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Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z80
by Jojoborne
I purchased the Exilim EX Z80 about four years ago now and it has served me well. For its size and output it takes some pretty nice pictures. I primarily purchased it for the 'You Tube' capture mode on it because I go to a lot of music gigs and wanted to film live music. I was not disappointed at all as the camera takes crystal clear ... videos and picks up the sound perfectly, playing it back exactly how it sounded at the gig or concert. So, muchos kudos for that.
The Camera
The camera itself weighs as much as your average mobile phone and I'm talking before science made mobile phones lighter than air and as thin as a Smith's crisp. So it is pretty light and not a problem to carry around.
I purchased the black model. On my picture in-between the Exilim and 8.1 Mega Pixels wording was the 'YouTube' logo in red and silver. This has since been wiped away after many sweaty nights at gigs, with my sweaty thumbs eventually rubbing it off.
The screen is a decent size and the camera is pretty easy to use with most functions being explained on the phone itself as well as the instruction booklet. It is areally well made phone and looks appealing to the eye. Seeing as it does have alittle weight to it, it does feel like it has a little more substance than a lot of digital cameras on the market today. This probably being because they have had their insides removed and all the Intel pasted to piece of melted cheese the size of a gnats finger nail.
The casing is pretty sturdy, although when I first had it I made the mistake of putting itin a back pocket, causing a dent that has been there for four years now. So no backy pocket placement with this baby.
Taking Pictures and Videos - Functions
This camera has been to England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Greece and ithas really served me well. I have taken thousands of pictures with it and the quality has always been up to scratch.
The camera has many features that help with setting up and taking the best possible picture but it is not loaded down by science and the default setting is 'Best possible picture', so the camera is ready to take as soon as it is turned on.;just a click of a button and you're done.
The zoom ispretty brilliant on this camera. It is only optical 3x but for some reason itseems to perform way above expectancy. Many people have commented on how well I can zoom in. The good thing is you can zoom in a take a picture but then youstill get the same amount of zoom again on viewing the picture.
The zoom isespecially good when at gigs. I have recorded some brilliant close up footageof many bands with great sound. Also, because it is actually a 'YouTube'camera, the quality when loaded to YouTube is perfect.
I'm not going to go into specifics such as shutter speed and how many Oranges the phonecan juggle or even copy out any specifics from the instruction booklet, because I am not an expert in camera terminology and nor will I pretend to be. The kind of person that would go for this camera is the same sort of person as me andnot a professional photographer, so I will aim the review at those people and leave it at that.
Picture Modes
There are quite a lot of different picture modes to choose from and these, of course,depend on what type of setting you're in at any given time.
They are as follows -
Best Shot - Self -explanatory and as mentioned the default setting for taking immediate, unexpected pictures. This mode will adapt to your surroundings as much as it is able and give you the best shot it can.
Portrait - Again self-explanatory and best to use when taking a picture of a person close up.
Scenery - One for taking in landscapes and long distance pictures.
Portrait with Scenery - The two settings above conjoined and again speaks for itself. Does work rather well as I have used it on numerous occasions on holiday.
Pet - For use with animals and tends to cut outthe red eye in conjunction with flash use.
Portrait for one person - You work it out. Adapts the camera for focusing on one person.
Portrait for two people - As above for two people.
Flowers - for close ups on plants and flowers. Better used outside but can be used indoors as well.
Food - Ok if you're sending someone a recipe or just bragging about your cooking.
Fashion Accessories - Perfect for my girlfriend as she makes her own jewellry, although she now has an iPhone so she can stand on her head and sing soprano on a rollercoaster while taking the pic (according to iPhone owners I might add).
Magazine - The setting that I probably use the most fortaking pictures of my art and for pics on Ciao. Any wording in the picture isbrought more clearly into focus than on the normal setting.
Monochrome - Basically takes all photographs in black andwhite.
Retro - I took some great pictures with this inParis and Florence. It gives the picture a sepia hue and that olde worlde postcard look.
