I purchased this as a compact camera, with an emphasis on HD video, for an upcoming road trip. I had an older Panasonic TZ3 and wanted a similarly sized camera with better video (HD) and preferably more manual control.
I spent a while researching the purchase both in Amazon reviews and elsewhere. While the Amazon reviews were luke warm, the feature set seemed good, and I'd always wanted to try a Casio camera. I also paid particular attention to a DPReview comparison of "Compact Travel Zoom" cameras since it included this Casio as well as the descendant of the TZ3 the Panasonic ZS7, and many others. It seemed like a perfect reference since in theory it was comparing all the cameras in this category side-by-side: [...]
In that review this Casio earns a high recommendation, with relatively minor reservations, and is one of 2 top picks. Unfortunately I have to disagree with DPReview this time, since I have now tested both the Casio (their top pick) and the Panasonic ZS7 (not among their top picks), and I much prefer the Panasonic for reasons I'll explain.
First and most important is photo quality. To put it succinctly, it is really pretty mediocre. The DPReview tests showed it to be inferior at night shots, which I was ready for and didn't mind so much since I have a decent dSLR. Unfortunately I found that even the photos in daylight are not as good as I expected, or as good as the DPReview samples led me to believe. I was using the default settings (as I believe was DPR), with a mix of auto and manual controls. Yet I struggled to get anything better than mediocre (at best) shots.
I found I got the best results on manual since the auto settings would often choose slower shutter speeds than were needed to freeze movement (presumably in an effort to keep ISO and noise down). What disappointed me more was, even when I got a sharp shot, there was noticeable noise reduction, even for fairly bright pictures. The remarkable clarity shown in the DPR shots vs. other cameras (for daytime scenes at least) wasn't really evident, even testing against my several generations old Panasonic TZ3. And I don't believe there is any control over noise reduction either. With RAW support being basically unusable with 15 second wait times, and anyway limited to 200ISO (useless), you really have less control than may be needed to get great results.
Something else that contributed to worse than desired photo quality was the poor image stabilization. I realize this camera's zoom has a fairly long reach, especially for such a light and small camera, but I also have the ZS7 to compare it against, and I can tell you this Casio does not have a good IS system next to the ZS7. DPR's test show this as well, but again I didn't really expect it to be quite as bad. Unfortunately this affects video too, making low-light video especially jumpy (unnecessarily so, as my ZS7 videos later showed me).
Additionally, while DPReview does mention the slow startup time, it was definitely more annoying than I expected. It's funny how the little things can compound issues like this, and in the case of the Casio the fact that it does not respond to the zoom lever once startup is finished unless you depress it *after* startup is complete was what made it extra annoying. Imagine this: you see a distant subject you want to capture, you press the power button and while you're waiting you turn the zoom dial so that as soon as the camera is ready, it will start zooming. Makes sense, right? But it doesn't work that way. Other cameras, including the ZS7, do.
I found no really quick and easy way to tell when exactly it had finished startup, since even the display being on and splash screen gone doesn't indicate it's totally done yet. It probably sounds like I'm exaggerating the point, but I truly found that the lack of "buffering" of inputs created uncertainty that would delay actual use of the camera sometimes even beyond the 3 second startup time. And when you're trying to grab a shot of a bird or other moving subject, 3 seconds is a long, long time. So if you imagine yourself ever wanting to catch anything in motion, consider the slow startup time heavily in your decision. I know I personally did not give it enough weight when I decided on this purchase.
As for video quality, in daylight it's pretty decent, no doubt. It's high definition (720p) and fairly clear. You can get relatively long recordings out of it with a large memory card. But the poor image stabilization is an issue, as I said. I also didn't think I would miss the lack of zooming that much, but I ultimately found it really was frustrating not to have it. The ZS7 does zooming while filming just fine. One nice thing about the Casio with video is it lets you zoom in on video in playback, a feature I liked a lot for HD videos on such a small screen, but it's a minor benefit. You also appear to have some manual control (shutter speed, aperture?) over videos, which I will admit seems better than the ZS7 which can sometimes overexpose bright portions of scenes with tricky lighting (think concerts, with a main performer lit with a bright spot against a dark stage - the main performer will be almost white, losing a lot of detail).
The high-speed videos were a brief novelty, but as others (and DPR) have said, the low resolution and high light levels needed to capture anything definitely keep it as a novelty and ultimately seldom used. Worse than that I found the video switch would often get moved from HD to HS (high speed), so I would end up taking a low resolution, high speed shot (without audio!) of a scene I wanted to take an HD video of (with sound!). This obviously only happens when you're in a hurry and not paying attention, but the point of a point and shoot pocket camera is it's supposed to not require as much thought and planning, and ultimately I didn't find that to be the case with this Casio.
I suppose in summary perhaps the DPReview did tell me most of what I needed it know: it's slow to start up, has noise reduction issues in image quality, doesn't zoom while filming video, etc. I just didn't think it would be that bad in practice, especially since they ultimately gave it high marks and a top pick. If you actually read their review and experiences, ignoring the numeric ratings and top pick, you probably wouldn't pick this camera up though, it's just that the scores throw you off. So I know I'll be sure to consider the review text a lot more heavily than scores in the future (though I certainly read the reviews in-full many times before buying in this case, and still got caught out). Also pay attention to the Amazon reviews (I usually do), and don't assume that lack of experience or different requirements can entirely explain someone's dissatisfaction. I made this mistake once and won't do it again.
So as I indicated several times in this review, I ultimately went with the
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Black), and am much happier with that. Review to come soon.