Casio EXILIM ZOOM EX-Z80

I purchased the Exilim EX Z80 about four years ago now and it has served me well. For its size and output it takes some pretty nice pictures. I primarily purchased it for the ‘You Tube’ capture mode on it because I go to a lot of music gigs and wanted to film live music. I was not disappointed at all as the camera takes crystal clear videos and picks up the sound perfectly, playing it back exactly how it sounded at the gig or concert. So, muchos kudos for that.

The Camera

The camera itself weighs as much as your average mobile phone and I’m talking before science made mobile phones lighter than air and as thin as a Smith’s crisp. So it is pretty light and not a problem to carry around.

I purchased the black model. On my picture in-between the Exilim and 8.1 Mega Pixels wording was the ’YouTube’ logo in red and silver. This has since been wiped away after many sweaty nights at gigs, with my sweaty thumbs eventually rubbing it off.

The screenis a decent size and the camera is pretty easy to use with most functions being explained on the phone itself as well as the instruction booklet. It is areally well made phone and looks appealing to the eye. Seeing as it does have alittle weight to it, it does feel like it has a little more substance than a lot of digital cameras on the market today. This probably being because they have had their insides removed and all the Intel pasted to piece of melted cheese the size of a gnats finger nail.

The casing is pretty sturdy, although when I first had it I made the mistake of putting itin a back pocket, causing a dent that has been there for four years now. So no backy pocket placement with this baby.

Taking Pictures and Videos - Functions

This camera has been to England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Greece and ithas really served me well. I have taken thousands of pictures with it and the quality has always been up to scratch.

The camera has many features that help with setting up and taking the best possible picture but it is not loaded down by science and the default setting is ‘Best possible picture’, so the camera is ready to take as soon as it is turned on.;just a click of a button and you’re done.

The zoom ispretty brilliant on this camera. It is only optical 3x but for some reason itseems to perform way above expectancy. Many people have commented on how well I can zoom in. The good thing is you can zoom in a take a picture but then youstill get the same amount of zoom again on viewing the picture.

The zoom isespecially good when at gigs. I have recorded some brilliant close up footageof many bands with great sound. Also, because it is actually a ‘YouTube’camera, the quality when loaded to YouTube is perfect.

I’m not going to go into specifics such as shutter speed and how many Oranges the phonecan juggle or even copy out any specifics from the instruction booklet, because I am not an expert in camera terminology and nor will I pretend to be. The kind of person that would go for this camera is the same sort of person as me andnot a professional photographer, so I will aim the review at those people and leave it at that.

Picture Modes

There are quite a lot of different picture modes to choose from and these, of course,depend on what type of setting you’re in at any given time.

They are as follows -

Best Shot - Self -explanatory and as mentioned the default setting for taking immediate, unexpected pictures. This mode will adapt to your surroundings as much as it is able and give you the best shot it can.

Portrait - Again self-explanatory and best to use when taking a picture of a person close up.

Scenery - One for taking in landscapes and long distance pictures.

Portrait with Scenery – The two settings above conjoined and again speaks for itself. Does work rather well as I have used it on numerous occasions on holiday.

Pet - For use with animals and tends to cut outthe red eye in conjunction with flash use.

Portrait for one person - You work it out. Adapts the camera for focusing on one person.

Portrait for two people - As above for two people.

Flowers - for close ups on plants and flowers. Better used outside but can be used indoors as well.

Food - Ok if you’re sending someone a recipe or just bragging about your cooking.

Fashion Accessories - Perfect for my girlfriend as she makes her own jewellry, although she now has an iPhone so she can stand on her head and sing soprano on a rollercoaster while taking the pic (according to iPhone owners I might add).

Magazine - The setting that I probably use the most fortaking pictures of my art and for pics on Ciao. Any wording in the picture isbrought more clearly into focus than on the normal setting.

Monochrome – Basically takes all photographs in black andwhite.

Retro – I took some great pictures with this inParis and Florence. It gives the picture a sepia hue and that olde worlde postcard look.

Cross – Gives all lights that sparkle or crosshatching effect.

Pastel – Creates a pastel effect type picture. Youcan make a portrait of someone look like art but I don’t find it too good touse to be honest.

Night Scene – For taking pictures in the dark.

Night Scene Portrait – As above with people in theforeground.

