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Casio EXILIM EX-Z750 Digital Camera
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- Digital Zoom: 8x
- Camera Type: Compact
- Weight: 0.28 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 2.5 in.
- Resolution: 7.4 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
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Unique and powerful features with a lame dock
Pros
Small/stylish, big screen, excellent UI, fast startup, long battery life, unique and powerful photo/video/audio features
Cons
A/V out through dock, no case supplied, no memory supplied (8 MB built in)
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Despite the restrictive dock and worthless software, it's highly recommended for those looking for a small 7-MP camera with flexible, unique, and easy to use features.
Like the next guy, I was looking for a small (and sexy) point-and-shoot digital camera that takes high quality pictures and videos, has powerful manual features, has a great interface, has lots of memory, is easy to connect to things one would want to connect a digital camera to, never breaks, never runs out of batteries--oh, and is not too expensive. I searched and searched and didn't find this perfect supercamera, but I think I have come close enough to overlook some of the things the EX-Z750 doesn't have (and still be pretty pleased with myself).
Unpacking it, I was immediately impressed by its small size, light weight, and especially its huge screen. Although I knew this to be the case beforehand, I was reminded by the lack of an SD card in the box that I had to supply my own if I wanted to take more than 4 high quality pictures at a time (the camera has 8 MB built in). It's annoying but in retrospect it wasn't that bad, when you consider that you would probably want to upgrade the card if it were anything less than 256 MB anyway (and I can tell you I have a bunch of useless 32 MB cards lying around from upgraded devices). I spent an extra $40 for a 1 GB card.
I was disappointed that a case wasn't included. It's a small camera (and it at least looks fragile) and I wouldn't want to carry it around without a case.
After charging it for three hours in its dock, I finally got to turn it on. Atypical in the digital camera universe, the lens shot out and the screen was framing a potential picture within a second. Also atypical was the little tool-tip that explained the mode icon on the screen: "Snapshot". Neat. One of the display modes shows a live histogram. Also shown on the screen is the optional Right/Left button feature, which is an item you can assign to the R/L buttons (exposure, white balance, ISO, metering, self timer, or off).
Most of the camera's back is taken up by the screen, leaving a spartan arrangement of two buttons, a cursor/selection pad, and the function wheel (the usual digital camera wheel we all know and feel equivocal about). The menu system is, in a word, outstanding. I have waded through many camera user interfaces, from Olympus' nonsensical system (especially in the older cameras) to Nikon's quirky nested-numbered menu structure and even Canon's pretty simple interface, and to navigate Casio's menus was a breath of fresh air. In addition, the most commonly accessed settings are built into a quick menu reached by pressing the "EX" button on the side (image quality, white balance, focus area, and ISO). All of the controls are snappy and responsive.
Picture quality is great, especially if you set it up right. At 7.2 megapixels, prints are gorgeous. Capturing unlimited (except by the size of your SD card) video in 640x480 at 30 fps with audio (AVI) means you're looking at almost DV quality video--something that finally makes the video functions of a digital camera more than just a silly novelty. You can also perform simple video editing functions on the camera (cutting clips). There's also a "Short Movie" mode if you just want a brief clip--this also uses the "Past Movie" system, where you can set a length of video to record before you actually press the shutter button, as well as a few seconds after you stop recording in case you stop too soon.
A refreshing feature is the media calendar, with which you can browse your card contents by date using a 31-day calendar display. Also neat is the 30 voice clip you can record to play back with pictures during a slideshow. This is independent of the "Voice Record" mode, where you can record as much as you want as an unlinked audio file to play back over a whole slideshow. All audio files are saved on the card as WAV files.
The autofocus mode includes a "free spot" setting where you use the cursor keys to set the autofocus area yourself. This is useful for composing a shot while using a tripod when you're not going to focus on the subject and then move the camera to displace the subject from the background.
Other features that may distinguish this camera from others include the "Past Movie" mode (briefly mentioned above) which is kind of cool, if not a bit of a novelty. When in this mode, the camera can be set to capture video starting a few seconds before you actually press the shutter button. The idea is that many people will press the shutter button a little too late and miss some of the action they may be trying to capture. It's not a bad feature by any means; I just haven't used it much myself.
Another well-thought out feature is the "Best Shot" mode, where you have 30 different scene types from which to choose. One impressive one is the business card scene, where you snap a business card, and then have the option of cropping and rotating it to fit the screen and sharpen the text. Another nice one is the pet scene, which brings out highlights and details in hair and fur. The menu takes you through an actual gallery of sample scenes.
Manual mode is typical in its features, though simple to use. If you are not familiar with the settings and how to get the results you want, the PDF manual on the CD is thorough and helpful.
Connecting the camera to anything (power, computer, printer for direct printing, video/audio out) requires the dock. It's small and light, but will never be as small as just a cable. And while I like the idea of a dock, they ruined the concept by putting the audio/video output on the dock as well and not on the camera itself. I would have liked to see just the power and USB go through the dock, since I could just leave it next to my computer plugged in and not have to worry about cables. But if I want to connect to a TV, I have to unplug the dock from the USB and power, take it to the TV, put the camera in the dock, and plug the A/V cable into the dock. Annoying and tedious. Traveling with the dock is going to be a chore as well, although Casio supplies a couple of different mains plug formats for use in other countries, which is nice.
Which brings me to the abysmal software supplied on the CD. It is, as another reviewer put it, "laughable". I don't know how they could possibly design such a good UI on the camera and yet provide such nonsense with which to clutter your hard disk. It is not worth installing. It even has typos and poor grammar and it looks like the janitor coded it ten minutes before they shipped it.