Cross - Gives all lights that sparkle or crosshatching effect.
Pastel - Creates a pastel effect type picture. Youcan make a portrait of someone look like art but I don't find it too good touse to be honest.
Night Scene - For taking pictures in the dark.
Night Scene Portrait - As above with people in theforeground.
Sport - supposedly used to capture better picturesat a sporting event.
Children - Used for children as it has a slower shutterspeed for those little ones that can't keep still. Surely a faster shutter speed would be better?
Fireworks - Similar to Cross but helps negate too much sparkle so you can actually see the firework display on your photograph.
Sundown - For taking shots as it is getting dark.
Underwater - I think this actually refers to taking shots through the glass of an aquarium or the glass floor of a boat. As the camera isn't waterproof I would actually recommend going underwater with it. Obvious fact to state, I know, but there is bound to be someone somewhere who comes up out of the sea saying 'Mom, Dad, my camera has stopped working'.
Backlight - Provides the camera pictures with their own backlight for those shots in darker areas.
High Sensitivity - For taking shots which contain movement, suchas a fire or an action photo.
Auction - Made for taking photos for pics on sitessuch as Ebay or Etsy.
White Board - A function, which I wish to point out that Idon't find offensive in any way, in our correct PC world. Used to make wording clearer on a slightly different scale to the magazine function.
The rest ofthe functions on this part of the camera are for videos. The You Tube capturemode is the camera's main video function as that is what the camera was builtfor. There is also a voice recording function here, which can be used as adictation machine.
Settings and Displays
There are three main function screens under the settings tab.
Rec Screen
This contains a number of sections which you can scroll up and down and use and setquite easily. You can change the style of your focus frame on screen. This includes templates of different shapes and sizes. There is an auto focus button,a continuous mode to snap off quick pictures, without changing any modes, which you can essentially do anyway but your pictures will suffer quality-wise. There is a self-timer and an auto shutter mode. Some of the night functions for taking pictures in the dark or the sensitivity modes will cause the shutterspeed to slow done and you will have to wait for the flash. Auto shutter makesthis easier.
Quality Screen
There areseveral sizes or aspects that you can change you pictures to for when you viewthem. Then you can change the quality of the pictures and there are three settings, which are 'Fine', 'Normal' and 'Economy'. Using 'Normal' gives you about 700 pictures on a 2 GB memory card and the picture quality is average.Turn it to 'Fine' and the quality is superb but you get less pictures at just over 500 hundred. If you crave quantity over quality you can switch to the 'Economy'setting which will give you over 1000 pictures but the results will be grainy and mediocre.
There is a UHQ and an HQ setting, which I will not profess to know anything about but thought I would include it for those of you who do know. You can set an automatic white light, dynamic range and set a portrait refiner to help make those portraits crystal clear. In this section you also get all the contrast, colour,saturation and sharpness functions.
Set Up
This is self-explanatory and enables you to set up your camera how you like it. You can change the time and date and decide whether this is on your pictures or not. The display colours can be changed and the language of the settings. There is also an energy saver, so you can set up the camera to turn off after a certain amount of time to save the battery. This comes in the form of a sleep button.
Battery and Memory card
The battery is a Casio lithium ion battery and is still going strong after four years. A charger comes with the camera and is easy to use as the battery just slots in and out without any messing about. The battery also comes out of the camera with no fuss.
The camera does not come with a memory card but they are really cheap. I got a 2GB one foraround six pounds and I have never had to change it.
The camera comes with a USB lead so you can transfer the pictures to your PC for saving.Then it is a case of either deleting individual photographs form the memory card to free up space or just deleting everything to free up the memory.
FinalThoughts
I have never had any problems with this camera and it has taken some great photographs. For me the 'YouTube' capability is its best function. You really can capture the music at a gig and hear it as you heard it live. It is easy to transfer the videos to YouTube as well and you just use the USB to save to your PC as with the pictures.
