Truly a flawless digital camera

Author's Rating:

Pros: Simply awesome, this is by far the best digital camera I've ever used.

Cons: None. Really!

The Bottom Line: 
This WILL be your last camera for a long time. It is simply amazing. It does everything and does it all well. The view screen alone will blow you away!

Author's Review
Greetings. I must be in a prolific mood to write today, as I just reviewed a multifunction (check out my review for the Brother 8840D)printer, and felt why stop now when I'm on a roll?

I started hunting for a new digital camera as mine was eating batteries in hours. Being a semi-professional (A few weddings and bar mitzvahs) photographer, I was frustrated by so many features I was used to having on my Nikon SLR film cameras missing on almost all the digital cameras.

I am really anal about looking at cameras and reviews and deciding what's best for me, and started the hunt with the usual camera lines I know best. Nikon and Canon took a lot of time, reading and looking at features. Nothing really hit me and said 'buy me'.. So I checked Olympus and the rest.

Some did some things ok, and other things mediocre. My hunt continued until I saw this new camera from Casio, the EX-P600. While it's in the Exilim line, it's really NOT a mini camera. This is much more of a professional level camera, except it's not an SLR, which for my needs is more than enough. With a huge 6 megapixel capability, this is enough for the weekend cameraman or a budding National Geographic photographer. In all truth, for most of your work, 2-3 megapixels is ALL you'll ever need.

From the moment you turn it on, you'll know you have something special in your hands. It's ready to shoot in 2-3 seconds and the flash is right behind. Recyle speed is amazing. And it's superfast AND ACCURATE autofocus will blow you away.

The camera itself is incredibly well built, with the most amazing screen you'll ever see on a digital camera. It's huge, and depending on the mode you select, it has literally EVERY piece of information a photographer will need. F settings, shutter speed, resolution and more. There is an F-16 cockpit style view with a totally novel instant view mode with focus, and other data in a overlay format which is simply too cool.

The lens is a true glass Canon lens, with 4x optical and 16X total zoom. Most cameras use ultra basic lenses but this camera uses a true 8 lens array in 7 groups for amazingly sharp photos.

The range of options includes both aperture, and shutter priority, super fast autofocus, manual focus, which I found to be a waste of time, as I can't focus a camera without rotating a lens. After 35 years of photography, you just find the old ways for some things to be the best. For a tripod mount, still, critical focus image, this would be handy. For field use, I doubt any professional could find this manual focus any good. But this is merely an option. Most digital cameras won't even LET you manually focus. In all truth, the autofocus on this camera is so fast and so accurate, I doubt you'd need manual focus anyway. I've TRIED to find things it couldn't autofocus and it is accurate on everything I've shot.

One of the most important features of this camera, is once it's focused, you press and it shoots. Many digital cameras today have to think for a second, before it shoots, causing you to miss the expression or action you were trying to capture. One second doesn't sound like much, but try that at Indy and you won't even have the car in view when it shoots! This camera takes the picture in about 1/10th of a second from the time you push the button, Casio claims it's currently the fastest of any digital camera on the market.

Little features like an external flash connection may not be needed by most snapshot photographers, but if you do anything requiring multiple light sources, this is mandatory. Of course there's a tripod thread on the bottom.

I'm not going to bother with specs in this review as you can go to http://world.casio.com/exilim/en/ex_p600/ to see way more specs than I could give you.

But to give you a hint at what you'd be getting, the PDF file that comes on the cd is over 150 pages! This camera does 100 things more than you'll ever use.

I'm not a big fan of the use of a dedicated battery, but so far, this has not proven to be a problem. I bought a spare on Ebay for about $20, and that's solved the fear of being in the middle of something and having it die. One charge is supposed to shoot over 250 pics, but so far, I've never shot enough to have it die before recharging.

I did learn if you have the USB connection in use to transfer pics, the camera doesn't shut down automatically, and the battery died when i went to bed. It IS in the documents, although it might take a while to find it. Just remember to shut it off or unplug it when you're done transfering images to your PC.

The EX-P600 will shoot still pics, video, and audio. It comes without extra memory, which is sorta dumb, but has 9 megs built in, enough to use the camera out of the box, but if you intend to do much, you'll need to buy at least a 256 SD card.

In closing, the Casio EX-P600 could be the last digital camera you'll ever buy. It's incredibly well built, doesn't feel like 'plastic' junk in your hands and all the buttons and knobs are truly well engineered hardware.

It has 20 preset modes, with some being truly awesome. One allows you to take a picture of a scene with a friend in it, then hand them the camera, they can see the image just shot with their half dimmed out, refocus from the same spot and reshoot with the other person, and you have both people in the same shot. Granted, this is more gimmick than practical, but still just too cool. But it's a lot safer than handing your $500 camera to a stranger who might run off with it. And you can still get both of you in front of where ever you are! Shoot preset fireworks, night images, distant images and many more!

If you are looking for more than a toy, and while many cameras today are more than adequate for 95% of us, those who want or demand the extra capabilities of a professional level camera under $1000, you have to look seriously at the Casio EX-P600. I think you'll be as impressed and amazed as I've been. And even 3 months later, i'm finding things I didn't know it can do.

Simply put. If you need a high end digital camera, this has GOT to be on your radar.