Finally, battery life is admirable (325 shots per charge). It lasts longer than Nikon's (270) and Canon's (160) batteries in their similar ultra-compact cameras. I just don't like taking the dock around with me in case I need to charge it.
Overall, I am extremely pleased with this camera, and feel that I've spent my money well even though I had to buy an SD card for it. I'm always getting comments about how sexy it looks and how big and bright the screen is. It fits in my pocket easily and is light enough not to notice.
Unpacking it, I was immediately impressed by its small size, light weight, and especially its huge screen. Although I knew this to be the case beforehand, I was reminded by the lack of an SD card in the box that I had to supply my own if I wanted to take more than 4 high quality pictures at a time (the camera has 8 MB built in). It's annoying but in retrospect it wasn't that bad, when you consider that you would probably want to upgrade the card if it were anything less than 256 MB anyway (and I can tell you I have a bunch of useless 32 MB cards lying around from upgraded devices). I spent an extra $40 for a 1 GB card.
I was disappointed that a case wasn't included. It's a small camera (and it at least looks fragile) and I wouldn't want to carry it around without a case.
After charging it for three hours in its dock, I finally got to turn it on. Atypical in the digital camera universe, the lens shot out and the screen was framing a potential picture within a second. Also atypical was the little tool-tip that explained the mode icon on the screen: "Snapshot". Neat. One of the display modes shows a live histogram. Also shown on the screen is the optional Right/Left button feature, which is an item you can assign to the R/L buttons (exposure, white balance, ISO, metering, self timer, or off).
Most of the camera's back is taken up by the screen, leaving a spartan arrangement of two buttons, a cursor/selection pad, and the function wheel (the usual digital camera wheel we all know and feel equivocal about). The menu system is, in a word, outstanding. I have waded through many camera user interfaces, from Olympus' nonsensical system (especially in the older cameras) to Nikon's quirky nested-numbered menu structure and even Canon's pretty simple interface, and to navigate Casio's menus was a breath of fresh air. In addition, the most commonly accessed settings are built into a quick menu reached by pressing the "EX" button on the side (image quality, white balance, focus area, and ISO). All of the controls are snappy and responsive.
Picture quality is great, especially if you set it up right. At 7.2 megapixels, prints are gorgeous. Capturing unlimited (except by the size of your SD card) video in 640x480 at 30 fps with audio (AVI) means you're looking at almost DV quality video--something that finally makes the video functions of a digital camera more than just a silly novelty. You can also perform simple video editing functions on the camera (cutting clips). There's also a "Short Movie" mode if you just want a brief clip--this also uses the "Past Movie" system, where you can set a length of video to record before you actually press the shutter button, as well as a few seconds after you stop recording in case you stop too soon.
A refreshing feature is the media calendar, with which you can browse your card contents by date using a 31-day calendar display. Also neat is the 30 voice clip you can record to play back with pictures during a slideshow. This is independent of the "Voice Record" mode, where you can record as much as you want as an unlinked audio file to play back over a whole slideshow. All audio files are saved on the card as WAV files.
The autofocus mode includes a "free spot" setting where you use the cursor keys to set the autofocus area yourself. This is useful for composing a shot while using a tripod when you're not going to focus on the subject and then move the camera to displace the subject from the background.
Other features that may distinguish this camera from others include the "Past Movie" mode (briefly mentioned above) which is kind of cool, if not a bit of a novelty. When in this mode, the camera can be set to capture video starting a few seconds before you actually press the shutter button. The idea is that many people will press the shutter button a little too late and miss some of the action they may be trying to capture. It's not a bad feature by any means; I just haven't used it much myself.
Another well-thought out feature is the "Best Shot" mode, where you have 30 different scene types from which to choose. One impressive one is the business card scene, where you snap a business card, and then have the option of cropping and rotating it to fit the screen and sharpen the text. Another nice one is the pet scene, which brings out highlights and details in hair and fur. The menu takes you through an actual gallery of sample scenes.
Manual mode is typical in its features, though simple to use. If you are not familiar with the settings and how to get the results you want, the PDF manual on the CD is thorough and helpful.
Connecting the camera to anything (power, computer, printer for direct printing, video/audio out) requires the dock. It's small and light, but will never be as small as just a cable. And while I like the idea of a dock, they ruined the concept by putting the audio/video output on the dock as well and not on the camera itself. I would have liked to see just the power and USB go through the dock, since I could just leave it next to my computer plugged in and not have to worry about cables. But if I want to connect to a TV, I have to unplug the dock from the USB and power, take it to the TV, put the camera in the dock, and plug the A/V cable into the dock. Annoying and tedious. Traveling with the dock is going to be a chore as well, although Casio supplies a couple of different mains plug formats for use in other countries, which is nice.
Which brings me to the abysmal software supplied on the CD. It is, as another reviewer put it, "laughable". I don't know how they could possibly design such a good UI on the camera and yet provide such nonsense with which to clutter your hard disk. It is not worth installing. It even has typos and poor grammar and it looks like the janitor coded it ten minutes before they shipped it.
Finally, battery life is admirable (325 shots per charge). It lasts longer than Nikon's (270) and Canon's (160) batteries in their similar ultra-compact cameras. I just don't like taking the dock around with me in case I need to charge it.
Overall, I am extremely pleased with this camera, and feel that I've spent my money well even though I had to buy an SD card for it. I'm always getting comments about how sexy it looks and how big and bright the screen is. It fits in my pocket easily and is light enough not to notice.