My camera,as I said, is now getting on a bit and the poor thing has taken a beating. It has been to numerous gigs and concerts and all around Europe. I had it on a table on a coach in Italy and the coach swerved round a sharp bend, throwing my camera to the floor. As I was sitting opposite the middle exit door, the camera fell down the steps. The zoom button was damaged and it was scratched quite badly. The zoom button getting damaged has really spoilt the camera and I think it is time to get a new one but, in all honesty, I cannot grumble at all at the service this camera has provided me with. I may buy the same camera.
I would recommend this camera to anyone but especially to a music lover, like me, who goes to gigs regularly. It is a top camera and the picture and video quality is excellent.
İLee Billingham
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Samsung L100
by helen190390
Christmas 2008 and I'm sitting there opening presents with my Dad in the morning. He runs off to his room when we'd finished opening them and I was sat there trying on my new coat he'd bought me and sticking the new CD I'd got in the player when he brings in a present all wrapped up as a surprise.
Upon opening it and screaming with ... excitement over the new camera my Dad had so lovingly went out and bought for me, I was shocked to see it was also pink!.
I had never had a camera, I had always borrowed my grandparents one if I needed one for a special event so having my own was lovely. I opened the box and was greeted with a great lightweight digital camera, and at that point, the face detection and Image stabilization was quite new to the world of cheaper digital cameras. My dad told me it cost around £65 from Tesco where he could afford to buy the camera as he had some Clubcard vouchers to use up making it quite low priced for him in terms of spending cash.
The Camera:
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After searching everywhere online i couldn't find one to purchase brand new anywhere. There are lots of refurbished ones on Ebay or ones being sold in excellent used condition reaching around £10-15 at the end of the auctions which is an excellent price to pay.
The Camera is 9cm x 5.5cm x 2cm which is rather compact and the square edges make it look more elegant than some of the more chunky bubbly looking ones. The screen is 2.5 inch/5cm wide which is just the right side for this compact. The colour is a dusty pink which is just the right shade to keep that more "expensive" look about it.
Instead of filling this review with Specifications that we can all get from the likes of Google, I wanted to give you my thoughts and experiences with the camera.
My favourite thing about this camera, was that It was easy to work, no fuss and no buttons which I didn't use. I started a fashion course at college in 2007 which in my second year required a lot of photography work so my wonderful little camera worked brilliantly for all the things i needed to photograph. It always took wonderful photos of people too. Everyone looked glowing and more tanned than usual and as it is an 8.2mp quality camera, it didn't show everyone's blemishes they way cameras do now. The battery is chargeable which is brilliant. You just plug the camera into the usb and attach the usb to either your computer or the plug for the wall which is comes with as an attachment. I thought this was brilliant as i could also plug my Ipod into the socket too as they charge through your computer usually.
As this camera is now discontinued and not available to purchase brand new from big retailers, I wouldn't suggest it to first time buyers. If your are buying a camera for the first time, or if you don't know too much about cameras and Ebay, then I would suggest you get something brand new with a warranty with it just incase something goes wrong.
Most cameras come with all the same sort of features now. You can choose settings of scenery shots, portraits, night mode etc which rarely get used when I am using cameras as i tend to create my own settings and set it up to how I like it. The image stabilization is brilliant as when I had my daughter in 2009 and she was wriggling around i could take some lovely photos of her without it blurring.
The face recognition is a great feature also and when the camera detects a face is in the shot, it will bring up a square on the screen for you to keep their face in and when the photo is processed, the camera has focused really well onto the face.
Conclusion:
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Like I said before if you haven't owned a camera before or you haven't had much experience with them, I don't recommend buying this from sellers on Ebay as it will be either used or refurbished.
The samsung L100 is an excellent camera for taking photos of people and also of scenic views.
I loved this camera when I got it, and it got water damage so unfortunately It had to be sent in for recycling as it wasn't usable any more but I do plan to get one from Ebay to use again.
Thanks for reading this review.
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