An Excellent Compact Camera with Lots of Professional Quality Features

Author's Rating:

Pros: Large LCD size, long battery life, large storage, light & small, fast ready mode

Cons: BestShots or Multifocus settings are needed for consistent crisp images, no video out

The Bottom Line: 
A good camera to always have with you: we will be “joined at the hip”. It works for an interested photographer who wants to learn more, or an ingenious novice.

Author's Review
The EX-Z40 is a small lightweight compact camera with great flexibility, a high-quality Pentax 3x Optical Zoom Lens and CCD (same as the Pentax S4), a bright large 2” LCD protected by a high-impact plastic covering, extra long life proprietary Lithium-Ion battery, at a competitive price. Nearly everything about its normal operations can be set to your preferences, including how some of the buttons function. Switching between record and playback is easy. Selecting modes in recording is also easy. This is really important because scanning menus on the LCD on bright sunny days could be frustrating. Playback offers many features like zoom and crop normally associated with PC-based software. Casio has tried to make this camera capable on its own for those times when no PC is handy.

(Updated July 2005 with new URL for composite photo)

Background
First of all, let me give some background because any report on camera experiences is highly influenced by previous experiences and expectations. I have had an Olympus OM1 35mm SLR for many years and I have been very pleased with its performance and flexibility.

Around 1996, I wanted a smaller camera for toting around more often, and I selected the Canon Elph APS. I have had many years of pleasure out of the three APS photo formats and other APS features. We were fortunate to have a local outlet of a drugstore chain that featured fast turnaround on APS prints. They were early into offering uploading of finished pictures and, as a result, so was I. I soon discovered the fun of sharing photos on-line and became a member of both Webshots and Sony Imagestation.

Around four years ago, I got an Aiptek PenCam Trio from Hong Kong (takes snapshots, movies and can be a WebCam). Now I was taking on-line sharing quality photos straight out of the camera. Quality was good for outdoor daylight shots (only) and the USB connectivity made the camera’s eleven snapshot capacity tolerable. Easily slipping into a pocket at about twice the thickness of a good ballpoint pen, it was never far away.

Then two years ago, I dropped off two APS rolls for processing after a trip to Mexico. When I paid, I was impressed that the fee was now over $30 including uploading JPEGs. Considering the limited use we were making of the dual sets of APS prints, I decided that I needed to get serious about digital.

I bought a SiPix SP-1300 at an on-line auction. To me this was the digital equivalent of the old Kodak “box camera” but was enough to get me to appreciate the tradeoffs with digital photography. The USB connectivity was excellent and the capacity on medium setting was 23 photos. It was bulky, but the 1.8” LCD made reviews nice and framing easy. It enabled me to postpone the purchase of a real full-featured digital until the price/performance improved. And I gained some more valuable experience in digital photos. For example, this camera made me appreciate the need for lots of image storage, fast recovery time between shots (and ON time) and long battery life – all serious shortcomings of this one!

This year I won a Canon Powershot A310 in a contest and this made me decide it was time to buy a “real” digital camera. My son had bought a Pentax S4 last fall and I was impressed with its power and flexibility for an extremely small package. I started there, looking at the successor S4i. I also looked seriously at the Canon Digital Elph S410. I used Steve’s DigiCam website extensively to work my way through the bewildering sets of features and options. I also looked at what Olympus had to offer.

I soon narrowed my search to the Canon, Pentax, Casio and looked at others like the Kyocera and Sony D1. The Kyocera seemed to be too fragile for serious traveling. The Sony lacked an optical focus. I consider that essential for good nighttime shots. I also looked at the Minolta Dimage Xg. The picture quality is supposed to be superb and the package is nice with its internal zoom. (I finally decided that I ask too many people to take shots that include me while out to dinner with friends and traveling and the Dimage requires non-standard holding to avoid blocking the lens. Hey, who says the decision process is always rational!)

I liked the idea of unlimited video offered by the Pentax S4i and the Casio EX-Z40, which uses the same Pentax lens/CCD system. I really liked the docking station of the Casio - it recharges the battery or connects to the computer for uploading on the press of a button. The charging stand for the Pentax requires a separate USB connection for uploading the pictures. This boils down to convenience. With the Casio, I can put it into the cradle, press the USB to upload, and then press it again and the recharging begins. With the Pentax, I have the extra step to connect the USB cable if I am uploading or editing too.

