Customer Reviews

Casio Exilim EX-Z850 8.1MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I bought this camera thinking that it was just a minor upgrade from the 750, with a better LCD screen, another MP, and a few other features I wouldn't notice much. But it turns out Casio made more changes (all improvements from what I've seen) than I had read about in the couple of quick previews I had seen online.

First, the LCD is a HUGE improvement from the 750's; this one has a noticeably higher resolution and brighter display, and its brightness is user controlable.

It's also faster in every respect, which was predictable, since almost everything in the electronic world gets faster with each generation.

The built-in flash (sorry, no hot shoe for external flash) is also better, with 6 settings easily accessed by hitting 1 button on the back: Auto, Off, On, High-Power, Soft, and Red Eye. Plus, you can also set the "flash intensity" to -2, -1, 0, 1, or 2, giving us a huge amount of control over what is typically either underexposed or bleached white, especially on such a small camera. This is one feature I've been waiting for ever since I sold my old Canon S45, which possessed the best flash out there, and I'm very happy to have it back.

The size is virtually identical to that of the 750-- it seems a couple of hairs less deep, but the difference is so minute that it's not even worth discussing. And the z850 has "Exilim" stamped on the bottom left corner of the black LCD screen. Very subtle, yet cool.

I have made a couple of movies, one indoors, one outdoors, but I haven't had the time to fully evaluate the quality. Let's just say I'm pleased with the movie mode, given that that's not the main feature (for me) of this camera, and also that I'm used to my camcorder. I will say that once you start recording in the movie mode, you can't change any settings until you stop recording, so take some time to think about the proper settings for your conditions before you hit record.

I'm sure there is more to say about this camera, but having just received it 24-hours ago, nothing else has jumped out at me so far. But I'm sure something else will. This is the best compact (not quite subcompact) camera I've ever had, and I've had a few (maybe 8 or 10 by now). The only complaint I have is that the few shots I took at ISO 200 and 400 were quite grainy (especially at the latter setting). However, this complaint is nearly universal in the digital world, so it is best addressed to the entire industry, not specifically or solely to Casio.

All in all, this camera gets a rousing 5 out of 5. If you're looking for a small, easy to use camera that also gives you a very high rate of manual controls with tons of features and very good picture quality, I'd suggest you give this one a very serious consideration. Casio has produced one beautiful camera in the EX-Z850.

I had the Z750 for 3 weeks, Found a good deal on the 850 and sold the 750. Glad I did.
Improvements:
-Better lit LCD
-Better Flash range
-LED light for movies in low light conditions.
-Microphone on the front of the camera, instead of the top, so that whoever is shooting the movie is not overpowering when speaking.
-Better shaky hand stabalizer.
-More pre set modes
-Better ISO up to 1600
-More white balance options
-Better looking
Overall, this is probably the best camera for the price in its class. The main reason to buy this casio over the latest canon elph is that this casio has a full manual mode. Can't beat that.

When the first time I saw a digital camera in my life, it was back in London in 1996 - it was a golden looking Casio with 240 X 320 resolution with almost 2000 usd price tag! :) Considering I was a penniless university student - this camera was something impossible to reach. Finally, after ten years I managed to buy a Casio camera as my second digital cam! When I hold the Exilim EX-Z850, I felt the 10 years of engineering experience in my hand. Although it has not been very well known by most of the people, CASIO (yeah, I know they are more famous with their cheap but solid watches & calculators) was the piooner of the Digital Camera market actually.

I think your camera choice must depend on your needs and expectations, not someone's else. Even so, I want to give you an idea about what you get if you would purchase this camera.

Before buying Exilim EX-Z850: my expectation was to get a reasonably priced, compact, fast, easy to use (not only for me but the other members of the family) and light camera with a high resolution. I started my research based on these criterias; this is how I end up at Exilim EX-Z850.

