Casio Exilim EX-S5 user reviews (Black)

Pros Lens Error

Cons Lens Error

Summary I had two, all had Lens Error, can't not take picture anymore. The first one was Christmas gift, broken with 2 month, then the factory send me another one, broken just past 3 month, which means out of warranty. also don't take good picture at night time, take too long to focus.

Pros Fancy metallic accents, slim + light, rechargeable battery with good life, customizable display, easy default capture settings as well as advanced fine tune controls, zoom slider rightly positioned, one-touch video record button, mutable sounds.

Cons Can't charge through USB and propietary USB cable (but this is the norm), battery/SD card lid flimsy so will open unintentionally, menus may be hard to figure out for the novice or a child

Summary I should clarify this is my second digital camera and even though I take a lot of pictures, I am a novice photographer. Therefore, the ISO and metering adjustments in the Exilim are new to me but I find it cool that I can learn to use these settings while in the meantime using the camera's novice-friendly shoot pre-sets accesible with a touch of the BS (best shot) button.

The Exilim is fantastically customizable. I really enjoy that I can set the volume of the system sounds or just mute them, allowing this camera to be perfectly discreet. There isn't even a red "I'm recording you" light. Good for those like me who like to take lots of pictures in public but are shy about being too obvious about it.

Some cameras have the zoom slider next to the screen, where the menu buttons are, which I find awkward to reach. The Exilim's zoom slider is right on the capture button which to me is the most natural and comfortable place for it to be.

I don't think any digital cameras of this scale come with USB chargers, but wouldn't that be useful? At least the Exilim's battery can be easily replaced on the move in case you decide to buy an extra battery. Battery life is good for me since I haven't yet ran out of shots due to battery life.

Finally, a word to the wise: If with a 2 GB SD card you can take like 500 pictures at the highest resolution, do you really need the biggest most expensive SD card that fits thousands of pictures? For example, Picasa is giving me much more bang for my buck as far as storage.

Updated on Feb 13, 2010

I correct myself. A $10 2 GB SD card will allow you 300 full resolution pictures and NOT 500. For your money, the $15 4GB SD card actually makes more sense. Anything bigger and more expensive than that does not make sense to me if you take pictures casually.

Also, I finally installed the manufacturer's camera software and it's REALLY BAD. There's two programs: the importer which transfers pictures to your camera (named Photo Transport), and a Youtube downloader which transfers your videos directly to Youtube. Photo Transport is a very simple program that allows you to transfer pictures INTO your camera. Why would I ever do this, and if I did, why would I need this program to do this? The YouTube uploader is buggy, it gave an error code just for opening it up. Casio does not provide photo editing software, instead, it gave me these two programs which are worth 2 cents to me.

Pros Great screen quality , easy navigation controls .
Basically everything !

Cons None so far .

Summary This is a very good camera . It is easy to use , and it's small , so it's not one of those big bulky ones . I'm pretty sure many people will enjoy this product .

Pros Size is great for pockets. This is my first small digital that kept the power button out of the way-I was always hitting the power button when using my other small digitals. I got it for $109, not bad.

Cons Shutter lag is bad, but I use a Nikon D80 as my main camera. Auto-flash mode changes the auto iso to match; I don't like that at all but the results were good as iso never went above 400 in that mode. Still, I will manually set my iso from now on.

Summary This would be an automatic 4 Stars, maybe 4.5 if it weren't for the shutter lag. I use a Nikon D80 as my main camera and I find the slightest shutter lag annoying. 10 megapixels for something this size was a dream just 2 or 3 years ago, that pretty much made the sale for me. You can manually set the iso from 64 to 1600 or leave it in auto. I like shooting at iso 200 so I'll leave it there for now. The camera has an automatic shutoff that will save the battery for most consumers; semi-pros and pros will hate it as it puts the camera to sleep within one to two minutes or shuts down the camera within one to five minutes, selectable in 1-minute increments. However, both sleep and auto-shutoff can be turned off. The controls are easy to reach and the power button is not too close to the shutter button; on three other small digitals I routinely hit the power button by mistake while taking the first shot. There is a "Best Shot" mode where the user chooses a sample photo and the camera automatically sets itself for you. The video button is separate and conveniently placed for one-thumb operation. Movies are Quicktime format with sound - winner! This camera should come in handy for putting images and short videos on the web, especially in emergencies. As for the white balance settings; the "white fluorescent" mode renders more accurate results than the "daylight fluorescent" in my opinion. I recommend white fluorescent mode for rooms lit with CFL bulbs, since consumer bulbs may not be that accurate. I like this camera - two of my other pocket digitals will be passed on as donations; this is a keeper (although it MAY be replaced with one that has a faster shutter). This link shows 10 quick shots I made, the last 8 in auto-flash mode: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v410/lindseyp/Amps%20guitar%20and%20bass/