Casio Exilim EX-H10 – impresses with specs, disappoints with quality
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
10x optical zoom in a compact body like this, great battery life, shooting options are unique
Thumbs Down:
Buttons are cramped, shooting performance is mixed, photo quality is average.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Casio Exilim EX-H10 has a 12.1 megapixels lens, light sensitivity options include ISO auto, ISO 3200, ISO 800, ISO 400, ISO 200, ISO 100, ISO 64. It has 4x digital zoom, maximum shutter speed is 1/2000 second, minimum shutter speed is 4 seconds, white balance presets option include Fluorescent light (cool white), Fluorescent light (daylight), Overcast, Daylight, Shade. Videos are stored in MJPEG and AVI format. Stills are stored in JPEG format. Video capture resolution options are AVI – 1280 x 720, AVI – 320 x 240, AVI – 640 x 480.
The internal memory of the camera is 35.7 MB and the device supports SD memory card. Image storage resolution options are JPEG 640 x 480, JPEG 2048 x 1536, JPEG 2560 x 1920, JPEG 3264 x 2448, JPEG 4000 x 2240, Economy JPEG 4000 x 2656, Normal JPEG 4000 x 3000. Flash modes include Red-eye reduction, Flash OFF mode, Fill-in mode, Auto mode, Soft. The camera has Zoom lens – 4.3 mm – 43 mm – F/3.2-5.7, has 4.3 mm – 43 mm focal length, minimum focus range is 5.9 inches, macro focus range is 7-50 cm, lens aperture is F/3.2-5.7, has 10x optical zoom, additional features include USB 2.0 compatibility, YouTube capture mode, Built-in speaker, Date/time stamp, Audio recording, Face detection, DPOF support. The camera has a 3 inch LCD. Connectors on the device include Composite video/audio output and USB. Supported OSes are Apple Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, MS Windows Vista, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows XP. The device comes with Hand strap, A/V cable, USB cable. The H10 is powered by Li-ion rechargeable battery.
Razzle Dazzle:
The EX-H1 does look attractive but we were more impressed by the fact that Casio managed to put in wide angle lens and 10x zoom and still manage to keep the body compact. Just like Fujifilm’s F70EXR, this device is easy to slip in pocket or handbag. The lens adds a bit of weight to the camera but it is certainly not a big deal considering that the quality of the stills improve due to the 10x lens. There is also adequate gripping on the device.
Inside Dope:
Looking at the specs, you will think that this is a great camera. It has 3-inch LCD, 12 mega pixel resolution, 24mm-equivalent wide-angle lens along with a 10x zoom, 1000 shots battery life, HD movie recording which is all put in a 1 inch thick body. However, once you use this camera, you will be disappointed with the cramped control layout, average shooting performance, OK stills quality and finally the exterior body. There are two features that really impressed us, the big battery life and the lens. The latter is not very good but still is on par with other competitors. We would recommend you this camera if you are looking for such good lens in a compact size.
The camera looks attractive but the buttons on it are messed up. Shutter release with zoom ring and power button is located on the top. There are two more buttons located there; one is for Landscape Mode activation that can be used to boost color saturation or to correct cloudy or misty conditions. The other is for Casio’s Make-up mode skin-smoothing. It feels a bit odd; Casio could have taken these buttons away and could have given us dedicated keys for Casio’s Dynamic Photo mode, continuous shooting or a timer, or face detection key.
The rest of the buttons are placed on the right of the screen which look crammed in to the small space. There are buttons for Best Shot (BS), Menu, Directional, Playback, Camera and fast movie record. The buttons are all cramped and hence you might end up some other button while using the unit. The camera button is redundant because you can use the power and shutter buttons for its functions. The directional pad is not easy to press; it feels hard especially the left direction. It is hard to reach there because of the LCD’s bump.
Performance wise, the H10 was a mixed bag. It takes 1.8 seconds for the device to wake up and start shooting. Shutter lag is remarkable at 0.2 seconds in bright light and 0.4 second in low light. However, the shot-to-shot times are disappointing. Without the flash, it is 3.3 seconds and with it, it goes to 4.4 seconds. Continuous shooting speed at full-resolution is 0.4 fps which is again slow.
Just like most compact devices, the H10 is good till ISO 200 for noise. Photos looked soft and overprocessed at all ISOs when at full resolution. At ISO 400 the stills start to look smeary and soft and also start picking up noise. We saw a bit of color shifting also. If you are the kind of person who craves for fine detail, the H10 is not for you. On the bright side, if you can compromise a bit on quality, stills are good for Web use and small prints.
The Set button at center of the direction button is used to launch a short cut menu for the shooting settings which are commonly used. There is a choice of eight or you can go with Casio’s recommended settings. You can also store the settings in the camera which will remain stored even when the device is turned off. For a newbie, this device can be a bit intimidating. It is not that the menus are confusing, but there are a lot of settings that you can fiddle around with.
Shooting on the H10 revolves around is BS scene modes, just like most Casio cameras. There is a choice of 36 including one for voice recording. You can also decide by yourself by putting the camera on Auto. You get control over aperture and shutter speed and you can also adjust contrast, sharpness and color saturation. You can compile settings for a particular situation or subject, there is a memory space for 999 such settings.
Apart from the Make-up and Landscape modes, H10 has Dynamic Photo feature which we thought was really interesting. The camera will take series of photos for a moving object or a single still of stationery object, then extract the object and put it in another photo. You can do all this in Adobe Photoshop too but it is really fun to do it in the camera. There is a catch though, the background and the object have to be sufficiently contrasting. For example, if your background in white and if a bright light hits the object then the camera will take pieces of the brighter areas, recognizing it as a part of the object.
Colors on the H10 were good at ISO 400 or less. Although not accurate they looked vibrant and nice. The H10 has a feature to optimize dynamic range but it didn’t help much and there was detail loss in stills in bright scene areas.
The H10 can record HD videos but the quality is passable. You get 720p resolution at 24 fps as compared to 30fps from the competition. Files are stored in .AVI format and you are limited to 10 minutes per clip. You cannot use optical zoom for movie recording and even if that feature was available, we wouldn’t recommend using it because the lens operation is quite loud.
Nitty Gritty:
EX-H10 is not a bad device but there are some issues on it which might be deal breaker for shutter bug freaks. The specs like 10x zoom with an ultrawide-angle lens will make you drool on paper but the picture quality isn’t as good as you expect it to be. Get this camera only if you need the big battery life, or else we would recommend you to look elsewhere.
