Customer Reviews

Casio Exilim EX-Z120 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti Shake Optical Zoom

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My first digital camera was the olympus IR-300 which I bought in Office Depot for $150 (after rebate) and returned it the next day. Having been an SLR fan, I was shocked to find the quality and shocked to discover a new 'feature' in Digital cameras - 'Shutter Lag'.

This is very apparent when you use your digital camera in night times, shoot a picture and shake your camera a bit (either deliberately or normal hand jitter as it usually happens) - and your picture looks like a non-descript brush work.

This experience almost made me think that good digital cameras are atleast another 2-3 years away - until I discovered Panasonic and Casio. Panasonic incorporates a mechanical gyroscope to offset the hand jitter and Casio incorporates a DSP based jitter compensation.

Deciding between Panasonic and Casio was a tough one. Some Panasonic cameras come with leica lens, which made them very attractive, but at the same time, they seemed to be bulky.

I weighed my chances and went with the Casio and not at all disappointed.

Another test which you can do for your camera is to shoot the sky along with a building in the foreground, the colors of the building often get diffused into the sky making the sky white and not blue as it usually is. Casio scored very well on this - the sky was really blue !

+ve:
(1) Compact (not ultra compact)
(2) Runs on AA batteries
(3) Ultra bright large LCD Screen
(4) Optical view finder (Panasonic lacks this)
(5) Good combination of mechanical and digital controls
(I've seen cameras that have 100% menu driven controls which require you to go through cascading menus to do even the simplest tasks)
(6) And the best part: Excellent picture quality, compared it
with the quality of pictures in Sony Cybershot and Casio is far more superior. The colour contrast is excellent.
(7) Good sky color contrast (see my test above)
(8) Excellent focussing, I will soon upload some photos of my cat the focussing is very fast and very clear
(9) Image preview sorted by Date, looks like a calender - very useful

-ve:
(1) Not very happy with the battery life, but who cares, they are AA, I might buy some rechargaeble ones soon.

(2) Wish if the optical view finder was a little bigger

Overall, I am very happy with this camera, been with me for 1 week, will update my review if I find anything good or bad in this.

BTW, Target carries some excellent camera bags for as little as $7, no need to spend a fortune on them.

I recently purchased this beauty after many months of research. Essentially, this is comparable to the ex-500 in most aspects with the exception of storage capacity (pics and movie minutes.) The differences were not huge and, since I was going to purchase a 1gig SD card, the difference became minimal. Add to that the price difference and you can see why I went this route instead.

Once you open the box you can tell Casio has put quality into this item. It feels solid despite it's thin size. This is not the thinest camera out there but it is small, fits easily into my pocket and very durable. Casio provides an "overview" manual in booklet form and that gets you up and running. I am the type that reads everything before I use it and I found the electronic pdf manual very helpful. You can point and shoot out of the box, but you'll need the electronic manual to really understand how to manipulate the settings to your desire.

I took a dozen shots over the Thanksgiving holiday and easily downloaded them to my computer thanks to the included USB cable (no software needed for my MAC) Although it comes bundled with a photo storage, adjustment program, I use photoshop and probably won't bother with their program. It is straightforward and easy enough to use, but doesn't come close to photoshop. Anyway, the photos came out great. I used the 'fine quality' setting and I didn't need to touch up the photos at all. The quality was excellent (and I used their auto settings) and I could probably blow these up to 11x14's if I wanted.

There are nice features like anti-shake capabity and, if you ever have seen pictures from others with out-of-focus people, this feature should be nice to have. It has a quick shutter feature, allowing you to bypass the autofocus and instantly capture the shot in front of you. The start up time is incredibly fast and almost takes you by surprise. Best of all, there is no lag between snapping the picture and capturing the image. That can be a huge problem with other cameras and definitely something you should consider. This camera has other nice features like filters, auto-timers, etc.

