Digital Trends

Casio Exilim EX-Z1050

August 8th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

The Exilim EX-Z1050 is as ordinary as can be, looking like every other silver-bodied “Made In China” camera on the market (and there are dozens of them). To spice things up a notch, the digicam is also available in black, blue and pink to match your mood or clothing. The front is dominated by the 3x optical zoom that translates to 38-114mm in 35mm terms. When you power up, it pops out; when shut down it retracts into the body and there’s a built-in lens cover. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. You’ll also find the flash, an AF Assist lamp, microphone and a few decals touting the brand and 10.1-megapixel resolution.

The top is as minimalist as can be with a shutter button with surrounding zoom ring, tiny speaker and power on/off. The right side has a single USB/AV output while the bottom has a tripod mount and the compartment for the battery and memory card. It accepts SDHC and MultiMedia Plus cards along with older SD and MMC media.

The rear is a little more interesting since it has a 2.6-inch LCD screen rather than the much more common 2.5. With this extra space, Casio put in a row of icons so you can make the major adjustments on the fly rather than scrolling through menus. This is really smart thinking. The menus are very easy to follow and you advance through them using the four-way controller to the right of the screen with center set button. There are also simple text descriptions for the various options. For example, if you want to change resolution, at 10MP a graphic flashes this is Poster Print sized rated 3648 x 2736 pixels and so on all the way down to VGA (640 x 480, Email). Similar tips are given throughout the various options. Casio definitely gets a tip of the hat for this design. Other controls here include menu and BS (Best Shot), Casio’s term for the whopping 38 Scene modes. There are also keys for camera and playback. This is as plain and simple as it gets.

Overall the camera measures 3.6 x 2.25 x .95 and weighs 5.4 ounces with battery and card. This one easily fits in a pocket and could be taken anywhere and everywhere.

The Exilim EX-Z1050 comes with a decent bundle including the camera, battery, charger, USB/AV cables and a basic getting-started guide (14 pages in English). The software CD ROM includes Photo Loader with Hot Album ver. 3.1, Photo Transport ver. 1.0 and USB driver. A more in-depth User Guide is also on the disc (PDF). I prefer complete printed manuals since most people don’t carry their laptops around with them in order to read camera manuals. This is unfortunate since the camera has a number of good features that are buried in the menus. You can increase the dynamic range of your shots while shooting plus in playback mode you can adjust brightness, white balance and even reduce the keystone effect of distorted subjects such as tall buildings. Nikon stresses some similar features (D-Lighting), Sony has DRO—Casio should lets consumers know about these features. Too bad…

After charging the battery--which is rated an impressive 370 shots per CIPA--and popping in an SDHC card it was time to start clicking.

Image Courtesy of Casio