In practice, the Z57's lack of manual features can make some shots difficult to capture properly; night shots are a good example. You're limited to the scene presets on the Z57's Best Shot menu, and though there's a fairly exhaustive list of shooting situations available--23 of them, including Casio's new Business Shot for photographing whiteboards and documents--it's frustrating to know that the camera supports variable shutter speeds but that you can't set them directly. Though the Z57 allows you to bump your flash intensity up or down, in most low-light situations, the flash will still make people and skin tones look washed out. The Z57 also lacks a burst mode, so you won't be able to hold down the shutter and snap photos in succession. Still, the Z57 ranks among the fastest in its class for shutter lag, grabbing pictures a mere 0.05 second after the shutter is pressed. Under typical conditions, shot-to-shot times typically lasted a mediocre 2.5 seconds and jumped up to 5.3 when we used a flash.
By and large, the Z57 delivers evenly exposed indoor shots when there's adequate lighting. However, the same can't be said for its performance in daylight; the Z57 falls victim to worse than average purple fringing at high-contrast edges and obliterates white highlights in otherwise perfectly exposed shots. To its credit, Casio has done an admirable job of limiting the noise captured by the camera's CCD, so if low-noise performance is a priority for you, the Casio Exilim EX-Z57 may deserve a serious look.
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