To summarize, this is a nice, durable, feature-loaded camera with 7.2 mega pixels with excellent quality results. Amazon shipped it very quickly and did not disappoint. You should consider this one!

I bought this Casio EX-Z120 yesterday to replace my Olympus Camedia 5 megapixel camera. I shopped carefully, reading dozens of on-line reviews for digital cameras and even tried out a couple of cameras in "big box"stores. Even though this new camera had no reviews, I was impressed by its specifications and bought one to "kick its tires".

I have now have taken about 20 photos in different light settings, ranging from bright sun, to dim indoor light, sunset, and the two 80 watt light-bulbs in my living room.
Wow, I am extremely impressed. The colors are vivid and life-like, and I have yet to take a blurry picture. I also took some photos in retro and illustration mode with stunning results.
I also shot several minutes of really clear AVI video with great sound quality. Another plus is that it uses regular AA batteries that seem to last forever (though I will buy rechargeable ones)
This camera is small, lightweight, has a large LCD screen and is great for beginners or more advanced users.

On the down side, I did not like the photo software that came with it, preferring to use Photo-Suite. The basic reference manual that comes with it is a ridiculous joke, totally useless. I will need to print out the full version from the CD.

I am really impressed and highly recommend this camera. Asides from the manual and software, I think it is a great buy for the money!

The Casio EX-Z120 digital camera is small, has a solid feeling, and takes great looking pictures right out of the camera. The Anti Shake feature is great, perfect pictures every time. The quick shutter feature is another great feature ensuring perfect focus pictures no matter who takes the pictures. This is an excellent digital camera for anyone who is looking for an alternate to the Canon SD450. I brought this digital camera as a replacement for a Canon S400 as the Canon S400 failed because of a memory card error - Error Code E50 after approximately 2 years. I am very please with the Casio EX-Z120 digital camera. I get 227 images on a PNY 1GB SD memory card. The Casio EX-Z120 is an excellent buy.

This camera rocks.

The things that were most important to me where:

1) Quality of the photos.
2) Shutter Speed.

My last digital camera was so slow that you'd press the button to take a picture and then wait two seconds for the thing to actually take it. This is a no-go when you have a two year old. Heck, my daughter would have turned around and walked away by the time the camera took the shot. Not with this camera.

The shutter speed on this thing is amazing! You can even disable the auto-focus all together to get instant photos with no delay. I have yet to take a bad picture with this thing.

The quality is awesome. At 7.2 MP, I can zoom in to see my nose hairs.

It also has a "Best Shot" mode that allows you to pick the kind of picture you want to take from a list of samples (Night Shot, Portrait, etc.). You choose the type of shot, then snap the picture - that's it! Of course, you don't have to use the "Best Shot" mode at all (we don't most of the time).

I also love that it's about the size of a deck of cards, yet has a nice 2" LCD display. I likey!

I'm VERY happy with this camera. Would recommend.

