Customer Reviews

Casio Exilim EX-S880 8.1MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti-Shake Optical Zoom (Black)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I just purchased the EX-S880 to replace my old Casio Exilim EX-Z50 that I bought 3 years ago. I have always been very pleased with my old Casio - I never had any problems with it even after dropping it 5 feet onto the concrete. I was interested in a new camera that wasn't as worn as my old one after so much use and I was interested in some of the new features and possibly a little better picture quality. I thought about getting a camera with better zoom but decided that the pocketability of these Casios is still my main priority. If I can put it in my pocket I'm apt to get a lot more photos. After much analysis I finally decided just to upgrade to this newer Casio, figuring it has to be at least as good as my old one. I was more than surprised by how pleased I was with this S880. The picture quality is much better in general and the flash travels much farther. I am not a professional photographer by any means but I do care about picture quality. There are some manual control options for the more advanced photographer, but it also has automatic settings which I have found to be very effective and better than anything I've tried to take manually. My old Casio started up and was ready to take pictures very quickly but this one somehow is even faster with less delay between pictures and less delay when using the flash. Very large and bright screen. No pitfalls that I can see. My old Casio had a lot of red-eye problems when I didn't use the Red-Eye flash. This one still has a little bit of red-eye but not as much as my old EX-Z50. If I had the patience for the Red-Eye flash this wouldn't be a problem at all.

I started out thinking this camera was amazing because it was so thin, but after some use I realized it's an honestly bad quality camera. It's design is pretty attractive, not on the level of say a Cyber-SHot T Series, but it looks good. The lens is quite large for only 3x optical zoom and takes up a little less than half of the front of the camera. It's very thin and has a large 2.8 inch LCD which takes up about 3/4's of the back. It has a convenient thumb-rest as well, making it easy to hold with one hand. Video recording is very easy with a touch of a button. The camera includes 30-some-odd best shot modes, which are seen in many cameras now. This is pretty much where the good ends. Its control system is unremarkable at best, with awkwardly small buttons and an uncomfortable zoom switch. The LCD screen is impossible to see in the sunlight and just emits the feeling of low resolution and quality. The menu system is fine, but they only include some features in the sidebar on the LCD so you have to hunt for the rest in the menus. The optical zoom is nothing special at 3x and the anti-shake is digital, not optical so it really doesn't work well and I believe it degrades image quality. On to the images themselves. The camera has very few ISO settings, and anything above ISO 400 looks like it's snowing. Even at low ISO's the camera's pictures look soft. One thing that really bugs me is that in some low-light conditions the color temperature is for some reason really, really warm, making the image look awful. I don't know why it does this but I don't like it. The camera's face-detection doesn't work at all. Sometimes it thinks something's a face when it isn't, and it's only successfully worked for me about 4 times out of a good 600 pictures with this camera. I'd say a good 250+ had people's faces in them. That's a 1/62.5 chance of working at best. When it all comes down to it, this camera is somewhat good looking but this can't compensate for terrible, super-soft pictures. I'd give this camera a pass and buy a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T70 of Canon PowerShot SD870 IS. These cameras have about the same resolution but larger screens, optical stabilization, and the take good pictures. The Canon has a wide-angle lens and 3.6x optical zoom while the sony has a touchscreen and super sleek design. Casio's a small company and doesn't have the build quality or production capapbility or funding to produce a winner yet. It's worth the extra money for one of the other ones, trust me.

PROS:
-Somewhat Attractive Design
-Large Screen
-Easy Video Recording

CONS:
-Terrible, soft pictures
-Low light pictures have really, really warm color temperatures
-Limited ISO range, high ISO's are super noisy
-Cheap build quality
-Face detection doesn't work
-No optical anti-shake
-Small, awkward buttons

Just use it intermittenly. Cannot comment on battery life, many other functions, etc. yet.
Overall a great extra thin camera, lots of good improvements. I just want to focus on the negatives:
1. button size. Very small. Easy to mis-press something
2. button location. Worse than previous design. Always accidentally turn it on. This is my biggest complaint
3. Size. Slightly thicker than previous design (I had S500).

I read a lot of reviews before I bought this Casio camera and they were right on. It's a great camera. I got it and didn't have time to look at the instructions, so I just started taking pics and videos and they came out great. I am very satisfied with this camera. It's small, easy to use and takes great pics and videos. An added bonus was the slide slow feature, my family loved watching our pictures on TV, plus the different background music was fun, too.

This is a great camera and it is a good buy for the money. It has a slim design so you can put it in your pocket and take it anywhere. It has a nice large screen for easy viewing.

wonderful little camera .. more than i need .. fun to try new stuff with!

amazing little camera. great pics, large review screen, one button movie option is a major plus!

I have had this camera now for 3 years. Have never had any issues with it. The images are great and its easy to use and carry. Movies are easy to create as well with good audio range. My wife loves this camera and constantly takes pictures of the kids daily with it. The zoom could be better but for a small compact camera its about as good as it gets.

Outstanding pocket camera. Multiple easily selectable settings for indoors & outdoors photography, portraits, & still-life. The "museum" setting was better for photography of museum artifacts than any manual setting I tried. I also use the camera to capture digital information e.g. posters at scientific conferences and the resolution of the text is excellent. The replay of captured images is intuitive. The screen is big enough to show the photographs around ( I carry the camera around sometimes to show off pix of my kids and dogs). I agree with the other reviews that the charger is bulky but I carry a universal battery charger for my multiple gadgets so it doesn't bother me. And, the charger is actually more of a display station: you can set up the camera LCD screen to display a slide show of the stored photos. My previous camera was a highly recommended but bulky Minolta Dimage A1 and this camera stuffs all the features and more into a pocket-sized case at a third of the cost.

I used to have a terrible 4 megapixel excuse for a camera that only did silent video. this is a huge improvement, obviously. i think the pictures are good. sometimes the flash is obnoxious. when you have it on auto, it usually uses the flash when you dont need it. so your pictures can get washed out. not a problem though if you manually take it off.

casio has great video quality and ease of recording. i use this camera for more movies than pictures. but its great for both. i paid $229 down from $279 and i figure it was a steal! i am proud to own this casio.

would i recommend this camera to my best friend? oh yes. already have!