What Photo Gear

New York Times resident tech guru David Pogue has published his hands-on with Casio’s very very interesting shooter - the Casio Exilim EX-F1.

The more I read about this camera, the more interesting it gets. Now if I could somehow cough up that $999 street price, I would definitely be in line for one. The high-speed 60 frame-per-second shooting can definitely open up a lot of opportunities that I would’ve otherwise missed with a regular superzoom.

But unfortunately it’s not all good news though, despite the fast shooting speed, the camera seems to be saddled with slow start-up times, and if the EVF is anything like most superzooms, then it can get pretty laggy at times. And David complains about the sluggish lens as well.

The 12X zoom is nice to have, but it’s slow to react. And during video capture, when you turn the lens ring to zoom, it jerks spastically through the zoom range, effectively ruining your shot. The camera has great difficulty changing focus during filming, too.

All in all, this looks to be a step in the right direction for Casio, the price might put off quite a few people, especially since image quality isn’t really anything special, but comparable to other super-zooms - but for those of us who can find value in its shooting speed, it could be worth the pretty hefty investment.

Now if Casio can drop a larger sensor on the EX-F2 with a lens worthy of the shooting speed, without upping the price.. that could be quite something.

From: The New York Times via What Photo Gear