Some of the positive things about this camera are:
1. Very ergonomic (can carry in pocket - depending on the size of your pocket, if it is full or empty, etc. for sure!)
2. Extremely easy to use (thanks to Best Shot modes)
3. Perfect for beginners, saticfactory for advanced users
4. Excellent colors, super video recording (after firmware upgrade)
5. Camera responses are fast, the battery is very powerful.
6. Manual and Automatic controls, surprisingly well-designed.
7. Large and bright LCD screen.
8. Solid anti-shake system (but working digitally not optically)
9. Reasonable price compare to similar products

And the negative ones:
1. Not very sharp images (even if at the sharpest settings done)
2. Limited optical zoom capability (just x3)
3. Small viewfinder.
4. Some Digital Noise under low light conditions, but it's manageable.

Can you believe if I tell you, you can take the picture of an your old BW picture and Exilim EX-Z850 makes it colorful? Yes I know it sounds crazy but it'is true. There are settings to use it for Video & voice recording as well - these functions are there - not for the sake of having, but for using!

You can use MMC and SD cards with it, up to 1GB. However, if you download the firmware - you can use 2 GB SD (not MMC) card. Also, please note that you need a fast read/write speed card to get the maximum efficiency from the camera (min 10 MB/s write speed). It might also be necessary to note that Exilim EX-Z850 can not be used as PC cam.

At the end of the day, I bought this camera as it answers most of my expectations. I hope my review can be helpful for the readers to give an idea, what the camera can do and can not do :)

PS 1: I uploaded 4 photos taken by Exilim EX-Z850, which can be seen at the top left corner of the product overview page. I specified the settings used to take these pictures.

PS 2: EX-Z850 has some noise problems, esp at high ISO setting but it's manageable with some tricks such as low ISO, quick shutter OFF, higher shutter speed etc... Also I heard some rumuors via Internet that some EX-z850 models with serial no above 556XXXXX is fine, below problematic but no chance to confirm this. By the way mine's serial no starts with 276XXXXX.

Ok, first and foremost, if you intend on traveling, get a traveling battery charger. For carrying the dock will become irritable. If you have laptop, then use the memory reader there to transport the pictures to your laptop and store.
I tend to take a lot of photos while traveling or while I go out to clubs with friends.
I need a small camera with an amazing quick shot, good flash and an awesome anti-shake tech.
Before this camera I owned a Casio Z-4. This camera offered great features, but it lacked in the zoom dept, and the night long shots. At times I would go out to clubs and the long distance (+ 10 ft) picture would come out blurry due to the lack of light. Also took it to the zoo a couple of times and the digital zoom was not enough to handle the contrast and definition, leaving a pixelated shot most of the time.
The EX-Z850 eliminates a lot of those unsatisfactory hurtles. The camera itself, is very user friendly. The camera come with a lot of preset features for the non-camera savvy. It also lets the user (reg or prof. users) play with the ISO's and the Focus features. This allows for the best picture quality and the easiest and fastest way to take a picture.
It has over 30 preset features built into the camera. I, at times get lost or become undecided selecting the best preset for a picture, which is good. I've had this camera for about a month and I've yet to become dissatisfied with its performance.
I've tried the video quality and I must say, "WOW!!!" The video quality is amazing. I have all the settings at High & FINE and the definitions on the video are quite stellar. However, once you zoom in the quality is all over and you started to see noise all over the video. The video and audio sync is perfect.
I love the fact that the flash acts as a light for the video. Staying on if you need it. Something no one has noted here. I thought that was a clever touch by Casio (it can also be left on for pictures).
There's hardly any lag between pictures. I've paired this camera up with a 2bg Corsair 133x card and I've yet to experience anything that is lag like.
The camera's build is great and long lasting. My Ex-Z4 was dropped, kicked, thrown and lived through a hurricane and only scratches appeared.
It has a lot of possitive.
1. A Large Screen.
2. A lot of settings.
3. A lot of preset settings.
4. Great video quality.
5. Amazing zoom. (use anti-shake for long dist. pics)
6. Metal casing.
7. Photo & video images and ease of use.
8. Battery Life. (Took over 150 pics and videos and the battery did not go down as at all.
9. Price.

Cons.
1. Everything has to be done through a docking station.
2. It only comes with an 8mb built in mem.
3. Manually changing the iso to 1600.