Casio Review
Although it is slightly bigger than the Pentax, the Casio provides double the photos per charge and 180% more photo storage on the same SD Card. The Canon Elph is over 40% heavier than the Casio, and 20% thicker, and I consider weight and size as crucial. I get the impression that the Elph is much more tightly coupled with the PC, whereas the Casio is more stand-alone in its approach. The Canon battery life is good for over 20% more photos than the Casio, but then you have to take out the Canon battery to recharge, whereas the Casio will sit on its cradle overnight. The red light on the cradle turns green when fully charged (after three hours if the battery was totally drained).

If you are going to run with two batteries, then the advantage goes to the Elph with its external charger. For me, 360 pictures are plenty for a one day outing between charges. It will also run in playback mode with the LCD lit brightly for six hours. But if you are going to do serious video capture, then the extra battery approach of the Canon might be the way to go. I have found stills to be a better use of storage and quality and consider video to be an occasional feature to capture pan shots for 360 degree perspectives. If you really want to record your children or parties, I recommend using a video camera.

Here is a summary of the key features that are common to all three cameras with any key differences highlighted:
· 4.23 million pixel effective CCD imager
· New high-quality light-weight aluminum body (Pentax is plastic)
· Still Image: 2304x1728, 2304(3:2 aspect), 1600x1200, 1280x960, 640x480
· Audio recording, attached to images or audio recorder mode (Casio only)
· Built-in microphone & speaker
· Record AVI movies at 320x240 (15fps) to size of card (Canon 180 sec. limit)
· Pentax 3x optical zoom (35-105mm equiv.) with 4x digital zoom (Canon 3.6x)
· Approximate two second startup time (Casio fastest, Pentax next)***
· Fast shot to shot time even when using the flash (battery power & flash memory)
· Selectable Autofocus modes: Multi or Spot AF
· Focus modes: Auto, Pan, Macro, Infinity, Manual focus, Focus lock
· Optical through the lens viewfinder (essential for optical zoom)
· Automatic 4 to 1/2000 sec. shutter speeds
· Built-in flash with Red Eye Reduction
· Turn flash off (Casio only)
· Zoom range 2.39” – 19.69” (Canon 2” – 18”)
· Aperture range 2.8 – 4.8
· ISO speeds: Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400
· 2" TFT color LCD with 354x240 (85k pixels) resolution (Canon 1.5”/118k, Pentax 1.8”/85k)
· Optional variable playback up to 4x zoom magnification
· USB 1.1 data transfer to PC or Mac computers as mass storage drive
· Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery and charging cradle included (Canon no cradle)
· 360 shots (3 hours) on full charge with Flash/LCD on (Canon 440, Pentax 180)
· 9.7 Megabytes of internal memory/cache (Pentax 10mb, Canon none)
· Secure Digital/MMC card slot for memory expansion (Canon CompactFlash, Pentax SD only)
· Compression to JPEG of Fine/Normal/Coarse (Pentax/Canon also have Superfine)***
· 134 hi-res photos on 256mb card (Canon 130, Pentax 48)
· 2844 lo-res photos on 256mb card (Canon 3200, Pentax 1346)
· DPOF, PRINT Image Matching II, Exif Print and Epson USB Direct-Print compatible
· No video out to TV (Pentax and Canon both have it with cable supplied)
· BestShots memory feature (21 Std up to 99) versus 4 presets on Pentax/Canon
· Tripod mount, Self timer: 2 sec/10 sec
· Dimensions 3.43”x2.24”x.91” (Canon: 3.43x2.24x1.09, Pentax: 3.30x2x.80)
· Weight 0.27 lb (Canon 0.39 lb, Pentax 0.23 lb)

What I initially noted about the Casio was the ease-of-use. The camera buttons seem to be intuitive. This is lucky because the printed manual supplied is hopeless. The PDF manual supplied is very complete. I skipped the Kodak Easyshare software supplied. I just let Windows XP recognize the camera as a USB mass storage device (E:\DCIM\100CASIO). My Webshots desktop displays the photos nicely for cropping and slideshows. I use PhotoSuite for more extensive editing but all still in the camera using the mass storage interface. This way I can show the final shots on the camera display too. This includes deletions and renaming if needed. This way one set of pictures are on both camera and PC. Casio provides limited image naming. I set up a new directory (E:\DCIM\101CASIO) in the camera and it started storing in the new directory. (The camera stills shows photos seamlessly from both directories.) In this way, I can separate different events or new shooting from previously edited photos. I separate my photos into logical rolls. This started with rolls of 25 to match the Canon Elph APS. Now I use “rolls” of 100 photos in numeric sequence. I use Jalbum to organize these. I set my current roll number in the camera and it finds the highest numbered image and increments the image name for me. I still have to rename the first part of the image from CIMG0085.jpg to f1340085.jpg, for example. It will also “remember” the last number used and just keep counting. This will leaves gaps if you have deleted images and renumbered the remainder to be consecutive. It is really easy to delete unwanted shots on the camera. In playback mode, press the down arrow, then the up arrow to confirm and the Set button. The screen prompts are excellent.