Sport – supposedly used to capture better picturesat a sporting event.

Children – Used for children as it has a slower shutterspeed for those little ones that can’t keep still. Surely a faster shutter speed would be better?

Fireworks – Similar to Cross but helps negate too much sparkle so you can actually see the firework display on your photograph.

Sundown – For taking shots as it is getting dark.

Underwater - I think this actually refers to taking shots through the glass of an aquarium or the glass floor of a boat. As the camera isn’t waterproof I would actually recommend going underwater with it. Obvious fact to state, I know, but there is bound to be someone somewhere who comes up out of the sea saying ‘Mom, Dad, my camera has stopped working’.

Backlight – Provides the camera pictures with their own backlight for those shots in darker areas.

High Sensitivity – For taking shots which contain movement, suchas a fire or an action photo.

Auction – Made for taking photos for pics on sitessuch as Ebay or Etsy.

White Board – A function, which I wish to point out that Idon’t find offensive in any way, in our correct PC world. Used to make wording clearer on a slightly different scale to the magazine function.

The rest ofthe functions on this part of the camera are for videos. The You Tube capturemode is the camera’s main video function as that is what the camera was builtfor. There is also a voice recording function here, which can be used as adictation machine.

Settings and Displays

There are three main function screens under the settings tab.

Rec Screen

This contains a number of sections which you can scroll up and down and use and setquite easily. You can change the style of your focus frame on screen. This includes templates of different shapes and sizes. There is an auto focus button,a continuous mode to snap off quick pictures, without changing any modes, which you can essentially do anyway but your pictures will suffer quality-wise. There is a self-timer and an auto shutter mode. Some of the night functions for taking pictures in the dark or the sensitivity modes will cause the shutterspeed to slow done and you will have to wait for the flash. Auto shutter makesthis easier.

Quality Screen

There areseveral sizes or aspects that you can change you pictures to for when you viewthem. Then you can change the quality of the pictures and there are three settings, which are ‘Fine’, ‘Normal’ and ‘Economy’. Using ‘Normal’ gives you about 700 pictures on a 2 GB memory card and the picture quality is average.Turn it to ‘Fine’ and the quality is superb but you get less pictures at just over 500 hundred. If you crave quantity over quality you can switch to the ‘Economy’setting which will give you over 1000 pictures but the results will be grainy and mediocre.

There is a UHQ and an HQ setting, which I will not profess to know anything about but thought I would include it for those of you who do know. You can set an automatic white light, dynamic range and set a portrait refiner to help make those portraits crystal clear. In this section you also get all the contrast, colour,saturation and sharpness functions.

Set Up

This is self-explanatory and enables you to set up your camera how you like it. You can change the time and date and decide whether this is on your pictures or not. The display colours can be changed and the language of the settings. There is also an energy saver, so you can set up the camera to turn off after a certain amount of time to save the battery. This comes in the form of a sleep button.

Battery and Memory card

The battery is a Casio lithium ion battery and is still going strong after four years. A charger comes with the camera and is easy to use as the battery just slots in and out without any messing about. The battery also comes out of the camera with no fuss.

The camera does not come with a memory card but they are really cheap. I got a 2GB one foraround six pounds and I have never had to change it.

The camera comes with a USB lead so you can transfer the pictures to your PC for saving.Then it is a case of either deleting individual photographs form the memory card to free up space or just deleting everything to free up the memory.

FinalThoughts

I have never had any problems with this camera and it has taken some great photographs. For me the ‘YouTube’ capability is its best function. You really can capture the music at a gig and hear it as you heard it live. It is easy to transfer the videos to YouTube as well and you just use the USB to save to your PC as with the pictures.

My camera,as I said, is now getting on a bit and the poor thing has taken a beating. It has been to numerous gigs and concerts and all around Europe. I had it on a table on a coach in Italy and the coach swerved round a sharp bend, throwing my camera to the floor. As I was sitting opposite the middle exit door, the camera fell down the steps. The zoom button was damaged and it was scratched quite badly. The zoom button getting damaged has really spoilt the camera and I think it is time to get a new one but, in all honesty, I cannot grumble at all at the service this camera has provided me with. I may buy the same camera.

I would recommend this camera to anyone but especially to a music lover, like me, who goes to gigs regularly. It is a top camera and the picture and video quality is excellent.

©Lee Billingham