CASIO Exilim EX-Z57 review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 21 Apr 2005

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: David McKinnon

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Casio's Exilim EX-Z57 is a slim, stylish camera with a massive, if not particularly high-resolution, 2.7" LCD screen.

The solid, metallic body feels expensive and looks great but, at 175g, it's heavy. Control buttons are small but well spaced, clearly labelled and well constructed, making them easy to use even if you have big hands.

A cradle recharges the camera's battery and connects it to a PC. This is great if you use the camera with only one PC, but if you want to download your photos elsewhere, you'll have to take the cradle with you.

Casio has equipped the XE-Z57 with a Pentax 3x zoom lens and a 5-megapixel sensor. This gives a recorded image size of 2,560x1,920, which is large enough for high-quality A4 prints. The Z57's interface is not particularly clear, though, and you have to delve into the menu system to change shooting modes. The basic auto-shooting mode is complemented by 23 separate scene functions. This is considerably more than most cameras offer, and they definitely help improve your pictures by adjusting white balance, sensitivity, sharpness, separate colour saturation and contrast. You can also adjust these settings manually.

While the EX-Z57 records colours beautifully - easily among the best in this price range - auto mode tends to oversharpen most photos, producing unwanted artefacts in the image and bright edges. This can be alleviated to some extent by making manual adjustments, but it's a niggle we wouldn't expect from a camera at this price. Both the Sony and Panasonic cameras reviewed this month produce much cleaner images.

The EX-Z57 has impressive credentials, with a genuinely useful range of modes and excellent colour reproduction, but we were disappointed by the photo artefacts, which cropped up even on the fine detail setting.

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