Casio Exilim EX-F1 6MP 12x Zoom 2.8-Inch LCD Pro Digital Camera with CMOS Shift Image Stabilization (Black)

The Casio Exlim EX-F1 camera has the unique ability among consummer cameras of both high speed video (300 - 1000 frames per second at typical video resolution) and high speed, 6 mega pixel resolution at 60 frames per second for one second. If you need such speeds and good resolution provided by a low cost camera, this one fits the bill. If you do not need high speed, you will find many other lower cost cameras with otherwise adequate capabilities. But this one takes excellent pictures and provides clear views of rapidly evolving processes. An industrial camera of the same high speed and resolution capability may cost ten times as much as this Casio model.

Wow! I think we filmed 10- minutes of pouring milk from one glass to another and can't get over how cool it looks. This is a great camera.

I have a Canon Digital Rebel XTI, which is far more superior to any nikon on the market. Purchasing the Exilim, I wasn't looking for a camera to take photos with since nothing can beat the Canon Digital Rebel XTI already in my posession. I purchases the Exilim for it's ability to record high speed movies for slow motion playback. Thus far I'm impressed. It is astonishing to watch simple, every day things in slow motion.

I do have an old nikon camera that is completely useless due to the fact it is a nikon. I should record myself smashing it with a hammer in high speed, so that I may post it online to show what it looks like when a substandard camera is broken in slow motion. Every detail of the epic wonder will be captured in stunning detail. I can then record HD video of my personal feelings on the matter afterward. I will have no remorse, I promise.

With all of that said, the photo quality is pretty good, and the camera takes fast pictures. No lag time recording to the flash card at all. It's also amazing to take 60 photos in 1 second. Astonishing. The abilities of this camera far outweigh those of ANY nikon on the market. It's absolutely astonishing.

If I had the choice between a nikon with $10 Million and a Casio, I would choose the nikon, purchase another Casio, and record myself smashing nikon cameras all day, every day, for a month solid with the higher quality Casio.

I find this camera to be extremely good for a consumer type camera. If you don't need super high resolution, this camera is very adequate. The 12X optical zoom and large lens just blow away most digital cameras. The slow motion (high speed) video is very good at 300fps. At the higher speeds (600 and 1200fps), it does take a lot of light to get good results and the resolution is OK, but not great. However, I have found that most outdoor sporting / action type activities are very well suited to 300fps slow motion video.

It comes with a 150 page manual. In readable (mostly) English. A zillion options. One very nice feature, you can program it to remember most settings. If you want the flash to stay off (which I need most of the time) you can set it to do that, even if you turn it off and on. It seems to have good sensitivity, the image stabilizer works quite well.

As a still camera, about average. As a video camera, a lot for the money. It shoots normal video, HD (1080p, 60 Hz) and fast video, up to 1200 fps. Low resolution above 300 fps, good for things that go bump, not for fancy presentations. The 30-300 fps adjustable setting is not so convenient, you have to set the frame rate each time you shoot. It should be programmable. The 300 fps fixed setting has a resolution of about 512x390, good enough for most sports work.

A comment on pixels. The Ex-F1 has a 6 Mp sensor. You can get a lot more than that for less money, but it's more marketing than real. You have to look at the sensor (CCD/CMOS) size. Real world lenses are limited to about 100 line pairs per mm in what they can resolve. Based on the specs for the Ex, it tries to get 200 lp/mm. So, not real. My little Olympus P&S is over 400 lp/mm. You just can't get there. Fewer pixels for a given chip size usually means better light sensitivy. That helps more than anything else.

For my use, mostly in sports, a very good compromise. The CS prerecord mode is very good. You can get 60 full resolution frames before you press the shutter. It stores them in internal memory and saves after you press the shutter. So you can see what happened just before (up to 60 fps, programmable) With a 16Gbyte SD card, about $25, you can save over 4500 full resolution pictures.