Casio Z700 | sample images
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Details at a glance
Megapixels: 7.2
Optical Zoom: 3x
Digital Zoom: 4x
LCD: 2.7 inches
Storage: SD/MMC
We clicked with
Image quality, speed, build quality
Shots in the dark
Scene modes can be a little cumbersome, low light handling not quite as good as the Z600
Links
More Casio information
www.casio.co.uk
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It's small, it's silver, it has a huge screen on the back a 3X optical zoom and 7MP inside - that would be just like an EX-Z600 but with an extra 1 million pixels then. Stay tuned though because the EX-Z600 won one of our exclusive “Editor's Choice” awards and the Z700 has a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve.
Features
It won't surprise you that the EX-Z700 has anti shake. It's this season's “must have” accessory. This is software based anti shake - essentially the camera applies some very clever software to make the picture look less blurred. This is way ahead of normal sharpening but still falls a little short of hardware optical image stabilisation such as you find in some of the Panasonic cameras and many DSLR bodies and lenses.
The Z series is also Casio's flagship range - a slightly larger body than the S series means they can squeeze in extra features. There's a full spec sheet at the bottom - basically if a quality camera has a particular feature then it's a reasonably safe bet that the Z700 has it.
Auto framing
One of those “too good to be true” features. This is apparently based on auto follow technology. Frame your subject on the screen and lightly press the shutter button. The Z700 will outline the subject in a red box and follow it. Obviously you are going to have to turn the camera if it goes off the screen but otherwise the camera will refocus constantly and keep your subject in the picture. When you press the button it will take a picture and automatically crop it to the red box. All of a sudden kids pictures should be a lot easier - frame them loosely and let auto framing sort them out.
The best bit is - it actually works. Obviously this is nothing you couldn't do with continuous auto focus and cropping the picture afterwards but it's so easy. I took pictures at a fashion show and the Z700 delivered frame filling shots without any editing.
Cradle
The Z600 came with a cradle and so does the Z700. Again it's “free” (aka paid for in with the bundle). The idea is simple - drop the camera in a custom cradle and it sits safely on your desk and charges up. You can also attach the cradle to your computer so that by pressing a single button all your pictures are transferred to your hard drive.
The cradle with the Casio Exilim Z700 can also hook up to your television so that you can se your masterpieces on the big screen. There's a slideshow button that will show your pictures either on the TV or on the back of your camera.
Battery life
There are special standards for testing battery life. They require a certain percentage of the shots to use flash, so many seconds between each shot and so much use of the LCD. In the real world they are meaningless. Here's a number for you: I took the Z700 to Photokina and spent 3 days snapping everything I fancied with and without flash. Often I'd look at the pics on the screen and sometimes I'd get a picture that I wanted to show to other people. Based on my experience of previous Casios I didn't even bother taking a charger with me. Unless you are a snapaholic one charge will easily cover a long weekend where you take lots of pictures. Use it wisely and you may find no use for a charger on a week long trip.
Handling
This section is pretty much identical to the Z600 review - without putting the cameras side by side I couldn't see any obvious differences.
Small enough to fit in your pocket, large enough that you aren't really worried about it snapping in half. It has a very similar height and width to most cameras in this class - just about the same as a credit card. Something less than an inch thick makes it on the slimline side but of course much thicker than Casio's “S” range.
The buttons are familiar enough. There's a 4 way controller and the usual collection of menu, play, zoom delete etc buttons. While they are very small, the controls are well laid out with decent spaces between them and I had no problem using them.
Overall the camera exudes quality and the screen is no exception. Casio call it a “2.7 inch super bright LCD…producing an impressive luminance of 1200 candelas per square metre”. Just like the screen on the Z600 this is one of the best screens on a compact camera at the moment. It remained visible even on a sunny day with sunglasses on and seems to work equally well in a darkened room. It is also usable from a remarkably wide angle - if you like to hold your camera above your head you should still easily be able to frame shots.
Image quality
Again, a very similar performance to the other Casios we have tested recently. Pictures have vibrant colours and excellent punch and sharpness. Some users may find them just a little too saturated but like many other things this can be tweaked in the menu to your liking.
The menu system on the Z700 suggests that 7MP is enough for A3 printing. As long as the exposure's spot on, the ISO is low enough and you take a little care that's true - this camera will produce very nice A3 prints.
On the Z600 low light performance is excellent. On the Z700 I'd have to downgrade that to “very good”. This isn't particularly surprising - on a 7MP camera not only are there more pixels crammed together in the same space (and this ends to increase noise) but when you look at a file at 100% you are effectively looking at a larger print size. I'd be happy to print ISO 800 shots at 6X4. With careful editing using a product such as Noise Ninja you should be able to print them bigger but if you want a camera specially for low light there are better choices - the Fujifilm Z3 for example.
Shooting
Again results very similar to the Z600. Shot to shot was just a little slower due to the larger file size but was comfortably within 1.5 seconds. Power up is around 1 second which is absolutely fine. A couple of areas where the speed of the camera really shows are in shutter lag and picture viewing. Shutter lag is officially 0.005 seconds. That is after you focus, meter and hit the button but that's really pretty good. Once you have the shot in focus then there's no appreciable delay in releasing the shutter. Of course that's without flash - with flash the response is much slower, partly because the camera makes several pre flashes to check metering etc.
I was delighted to see that picture viewing on the Z700 is just as pleasant as on the Z600 - hit the button and you see the next picture immediately. Hit it repeatedly as fast as you can and the pictures flash across the screen. This alone makes it a very pleasant camera to use.
What's not to like
I'm really struggling to think of things that I don't like about this camera. Macro mode isn't great. It is very good but when I needed to take a picture of a camera sensor I couldn't get a decent shot out of the Z700 and resorted to my faithful Panasonic FX8. Macro mode certainly is good enough for most uses but if you are seriously into macro you might find other cameras (such as the Ricoh R5) a better bet.
Best shot modes have now gone up to 37. These include a couple of “picture layout” modes. Casio seem really pleased with these but I really struggled to see the point - they allow you to take 3 pictures in a “layout” - err, next to each other in a kind of stack with black space around them. I suppose this is part of the drive to produce finished images in the camera rather than in post editing but I really struggled to think of a practical use for these modes. As with the Z600, the real problem is that the camera returns to “auto” every time you power it off. 5 more modes mean more buttons to press to get you back to where you were before the camera powered down.
Camera specification
| Mega-pixels: | 7.2 |
Photo: | JPEG |
| Optical Zoom: | 3x |
RAW: | No |
| Digital Zoom: | 4x |
Aperture: | F2.7-18.6 |
| LCD: | 2.7 inch |
Focal Length: | 38-144mm |
| Dimensions: | 88.5 x 57 x 20.5mm |
Shutter speed: | 4 -> 1/2000s |
| Weight: | 112g |
Exposure: | ISO 50 to 400 |
| Storage: | SD, SDHC, MMC |
Movie: | 640x480@30fps |
| Battery: | Li-ion NP-40 |
Internal Mem: | 8.3mb |
| Interface: | USB 2.0, AV |
PictBridge: | Yes |
