Casio EX-ZR800 – My Cheapo Companion

This is a sort of review of a small cheapo compact digital camera I have been using exclusively since early Spring.

I wanted a compact digital camera, as I loathe Smartphone cameras – I hate the standard focal length which these gadgets come equipped with and the photos all look like smartphone photos – characterless and awful. Yeah sure they have all the bells and whistles and you can photograph bats in near total darkness but I just wanted a compact which was very small and very quick with acceptable image quality. Something I could just grab, discreetly put away in a pocket yet pull out and use.

I asked Hamish and he recommended the Sony RX100 VII – well, my budget didn’t extend anywhere north of £50 so as you can guess options were limited!

I decided on a Casio EX-ZR800 from 2013.
Main Features
16 MP 1/2.3 CMOS Sensor
25-450 mm (18x) F3.5-5.9 Zoom Lens
80 – 3200 ISO
Sensor-shift Image Stabilization
3″ Fixed Screen
3 fps continuous shooting
1920 x 1080 video resolution
Built-In Wireless
108 x 60 x 31 mm, 222g. (Mostly metal and decent build quality with decent grip)

Now I like Casio, a shame their camera division is no more but they were pioneering computational photography before others and before Apple and many of these features are in the Casio EX-ZR800 I have. For example; HDR composed of multi shots, blurred backgrounds giving a shallow depth of field effect – easy to select and use. Sure the camera is over 10 years old so expect the speed of computing such effects not to be instant but they do work and are quite useful when using it creatively.

What I really liked about Casio is that they specialized not only in computational photography but also in speed. This camera is quick, very quick. Quick to focus and to shoot. Focus being pretty accurate as well.

There is also another option of best Shot (just select it using the control PASM dial) – which is a kind of scene mode where you can select these features plus others such as Macro, fireworks, sweep panorama, best smile etc etc.

Also Premium Auto Pro (also on the Dial) where the Casio EX-ZR800 selects the best setting for the shot. One of my favourites is fixed focus snapshot mode which with just one press you capture the photo – as the name suggests great for fast snapshots and shooting from the hip!(within a set wider snapshot focal length)

The Casio EX-ZR800 shoots RAW and has Aperture priority but I just used it mostly in Program mode where I set the ISO metering etc.

The thumb control on the rear is customizable and I used it to get quick access to ISO, Flash, WB, metering (spot matrix etc – and Metering is spot on excellent) and Focus EV compensation – or just rotate it to adjust EV compensation. Overall in terms of use I found it to be fast with all necessary controls at the ready able to be selected on the fly.

The LCD is pretty good for the age as well and decent in very bright sunlight which was a relief.

In use, well, it’s very fast allowing you to capture that moment and the zoom range is a useful 25mm to 450mm (you can get some good candids at longer zoom). The sensor stablization is very good for the age and can shoot at full zoom handheld at low ISO at moving objects – with out any issues.

The other great feature of the Casio EX-ZR800 is that it saves your focal length and reverts to that every time you turn it on – and also auto powers off to save battery life.
Battery life is decent and write times on Jpeg are about instant.

It also has stereo Mic and HD 1080p video but I didn’t shoot any video on it. The other features are all super High Speed features which I didn’t use.

I added a Optech/USA wrist strap and was good to go.

I mostly shoot in available light so I didn’t need anything more than ISO 200. My default was Jpeg Fine ISO 100 set at 45mm focal length – perfect for anything that I would like to shoot.

I played around with the Casio EX-ZR800 for a few days at home then went out to shoot on a nice late Spring day. Went for a stroll around the ruins of St. Peter’s Church in East Anglia – said to be haunted and also said to be a location where some people practise Witchcraft!

Anyway, spells aside, I was very pleased with the results! Nice look and metering was spot on!

I then over the months visited Clacton on Sea and London; I took my camera tucked in my trouser pocket and used it at my leisure. I’m not much of a ‘street’ shooter, but with this I could relax and take pictures without worrying!

Now in this day and age of smartphones I didn’t see a single person with a compact camera! I was quite a rare breed I must say. Also the beauty of having outdated crap is that no one batted an eyelid! I could just literally point and shoot! and I did!

Then come November this year and a family emergency forced me to fly to Pakistan at short notice. I wasn’t there on holiday so I didn’t take my usual camera(s) but slipped the Casio EX-ZR800 into my bag. I am glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed it! Again, a crappy old compact digital camera doesn’t attract the sort of attention one wants – I nonchalantly pointed and shot! Enjoying the zoom range and the wealth of subjects.

Well, not a very good review perhaps, but the point of this post is to show you that the camera does matter – to a certain extent!

This Casio EX-ZR800 is excellent, sure the lens is slow and pixel peepers will easily notice aggressive noise reduction and noise but if used within it’s limits it’ll give you very good results.

I doubt I’d have gotten anything better with any other camera at any price range – for the type of photographs I took using this. All snap shots and some nicely composed architectural stuff.

I’ll be using this Casio EX-ZR800 for a long time to come! A shame Casio are no more in the camera business as I can only imagine what they’d have managed today!

All photographs edited in Lightroom 5 on a Macintosh.

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