Review rated by 12 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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I have owned a qv2900ux for about 16 months and have been very impressed with the results. The main selling point of the camera when I bought it was its huge 32x zoom capabilities.This works out at 8x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom.Anyone who owns a digital camera knows that digital zoom is not all that impressive as it simply crops the image and enlarges it loosing a lot of picture quality. having said that the 8x optical zoom has been very usefull and more than you could hope to find on a camera of this size and of a very good quality.I have also used it in conjunction with the digital zoom and surprisingly the results were still quite impressiveup to about 16x overall zoom.The 32x setting did start to loose clarity but it is stil surprisingly usefull at this setting if you are prepared to accept the snapshot quality of the images taken at this resolution.
The optical quality of the lens is excellent, I have beeen mainly using the camera for close up and macro photography and no conversion lens has been necessary as you can go in as close as 1cm with the lens as it is. The quality of the images at this setting was beyond my expectations for a camera of this type after all it is only an ameteur enthusiasts camera with a few special features.In fact it has probably been better for close up work than longshots despite the long zoom because although the camera perfoms well overall landscape shots can lack depth and clarity and detail, where the reverse is true for close up work.
The camera does not have a viewfinder which means you have to use the lcd display on at all times.This is heavy on batteries,however the qv2900ux seems to do well on battery usage so this is not a problem though 2000ni/mh batteries or above are usefull.
I made the mistake of buying generic AC adapter (uniross) thinking it would be usable, unfortunatly Casio have designed this and most of their cameras to take only the specific Casio AC adapter for this model which is around £30.
The swivel lens is very usefull,as the camera has no viewfinder you must use the lcd screen to compose pictures, this means you can hold the camera at waist height swivel the lens through 90 and look down on the lcd screen.When you get used to it , its quite an interesting way of taking pictures you can glance up at the subject and then down at the screen like an old faisioned box camera.
There is one other unique selling point with Casio cameras, which is the "Bestshot " software loaded on the camera.This is a series of presets which are programmed in to the camera which give you the best set up for a given situation( aperture, shutter speed,etc). There are about 90 different setting ranging through macro settings landscape and portraiture, however they are great if you have time to set up the shot, but if you are taking quick action shots by the time you have found the set up you are looking for the subject wil l have moved on. A use full feature though and available on other cameras in the qv range.
There is a full range of manual controls on this camera if you are new to digital photography and want all the features on a beginners camera it would be a good choice.It also offers fully automatic modes if you need to take pictures without having had any experience.
The one drawback with this camera is that it is only 2 megapixel. It has a lot of features, and an excellent lens but the 2 megapixel lets it down slightly.Though the quality is good, 3 megapixel would have been more suitable for this camera.
I would recommend this camera for taking close up and macro photography, for anyone taking landscape photography there are probably better alternatives.
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23.03.2004 14:15
A very good op! Full of detail but not too technical.
07.03.2004 13:41
Sounds like a great camera.
19.02.2004 12:24
Well written review.....and nice camera too.