Overall, the docking station does not bother me as I travel with my laptop and transfer the pics/videos through my SD reader. Battery lasts over 150 pics, so I'm good with that.
The manual config of the ISO is a bit of a pain in the rear end and I wish the capacity was there for the user to use it to the max. Overall, 4.5.

No expert here - just your average "tourist". A friend of mine had one of these on a recent weekend trip and I was so impressed I got one immediately to replace an old Olympus Stylus. I can't vouch for all the fancy features, I just know I like it.
It's small enough that I can carry it around in my purse. It's easy to use even if I haven't figured out all the bells and whistles. And (once I put on my glasses), the lcd is very clear and bright and makes reading the menu options easy.

I *highly* recommend you pick up a card reader - it's a little "thumb drive" that you can carry in your purse/pocket/camera case instead of the dock to easily read your memory card. I bought the IOGear Universal Memory Drive Hi-Speed USB from Amazon - the one that reads the MMC and SD cards you use with this camera. So, if I carry both camera and card reader with me, I can move pics between computer at home and work or from my camera to any other windows or mac machine. This is a must if you want to easily share pics between computers. (You don't need special drivers for these card readers so unless someone is running very old OS software, you can plug it into anyone else's computer to share pics.)

For Mac users, this camera is a breeze. Both dock and IOGear reader seamlessly integrate with iPhoto for stills and iMovie for the movies. Both dock and card reader showed up immediately on the desktop without my having to do anything.

I have not used the dock on my windows machine, but the card reader was plug and play on Windows XP. The movies (as .avi) came up immediately and played via Real Player and the photos as well.

I was also initially disappointed in the video quality until I saw reference here to the firmware upgrade. I also recommend you update your firmware - I upgraded to Ver 1.1B and the difference is very noticeable. I am now quite satisfied with video quality. Link to casio site is here: http://world.casio.com/qv/download/en/ex_z850_firmup/

I bought this camera after reading kenrockwell.com. After 3 weeks in Italy during May 2006, many photos revealed stunning clarity and remarkably balanced saturation around the Le Marche hillcountry and of the Duomo in Milano. The camera will exceed expectations as long as your composition is well performed! The photos were blown up to 13x19 yet still maintained almost perfect clarity. Im a bit taken back by the results of this camera. Simply stunning technology no one could deny...use a good printer!

This is an excellent camera except that it can ONLY connect to a computer or charger using its cradle. For an ultra-portable camera, that seems to make no sense. It can't use a standard USB cable that I use for my Blackberry or other cameras, it needs a different one. So that's more to carry. The cradle is bigger than the camera and its connector protrudes, making it prone to damage in a briefcase. Because of this I returned the EX-Z850 and exchanged it for a Canon SD-630.It is otherwise an excellent product.

POSITIVES: Very good color truth, good auto adjustment for backlighting, fast auto focus, low shutter lag (so you get to capture the candid pics of kids before the opportunity is lost). An excellent user interface that is really intuitive, and short-cut buttons to access the most regularly needed settings. 8MP is great, but one usually doesn't need it - the lens performance is such that much of the time there's little difference between the 6MP and 8MP resolution.

NEGATIVES: The lens is not great however and produces some chromatic abberations (purple fringing around high contrast borders). The CCD shows some color noise at high ISO settings. I believe Casio has improved this with the about-to-be-released EX-Z1000 10MP camera (launch retail price $399, will be obtainable online at about $349 in June - I saw a posting on J&R Camera World's site).

I have used this camera for about 6 months after my Z750 was lost. This is an excellent still camera with many superior features and a modest movie camera. I loved the Z750 but the Z850 is much better.

Pros:
1. Easy to use after a little practice. Practice will greatly improve your results so stick with it.
2. Anti-shake for stills and movies works very well. I rarely use a tripod. This is a great improvement over the Z750.
3. Fantastic battery life. I charge mine about once a month or less but I don't use a lot of flash.
4. The soft flash mode is a very useful feature.
5. Lots of helpful preprogrammed Snap Shot modes and a good manual mode that I rarely use.
6. Still picture quality is utterly fantastic with an exceptional macro mode.
7. Unbelievable light gathering ability but pictures will get grainy under poor lighting.
8. The LCD display is much brighter than the Z750 and this helps outdoors in bright sunlight.
9. Very compact size. This is almost exactly the same size as a regular pack of cigarettes.