The new Casio EX-Z120 is an interesting little number. Having previously owned and reviewed the excellent Pentax Optio S5i I was curious to see if this would make a worthy replacement. Unlike the Pentax, the 120 has higher resolution and a better movie mode. So here's what you need to know.
Ergonomics: The 120 is small, about the size of an Altoids box, but thicker than some other subcompacts available. This exra beef is probably due to the fact that it takes 2 standard AA batteries. I can't tell you how much better this is since proprietary batteries are expensive (You'll always need to buy at least one more). With AA's you're really unlikely to be caught with a dead camera. A 4 pack of rechargeable's will seal the deal. I got over a 120 shots and some movies on one set of Panasonic rechargeable's. The Controls of the camera are tiny, but fairly easy to operate. Menu's are instantly obvious, just like the Pentax, which is clearly working with Casio to build these units. The screen is 2 inches, a bit small by today's standards, but very serviceable. Casio has also squeezed an optical viewfinder, but it's quite small and covers less than 90% of the sensor frame. Still, it's also serviceable and after some practice I had little trouble with it. Using the optical finder will add a great deal of battery life and can also work better than the LCD on sunny days. The camera fits in my hand better than the Optio, but it's a bit less classy looking. The door for the memory card is tiny and a bit hard to operate if you don't have a good fingernail working.
Features: First of all, lets get rid of what feature that's essentially a cheat. Casio claims this camera has an anti-shake feature. But this is NOT a true VR type system. Instead the Casio brings up the ISO to 800 or 1600 while increasing shutter speed to freeze motion. It works, but at the cost of a noisy image and less detail. I suppose it's better than missing the shot, but many folks will probably skip it. The camera has a reasonable movie mode, and the usual host of features these little units share. But then 120 goes the extra mile by including a manual mode! Very nice for those folks (like me!) who also own DSLRs and like to have full control. For those who can't be bothered with such things, the 120 sports many modes, from portrait to nightshot and also a basic snapshot mode. This is a very well featured little camera.
Performance: Much like the Pentax Optio, the Casio's tiny lens is both impressive and lacking all at once. There's some softness in the corners and some distortion when set to wide angle. But overall image quality is quite pleasing, AFTER you mastered the operational basics of the camera. I'm not convinced that the images are much better than other compact 5 MP models, but there is a bit more cropping latitude. These compacts are limited more by their tiny optics than the sensors. In it's automatic mode settings it does well, but the picture quality can be impressive once you take it into manual modes and experiment. Like the little Pentax, the 120 also has a great autofocus system. Set to spot it does a very good job of achieving focus lock even in dim ambient light. The flash is slightly underpowered, good for portraits and small groups. Poor AF has been a problem for many cameras, even the better prosumer models from Nikon. But the Casio truly focuses great, better than some units costing twice the price. It's contrast based, so again you need to learn how to use it. Shutter lag is almost nonexistent! Focus lock is all you'll wait for! Excellent! Unlike some of the Fuji line, the 120 does not do great at higher ISOs, but I prefer the Casio because it will focus better in low light and it has NO AF illuminator.
Summary: This is a fine, practical compact camera. I bought it for my wife to use and as a second camera to compliment my D70 DSLRs (and the D200 I'm about to buy). I understand the limits of these cameras and you should as well. They are great for 5X7 prints, but you need to practice to get good 8X10s out of them. The Casio EX-Z120 hits a lot of targets, while maintaining a truly pocketable size, but I wouldn't choose it as a primary family camera because of the limits set by the size of the optics.
Recommended.
Capt. RB

Pros: AA batteries; Affordable; Lots of shooting modes; Decent picture quality; Creates non-proprietary jpg or avi files that everyone can view

Cons: Battery monitor not helpful; Not as small as many compact cameras; image stablizer is useless due to excess noise

Overall, this is a very good camera, and I have been very happy with my purchase. Though it fits my needs very well, there are a few negative points that might bother some users. It's not as small as I would have liked (I would have preferred something akin to Canon's SD450), but that's the sacrifice made to have a good camera that uses AA batteries.

In response to prior reviews about poor print quality, I have not had any problems. The first week I had the camera, I spent a lot of time playing around with the different functions and options. I then took the memory card to Walgreens and printed out some sample pics. They turned out just fine. I will say, however, that the image quality is not superior. This is not a professional photographer's camera. But, for the average point-and-shoot user, this camera will do well. At 7.2 megapixels, all of my photos have turned out at least as well as those I used to take with my film camera.

As noted above, though it is nice to have a camera with a battery indicator, when using rechareable batteries, the indicator has been mostly useless. It will go from green to red and then back again many times over. Though the battery life of my 2300mAh batteries was in reality great (I didn't time them, but they lasted several weeks, helping me fill up my 512mb memory card 2-3 times), I had no real idea when it was that they were going to give out. I have to make sure to carry an extra set just in case.