There are well-marked buttons for record and playback that power it up in the correct mode. They can also be set to power it down. I prefer using the tiny failsafe button on the top beside the shutter control to power off. It is pretty hard to hit it by mistake. This is a common problem when someone else is taking your picture. I use the fingernail on my index finger to push the button down into its protective well The menus are separated into a set for record and a set for playback. The “wheel” control beside the LCD works nicely and intuitively in each mode. The right arrow will cycle through the modes, making it easy to switch from snapshot to video or record audio track for snapshot. Also it will select BestShots mode and it shows a sample picture for each BestShots type. It is pretty hard to mistake the BestShots modes given the example pictures shown. This makes it easy for a novice to use the power of the camera. Included in the twenty-one modes is the ability to stitch together pictures either by taking one person and the background, then completing the shot with the second person (i.e. here now you take me). Also take the background then insert the people allowing some flexibility in framing the background yourself then asking a passerby to take the photo of the two of you.

The twenty-one BestShot modes are: 1.Portrait, 2.Scenery, 3.Portrait with Scenery, 4.Coupling (described above as “stitching”), 5.Preshot (described above as first the background then the people), 6.Children, 7.Candlelight portrait, 8.Party, 9.Pet, 10.Flower, 11.Natural green, 12.Sundown, 13.Nightscene, 14.Nightscene portrait, 15.Fireworks, 16.Food, 17.Text, 18.Collection, 19.Monochrome, 20.Retro, 21.Twilight. In each case, it describes what is unique about the setting below the sample picture. This essentially is a live tutorial on how to start on the road to becoming a more expert photographer. As you can imagine, these twenty-one choices cover most of what the average photographer is going to need. And getting to the choice is simple. With the forgiving nature of digital, you can try a scene several ways to see the differences, and then store your own variations as one of the 78 possible additional BestShots that you can save. For example, you might start with Scenery but because it is a hazy overcast day, adjust the light balance using the Histogram feature (see below). The standard modes provide a handy starting point. If you are on vacation and finding a lot of hazy picture conditions, you can simply save this adjusted version as one of your own.

The quality of the pictures from the appropriate BestShot is excellent. I am really pleased with the results. I was planning on keeping my Olympus OM1 for the really serious shots. Now I am thinking that I will finally sell it. (My soulmate will get the Canon Elph APS for those shots she wants. She is intimidated by digital technology and she loves tangible prints to really enjoy the experience. I have been making selected prints for her from the digital and will continue to do so. We use a photo lab that accepts on-line orders sending in the selected JPEGs making it painless.)

Here I will describe some of the features of the camera. I am not sure how these relate to the other camera choices I could have made. There are three different focus options. When “Multi” is selected for the Auto Focus area, the camera takes simultaneous meter readings at seven different points and automatically selects the best one. This makes it possible to avoid erroneous focusing on the background, and ensure proper focus for a wide range of image types. I suspect that the few people who have reported “soft” pictures could have had better results with this choice. There is also Pan Focus that lets you lock the focus point and ensures that you do not miss that special moment when it happens. Finally, there is Auto Pan Focus by pressing the shutter release all the way down without pausing halfway, the camera immediately records the image without waiting for Auto Focus to be performed. It uses the last setting. This helps to avoid missing a special moment while you wait for the camera to Auto Focus when you are sure the conditions have not changed. (This is called Quickshot on the Canon.)

There is a neat feature if you want to do self-photos with the timer and a tripod. You can set it to Triple Self-timer mode and the self-timer will repeat three times automatically so you can select the one you like the best and delete the others. This is an example of using the erasable nature of digital to avoid the frustration of having to do it again.

You can also display a real-time Histogram on the LCD that lets you adjust exposure as you view the effect on overall image brightness so that under difficult lighting conditions you look for the histogram to peak in the middle like a bell curve (or be a level line). If it shifted left you are getting more shadows (dark pixels) while a shift to the right indicates bright spots or washouts caused by too many light pixels. This is an example of some experimentation that you might make to come up with another BestShots setting.

Some stand-alone functions are quite sophisticated. For example, there is an Album Function that automatically generates HTML files to create an album of recorded images right in the camera that can be viewed and printed using a standard Web browser. Images can also be incorporated into Web pages in the way. This is a camera that can function when your PC is not nearby. This can be especially handy when you are traveling (light).

