Casio EX-Z1000

Reviewed March 2007

Introduction

Casio packs a 10.1-megapixel CCD, a 3X optical zoom, and a 2.8-inch LCD monitor into the Exilim EX-Z1000, a camera with a size comparable to a deck of playing cards. Clad front and back in a metallic skin, the EX-Z1000 is a sharp-looking camera.

In addition, the zoom control also provides the means to magnify part of an image in playback when pulled to the side, a magnification of up to 8X, or display 12 thumbnails of the captured images — an Index view — when pushed once to the side, and a calendar view when pushed twice.

Immediately below the power switch, the (Rec) button, is one of two buttons — the other is the Playback button next to it — that are by default configured so that they can be used to start the camera directly in the capture or playback mode, depending on which button is pressed.

Using the Setup menu (see the Interface and Software section of the review for a listing of all the Setup menu's options) these two buttons can be confirmed to both turn On and Off the camera, or only turn the camera On, or be disabled so that they only operate when the camera has been powered On using the On/Off button.

The last button on top of the Casio EX-Z1000, DISP, controls the display. The camera has a 2.8-inch wide LCD screen composed of 230,400 pixels — a resolution of 960 x 240 pixels — which serves as a viewfinder as well as means to review pictures and adjust camera settings. The monitor is capable of showing images in a variety of formats: 4:3, 3:2, and 16:9, with black bands appearing on the sides or on the top and bottom depending on the mode in use.

Pressing the DISP button calls up the Display menu, which is composed of four sections, the first of which controls how information is presented on the monitor:

• Layout serves to select the screen layout. When the camera is set to the recording mode, the first option is:
  • Panel stacks the icons representing the current camera settings in a column on the right side of the screen, shifting the 4:3 format display to the left.

Called the Operation Panel, the display allows using the up/down directions of the 4-way Control button on the back of the camera, to change or adjust each of the listed settings: Image Size, Flash mode, Focus mode, Self-Timer, Anti-Shake, Sensitivity, White Balance, Exposure Compensation, and the Time and Date.

• The second option for Layout is simply called Normal. Normal places the icons around the periphery of the screen.
  
  When the camera is set to the playback mode, only two options are presented under Layout:
• Normal: which displays images using a 4:3 image aspect.
• Wide: which displays images using a 16:9 (HDTV) image aspect.
• Info. contains three options which decide the level of information shown in both the recording and playback modes:
  • Show: displays camera settings along with other information.
  • +Histogram displays the camera settings along with a real-time histogram.
  • Hide turns off all information.

• Brightness serves to adjust the brightness of the LCD. Five settings are available:
  • Auto lets the camera decide the brightness of the monitor based on the brightness of the ambient light.
  • The other settings, +2, +1, 0, and -1 simply set the brightness to the desired level.

• Type serves to select the quality of the monitor's screen image:
  • Dynamic increases contrast.
  • Vivid increases screen brightness a bit.
  • Real configures the monitor image to be as close as possible to the recorded image.
  • Night makes the image clearer at night.
  • Power Saving minimizes power consumption to increase battery life.

The other external controls of the EX-Z1000 are grouped on the right side of the monitor. First is the MENU button which displays the 3-part Recording menu, or the 2-part Playback menu (see the Characteristics and Interface and Software sections of the review for lists of the EX-Z1000's menus).

The 4-direction Control button is next. Its primary function is to navigate the menus, or review images when the camera is set to the playback mode. At the centre is the SET button, which serves to confirm choices made in the menus, clearing the menus off the screen when pressed.

When the Display is set to the Operation Panel, pressing either the SET button, or the up/down arrows provides access to the last changed setting in the Operation Panel, allowing changes to any of the settings. While when the Normal display mode is used — the display that shows camera settings on the periphery of the image — the down arrow serves to select the Flash modes when the camera is set to a still image capture mode:

	Auto Flash, Forced Off, Forced On, Soft Flash, or Red-eye Reduction.
	With the EX-Z1000 set to the Playback mode, the down arrow serves to delete images, either the one currently under review or all images.

Worth noting, be it with the Operation Panel display, or the Normal display, the Left/Right arrows can be programmed to support other functions: Metering, EV Shift (exposure compensation), White Balance, ISO setting, Self-Timer, or do nothing.

Finally the last external control of the EX-Z1000 is the Best Shot button — abbreviated to BS — which serves to select either the default Auto shooting mode, or the Movie mode, or one of the 35 Scene modes, or even the Digital Audio Recorder mode, which captures mono sound as long as there is memory space.

The modes can be selected using a thumbnail view which shows the modes over 3 screens, or from a 1 mode per screen view that shows a sample image, with a short description of the mode and its effect.

The first two options are Auto and Movie. Auto offers the greatest degree of control over how the image is captured, allowing the user to set all of the parameters contained in the REC menu (see the Characteristics section of the review for a complete list of all the menu options).

Movie, the second option presented in the Best Shot menu, offers three quality settings. Two of these have the same frame size but apply a different level of compression, while the other is more compact:

Movies are recorded with mono sound — the EX-Z1000's microphone is tucked away under the flash where a little hole allows exterior sounds to reach it, while the speaker is located underneath the camera — and saved in AVI format. During the recording, the optical zoom is disabled, frozen at its position when the recording starts, but a digital zoom is available.

The other modes offered are:

Of all these modes, a few are specific to Casio cameras, and specific to this particular model:

• Anti-Shake boosts the sensitivity to prevent a too slow shutter speed from causing camera shake that could ruin the image. The Anti-Shake option is also available in the Recording menu, but requires the use of Auto ISO. The maximum sensitivity setting is 800 ISO.
• High Sensitivity pushes sensitivity to 3200 ISO to capture an image in low light.
• Old Photo allows capturing the image of an old, faded photograph and then processed the image to improve it. The results can be quite impressive.
• ID Photo captures an image, helping the user with guidelines to frame the portrait properly, which once the image is captured can be adjusted. The camera then saves a single 5-megapixel image (2560 x 1920 pixels) which contains five variations of the ID photo: 30 x 24 mm, 40 x 30 mm, 45 x 35 mm, 50 x 40 mm and 55 x 45 mm.
• Business Cards and Documents is designed to capture an image of a business card or a printed document. The camera automatically corrects for any perspective distortion, processing the image so it looks as though it was photographed perfectly head-on, a process called Keystone correction. This mode also yields impressive results that could be used to OCR the image.

Ergonomically, the Casio Exilim EX-Z1000 is well designed. The zoom control is easy to use and smooth, although it only stops in any one of six preset positions. Probably the only control that is a little less user-friendly is the SET button. It is mounted at the centre of the very small 4-direction control and is flush to its surface making it difficult to press accurately without pressing the 4-direction button one way or another.