the idea of the fixed lens on the sony but after actually using all three, I now like the lens that comes out of the body, with the sony, due to the location of the lens, I always felt like I was going to touch the lens glass with my left hand and had to be mindful of not getting my hand too close to the lens as to not affect picture quality. After seeing the prettier looking designs of both the canon and the sony I briefly didn?t like the boxy look of the casio, but now I feel like it makes it easier to hold, even with the curved design of the canon. I also thought I didn?t like the fact that you have to use a docking cradle with the casio, but after fooling with trying to find the holes and cables for both the sony and the canon, not to mention that true to sony fashion, you must use a proprietary cable (and memory stick vs sd), I now like the fact that I just plop the casio in its cradle and push the usb button and it sucks my pictures right in, although I have had quite a few occasions that Photoshop has not been able to capture them without taking it out and re-doing it. I am sure that you could use Microsoft?s built in utility or Casio?s utility with no headache, I am just so used to Photoshop. I will just take an extra memory card on vacation and not worry about viewing them on my laptop at the hotel. One good thing I can say about the sony is that it has 56mb built in memory as a back up to running out or forgetting your stupid memory stick duo. I will not bother giving any positives about the canon because it lost just based on the poor picture quality and the little door for the usb cable is a pain in the b*** to open. And one more thing about the Canon, IT DOESN?T HAVE A BATTERY MEATER! WHAT KIND OF PEA BRAIN FORGOT OR NEGLECTED TO PUT THAT IN! I would like to think that it was so that people don?t keep charging the battery before it is dead, so that you can have a longer battery life with each full charge, but this also causes you to have to buy a second battery because you never know if it is going to die when you most need it. So it is either a really good marketing idea on Canons part or a REALLY DUMB idea from a consumer standpoint, either way the customer looses.#3 price. The casio was $100 less and I was able to buy it from one of my favorite retailers COSTCO! Went into a store and they have a kit that comes with a carrying case, and 256 of memory for something like $380. both the sony and the canon cost me about $499.00. Do I need to say anything more. Just put the fact that it is a casio out of your head because they finally made a nice product. Hope this helps cause now I have to go to fed ex to send $1000 worth of cameras back to amazon and costco.

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Summary: This is the first camera in this size category that maintains a perfectly focused image to the edge of the picture. The Canon Power Shot and previous Casio cameras were ...

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Summary: This is the first camera in this size category that maintains a perfectly focused image to the edge of the picture. The Canon Power Shot and previous Casio cameras were a bit soft near the edges forcing an occasionsl crop session before printing larger than 6X4 prints. This camera uses the excellent Casio menu system and is very intuitive in use. This is the third camera I have purchased in this EX series and the EX-Z850 is by far the best.

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Summary: This is really a full-featured camera. It produces clean, clear pics with great detail and excellent color. The auto focus assist light works fine, even in the dark. Battery life ...

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Summary: This is really a full-featured camera. It produces clean, clear pics with great detail and excellent color. The auto focus assist light works fine, even in the dark. Battery life is excellent, even with the bright LCD and a powerful flash. Very good menu system and lots of controls available through buttons on the camera. It is a very fast camera. The size is quite nice--pocketable but not so small as to be difficult to manipulate controls comfortably. The large LCD is useable in all but the brightest outdoor light. Instead of the multi-function charger, I would have preferred outputs on the camera itself for picture download and t.v. viewing and a separate battery charger. There are some jaggies in the HQ video, but since I don't use the video this is a non-issue for me. The main thing for me is the still pic quality, which is excellent. To see some examples of the quality of picture this camera is capable of, go to www,pbase.com and do a camera search typing in casio ex-z850.

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Summary: DO NOT buy this camera if compression artifacts make you cringe. For photos taken at the highest quality possible (3264 x 2448), I had to chop them all the way ...

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Summary: DO NOT buy this camera if compression artifacts make you cringe. For photos taken at the highest quality possible (3264 x 2448), I had to chop them all the way down to 1200 x 1600 pixels before the JPG artifacts are not really noticeable, therefore rendering the fact that it's an 8MB camera rather moot.

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Summary: If you are looking for a true pocket sized camera with high picture quality, that is not that expensive then this is the camera for you. The LCD screen is ...

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Summary: If you are looking for a true pocket sized camera with high picture quality, that is not that expensive then this is the camera for you. The LCD screen is more than adequate and the 8 MP pictures are of excellent quality. The videos are of surprisingly good quality. The menu screens are intuitive. It does not come with a camera case but I found one for a few bucks at Target, This is my fourth digital camera and by far the best I have ever owned. There are NO downsides to this camera.

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Summary: Let me tell you this camera is amazing!!!!! It is an ultracompact meaning it is very small and light and fits in a shirt pocket with room to spare. This ...

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Summary: Let me tell you this camera is amazing!!!!! It is an ultracompact meaning it is very small and light and fits in a shirt pocket with room to spare. This maybe small but it is loaded. First off its 8.1 megapixels. For your average photographer thats overkill. I mean i took a pic of my cat underneath my bed and you could see the capillaries and veins running through its tongue. Not only does it take great pics but it has manual controls too. You can control the aperture, shutter speed, manual focus, iso sensitvity, etc. It also has best shot modes so if you are a night time event you go to best shot and it adjusts everything almost perfectly for it. Not to say that Automatic cant do itself. Its just nice to have the options and if you know what you are doing. You can take truely magnificient pictures.

The camera can also record video with sound and it looks suprisingly clear. This isnt a camera phone video. The camera is also quick and responsive. You wont miss much pictures with it. It also has antishake features. So if your hands tend to shake a little during pics it will cancel them out and give you great pictures. Also the pictures online of it dont do it justice.Let me tell you this thing is sexy. It looks expensive, feels expensive but tough, and doesnt scratch easy like an ipod. I would recommend this camera for anyone. whether you go clubbing or take pics of your kid at a birthday party. The overall quality is a 10/10. The only negative is you have to use a dock to charge it and show vids on tv's.

Design 10/10
Features 10/10
Performance: 9/10
Image Quality: 9/10

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Summary: This is my 5th digital camera. After much research, I purchased this camera, only to find that it stops functioning during critical times. My camera is 4 months old and ...

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Summary: This is my 5th digital camera. After much research, I purchased this camera, only to find that it stops functioning during critical times. My camera is 4 months old and has had the lens mechanism replaced three times. In other words, I have had possesion of this camera, working properly, one month out of four!

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