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Reviews
Casio EX-Z750 I've written many times about the recent emergence of the thin-zoom form factor and how they have taken over the market. Casio pioneered this category back in 2002/2003 with their first card cameras, the 2-megapixel S1 fixed focal length camera followed by the 3.2 megapixel Z3 with a zoom lens. From the success of those products, the company went on to develop an array of models based on them, increasing resolution, performance, and battery life. Amazingly, they stayed just as tiny and pocket-friendly as the early designs. And now we have the Z750, offering a staggering 7.2 megapixels, a 2.5-inch display, high-quality MPEG4 640x480 movies at 30 frames per second, a new dock design that sports an audio/video out port for connecting to your home theater, and an impressive array of innovative new capture modes and in-camera editing features. Mixed
blessing To illustrate the relative size difference, I took photos of the badge on my MINI Cooper S using a tripod. As you can see not only is the size difference dramatically apparent but you can also see that the different imager on the two cameras produce slightly different fields of view -- the Z750 is slightly less wide angle. As the day was extremely sunny and the sun straight overhead, I took a wide shot of my car's front end to see if I could tease out some purple fringing. As you can see in the detail, even zoomed in to 500% in Photoshop there is almost none -- and this was an extremely high contrast situation. Overall image quality from this camera is excellent for its class, if a bit on the overly saturated side. This can easily be minimized if you find your results a bit too Disney for your taste.
Movie
modes With all this functionality, still Casio managed to make the X750 even slimmer by beveling the edges of the case. the optical viewfinder is ridiculously tiny, but it works. I had no trouble using the LCD as a viewfinder in direct sunshine, so I doubt Iâll ever need the optical. The Z750 is the best thin-zoom yet from Casio. Itâs a gleaming marvel of miniaturization, feature innovation, and appealing user interface design. öDM
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I'm
becoming something of an expert on Casio's line of card cameras.
I can't help myself; I just love Îem. And the company keeps cranking
out new and improved models at an astonishing rate. Often a new
model or two arrive on my desk the day I finish my last Casio review.
Fortunately, the retail distribution channels work a little slower,
so the models I review are usually still available when our magazine
ships. But somebody is putting something in the water cooler at
Casioâs design department -- these people obviously never sleep.
Having
7.2 megapixels on tap is great, but it's a bit of a mixed blessing.
The files are quite large. Fine resolution JPEGs are around 4.3
megabytes, while the CMYK TIFF versions I created for this layout
each hit 27 megabytes. But of course the upside is all that room
to crop without losing detail. If youâve got a computer with decent
processing speed and a large hard drive, youâll love it. And you'll
need to spend another couple of C-notes on a pair of 1GB SecureDigital
cards. The Z750 doesnât ship with one and anything smaller with
a 7.2 megapixel camera will just frustrate you.