Also, the anti-shake DSP mode (which can be turned off) is not very helpful. The DSP causes so much noise that I never use it. But, fortunately, the DSP isn't needed to get good photos, and the other Best Shot modes are pretty helpful. There are a wide variety of modes from portrait to landscape to splashing water (and everything in between).

Overall, I am very happy with this camera. It meets my needs very well. In looking for a camera, I mainly considered: size, use of AA batteries, and overall picture quality. I think I got a good combination of the three.

Please note that this camera is not one for those not familiar with electronics; you must take great care of it and cannot use it to take simple snapshots as you would with a disposable camera to obtain the same results.
There are modes for every occasion: nightshots provide a longer exposure, therefore allowing a better picture to be taken without flash (should you move the camera, it will create a "ghost" effect, therefore a tripod is best for this mode). The portrait mode allows for a "normal" picture. The sunset setting adds a crimson-orange glow to your image (I personally prefer the narual glow created by the sunset). The firework setting allows for the entire trail of a firework to be captured into one photo thanks to it's delayed shutter speed (again, a tripod is recommended when using this setting). I do not wish to bore you with all the settings this camera has; after all, you merely want a camera that can take quality photos of your best memories, not learn how you can become a professional photographer for National Geographics.
This camera also comes with several "focus modes": Auto-Focus, Manual Focus, Infinity Focus, and Macro Focus. The three you should concern yourself with are the Manual, Infinity, and Macro focuses. Infinity focus is used for images that are very far away (such as a sunset). Macro focus is used for images that are very close up (such as insects). And finally, Manual focus is for-you guessed it-manually changing the focus. It isn't difficult at all to use this focus mode, simply adjust it until the image becomes crystal-clear. I do not recommend Auto-focus, it generally does not come out with as good as a quality as the other two. It is, however, efficient enough if you're in a rush and want to take some quick pictures.
The camera also takes some decent video footage and can also be used as a voice recorder (however I don't really see much of a use in the latter function).
Also, to clear up any misconceptions about the AntiShake DSP, this does NOT allow you to move the camera and still take a clear photo, nor does it allow you to take a clear photo of a fast-moving scenario. It does, however, eliminate most problems created by an unsteady hand and lack of a tripod (except in the case of nightshot photos). Also, please remember that this camera is not waterproof, and I would not recommend testing it's durability (i.e. don't drop it).
Also, some of you may experience trouble uploading the photos through the provided USB cord. Please make sure that the cord is plugged into the camera correctly and ALL THE WAY IN. When you plug in the USB to the camera, it will respond by shutting off its screen but maintaining power. This may confuse some people into believing that it is properly inserted, however the same effect occurs if it is plugged in upside-down or halfway in (this had me a little worried for about 10 minutes, it can be a little stubborn going in the first time).

This is a very nice quality made pocket camera. The pictures are just great, night pictures, landscapes, close-ups, interior shots, all have had good color & clear pictures. I did turn off the anti-shake feature as well as the digital zoom. I don't need the anti-shake (yet) and everybody should turn off the digital zoom on any camera. It was very easy to figure out, right out of the box. My previous camera was a Sony Cyber-Shot and the controls seemed almost the same. I didn't even need to read the users guide (on CD), though I probably should someday (there may be a feature I haven't found yet). This camera is the best deal in the pocket cameras for under $350. range, though you should not expect SLR camera quality pictures from any pocket-sized point & shoot camera. I am very happy with this little 7.2MP camera, just be sure to buy a memory card for it (I got a 1 gig card), get some quality rechargable batteries, and a nice case. With my 1 gig card I get well over 200 pics in the fine pic mode. The LCD screen is large & easy to see, & it has an optical viewfinder. This is nice in very bright sun, you don't have to try to use the LCD screen.

I also have this camera and like most people I played around with it when I first got it. Using the supplied alkaline batteries I got over 100 shots - thats with flash, movies, continuous shooting (a great feature) etc.

I had a Canon A85 and the Casio is way faster for focus and actually taking the shots.