During playback, press the up arrow and the calendar screen appears showing a full-month calendar with a thumbnail of the first image recorded on that date. Considering that you might have hundreds or even thousands of pictures stored on that SD card (they are now available in 1gb!), this feature could help to search for a specific photo image quicker and easier.

OK so you really wanted a PDA? Well now that you have the calendar, how about an alarm? You can have your favorite audio file, movie or picture with audio dubbing play at the set time. If you are truly on holidays, then maybe you just want to play reveille when you must get up for that early morning golf game or return flight. I have had mixed results with wakeup calls in the tropics and this means one less device to haul through customs!

So we have this is a camera for viewing images but we are talking about audio! Well most cameras will record audio along with the movie. But Casio has added leverage to the microphone and speaker by letting me record an audio record for every photo after taking it. For example, here we are at the pyramids of “Cychenitza” without having to spell it! It will also record a .wav file with the same name as the image file and will play it during photo playback. You can also just record an audio file with no image for replaying later (tape recorder?) or uploading in case you have some sage comments or want to record the tour guide spiel. Being audio only, it takes very little storage to record some memorable moments. This was one of those neat features that I might use! Heck, maybe I will just record the file I want to play when the alarm gets me up for golf! The Casio will record five hours of audio on a fully charged battery. The camera operates as an audio recorder with the lens retracted and the display off. The shutter button will start and stop recording. The set button will insert index marks that can be skipped to during playback.

There is an amazing (bewildering?) set of ways to configure the camera for your preferences. I suppose that every one of them might be of use to someone. One that I like is the setting of when the display turns off during inactivity. I leave it on now until I find out if I ever run out of battery (six hours is long). I can also set when the lens retracts to suite me when it is not being used. Do you like the way Windows plays a tune on power up and shutdown? Well you can set your camera to do it too, complete with sound. Do you carry your camera around always ready to shoot. You can set the display to turn off and it comes on again when any button is touched. Of course, just pressing the display button will do that too. I find that the 2 second power up time makes this a bit redundant. For me, it is safer to have the lens retracted when not shooting. Also these miniature lens are not likely as robust as those old-style SLR lens. (See durability rating.)

Have you ever got sick of having to go shoulder-to-shoulder when your subjects want to see the picture you just took of them? Sometimes this is OK but if you want to get it over with quicker, just tilt the camera down 90 degrees with your thumb on the Set button and your index finger on the shutter release. The image flips 180 degrees so they can see it right away. You can scroll back though the last few photos with the left arrow.

This camera is designed for many stand-alone operations with your stored photos. You can resize images and crop them. These operations produce new images suitable for uploading, for example, to attach to email at an Internet Café. You can play slideshows from the images still stored in the camera and show them on the camera while handheld or in the cradle by pressing the slideshow Photo button. You can set display time and interval time for the show. Interval time can be used to limit how long movie or audio clips play. You can also show just one image, or images stored in your Favorites folder. Favorites are stored in the camera RAM storage of 9.7mb and so should be used with discretion. They automatically get copied and resized to 320x240 pixels to conserve storage space. You can also specify that an image should be rotated during playback. You can set the playback to random order. It is surprising that, with all this stand-alone function, no video output is provided. I have a laptop (with SVHS Out) that I lug around on holidays and business trips so this was not a big deal with me. It is the one thing about the camera that makes no sense to me.

I skipped the Casio carrying case but use one given to me on Cathay Pacific that contained their overnight kit for trips across the Pacific. It has two compartments, a belt loop and a carrying strap. I put my cellphone in the second compartment. There is no need to carry spare film or batteries anymore!

Included below is a link to a composite picture of my Casio. You can see the extent of the lens extension when powered on. Also the way photos show in the cradle during slideshow mode. I omitted the right side view because it adds little.

http://216.185.68.228/KC/Papers/CasioEX-Z40.jpg

A friend recently purchased the Pentax Optio S4i and we did a side-by-side comparison. Although their LCD is 1.8" it seems much smaller when compared to the 2" LCD on the Casio (the Casio is 23.5% bigger). The camera seems much smaller and this makes it harder to hold for setting menu selections, reviewing pictures and taking pictures. The pictures and features are very similar. Of course, the lens systems and CCD capture devices are identical. The optical viewfinder on the Pentax requires you to be dead center to see. For "Altoid tin" small, the Pentax is pretty amazing. I still prefer the Casio for handling and its BestShots picture selection. Prices at local stores were the same for the two cameras. I saved on the 256mb SD Card buying it on eBay. He bought from the dealer and paid 57% more.

(If I were purchasing in July 2005, I would get the EX-Z750 for its better movie functions, or the EX-Z57 for the 2.5" display.)