The EX-P600 features the "EX Finder", an elaborate graphical
interface of all the camera's current settings. Although the EX Finder
is sure to appeal to many users, we felt it covered too much of the monitor's
image making it difficult to see that image. The EX-P600 also provides
a standard interface which overlays information about most of the critical
camera settings around the periphery of the frame, and which can also be
used with an optional grid that is helpful when composing a shot.
The other area of the EX-P600's user interface, the menu system, is well-designed
and very legible. Moreover, the EX button offers a very easy to use and
efficient shortcut to 4 of the most commonly accessed settings: white balance,
ISO, metering, and AF area.
Basic camera configuration is done via the Setup menu, a section
of the overall menu system that can be accessed in all the camera modes:
Sounds: controls the selection of sounds for Start-up, Half-shutter
(AF/AE lock), Shutter, Operation, and the overall volume for these.
Startup: is used to choose an image that will appear on the
screen when the camera is turned on.
File No. : Continue or Reset. When set to Continue the
file numbers for photos are incremented by 1 with each new
photo.
World Time: allows choosing a Home and Destination
time zone. The camera can then show the time and date for
either zone.
Date Style: selects the presentation of the date
(YY/MM/DD; DD/MM/YY; MM/DD/YY).
Adjust: serves to set the time and date on the
camera.
Language: sets the interface language (Japanese,
English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, complex
Chinese, simplified Chinese and Korean).
Sleep: sets the delay before the camera enters hibernation
(30 sec., 1 min., 2 min., or Off).
Auto Power Off: sets the delay before the camera
shuts down when unused (2 or 5 minutes).
USB offers 2 options: Mass storage (USB Direct-print),
and PTP (PictBridge).
Video Out: NTSC or PAL.
Format: to format either a memory card or the internal
memory when there is no card present in the camera.
Reset: returns the EX-P600 to its factory default
settings.
As usual with Casio cameras, the EX-P600 comes with a printed,
multi-lingual, starter manual while the full instruction manual
is included with the bundled software in a PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
format.
While the manual covers every
aspect of the EX-P600 without exception, it does so in a somewhat
disjointed fashion. For instance, explanation of menu items are
sprinkled throughout the manual and do not follow the flow of
the menus themselves. Likewise, the explanations for the various
external controls lack a logical progression that would allow
the user to get comfortable quickly with the camera. Finally,
the linking potential of the PDF format is not used — as
an example the items listed in the contents pages are not linked
to their page location within the manual — which results
in a lengthy and overall impractical manual to navigate.
Software
The Casio EX-P600 includes a single
disc which, as noted above, contains the camera's manual in a
variety of languages and three pieces of software: the USB driver
for older operating systems, Photo Loader 2.1, and Photohands
1.0.
In addition, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 is included as well as Adobe Acrobat
Reader 5.1, which is needed to peruse the instruction manuals for the camera
and the software.
While Photo Loader serves to automatically
download images from the camera when it is connected to the computer,
Photohands is the only tool provided to edit or print photos.
Photohands is a very simple tool with an interface design that relies on
stylized animal icons to represent its various sections: Retouch (a chameleon);
Resize (a kangaroo); Rotate (a koala); and Print (a dog)...
Images from a selected folder are
presented as a simulated vertical film strip and as an image
reaches the centre position it is shown at a larger scale on
the right side of the program's window.
Selecting Retouch (the chameleon)
replaces the film strip by the options available for that section
of the program. In this case, a Before and Afterimage
is shown at the top, and adjustments for contrast, brightness,
saturation, sharpness, noise removal and filter (sepia or black
and white) can be made below. Regrettably, the Before and After
section is so small as to make any correction a matter of guesswork
more than anything else.
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Interface & Software