Cons:
1. Get a SD card as the internal memory is about worthless. These cards are cheap these days. The maximum supported memory for this device is 2GB so don't bother getting a larger one as you can't access the extra memory.
2. I hate the cradle. I bought a wall charger for the battery and a universal USB adapter to read the SD card. My cradle has never left the packaging as it was the same as that used for the Z750. The battery is also the same.
3. Forget the digital zoom mode as resolution suffers greatly. The optical zoom is 3X and this is somewhat useful but not very exciting. Casio should increase this.
4. If you want a movie camera then buy a movie camera. I haven't seen a combo camera that is good taking stills and movies. This is a fantastic still camera, the best that I have ever used.
5. These cameras are fragile so don't drop it or keep it in your back pocket. Get a good camera case to protest it.

I store my camera with the selector wheel rotated to the microphone position. This will prevent the lens from trying to open if the power button is accidentally pressed while the camera is in the case. You don't want this to happen or it is likely time for a new camera.

I bought this camera to replace my digital Elph 3.1MP. The digital Elph had all of the features I needed and was fairly compact, but took terrible indoor pictures. 90% of the time I would have to make corrections to the indoor shots I got. The most important quality to me other than picture quality is that it's small enough to stick in my purse and take with me anywhere. After reading that the Casio took better indoor photos, I decided to give it a try. I've been using it now for 2 months. I don't know how to use all of the features yet (I haven't viewed the manual disk), but so far I am very happy with the quality of photos I am getting. The detail is really amazing! It has a couple dozen "best shot" settings which allow you to choose specified settings like "sunset", "portrait" and "pet", which are helpful in those specified settings. It is a compact camera, with a large viewing screen and it still has a viewfinder, which many of the newer models are getting rid of. Although I'm finding I usually do not use the viewfinder. The battery life seems to be very good, too. The camera is also able to take video, hours of it, with a larger disk (I bought a 512mb. I will rarely use this feature. Another amazing feature is the zoom. The optical combined with the digital zoom gets you really close to far away objects. I was able to take up close pictures of cliff divers from a boat I was on, which had to be at least 100-200 feet away. My family couldn't believe how close I was able to get. Any complaints would be minor - I would like to have a cover to go with it, you need the docking station to charge and connect the UBS cable to your computer, and there are a variety of options I do not know how to use yet. Overall, this is a great camera.

I have owned two other Casios that I was thoroughly sasistified with. The last one was the Z750 which I unfortunately lost. When I bought another I upgraded to the 8.1 and I can not believe the improvements made! One of the nicest and most convenient improvements was in the LCD screen. I found that even in the brightest conditions I was easily able to see the screen. Another nice improvement was in the flash--still built in but under most variables quite sufficient for the light needed. I just have returned from a two week vacation. I shot over 300 photos( I suggest you buy at least a 1GB card) and never had to recharge the battery. I am stunned by the quality of the pictures especially those I shot with the pre set best shot mode. Many of the Best Shot pictures are of equal quality to those shot using the fully manual mode. I used the camera to shoot extreme close-ups of flowers as well as for landscapes and action shots. There is nothing this camera can not do. In fact one day we took the kids tubing behind a ski boat. Using my camera with the zoom, anti shake and preset splashing water best shot I was able to capture fantastic action shots where the camera was able to record with perfect clarity individual water droplets in the spray coming off the tube. Some of these pictures I have cropped and blown up to 8x10 and have retained the sharpness and clarity.

This camera is well suited for those just interested in a point and shoot. It is fairly easy to operate. To those looking for more challenge you may go fully manual. The only draw back I have found is that the complete users manual is on disc. I would love to have the manual handy when I am away from my computer and using the camera out in the field. I know there are still features that I have not yet used.