Casio Exilim EX-Z850

[BulldogMom]

Is anyone using the Casio Exilim EX-Z850? And if so what is your opion of the pictures you've gotten? I can't seem to get a good picture with this camera at all! They have so much "noise" and rarely in focus. I've just about given up trying to use any of my own settings and have just been using the auto mode and am not happy with the results at all.

[smc1377]

Can you post an example? It's much easier for us to be able to give advice if we could see the result.

[BulldogMom]

Sure I have tons of photos!



This was taken in a regular ol' high school gym, I had the camera in auto mode and the white balance set to tungsten. I was sitting just 4 rows up, right behind the team. I have the digital zoom shut off and had zoomed all the way out to the max of the cameras 3x optical zoom.

Oh, that serious looking forward planning the next move with the coaches is my usually goofy daughter.

[BulldogMom]

Forgot to say that the basketball photo is just as it was taken I did no editing other than to resize it.

Here's an example of a photo that came out fairly good from the same camera. It was also taken in the auto mode but with the white balance set to daylight and only slightly zoomed. It was around 2:30 in the afternoon on a very bright day (yesterday) I was standing on the ground about 3 feet away from the center "leg" of the water tower.



You can see that the camera does well enough outside in bright light. I did resize this one small and sharpen it in photo shop.

[BulldogMom]

One more example.

This one was taken in our living room. The camera was again on auto but this time set to macro and the white balance to tungsten. I was sitting fairly close to the dog at the time. I did put this one in photo shop to resize and darken and blur the background (living room was a mess that day). I also tried to fix the doggie red eye (which is really blue green) as you can see my attempts at recoloring the eyes didn't go so well.



The camera seems to do well enough in the macro mode, up close and personal.

[BulldogMom]

Ok, One more from the gym. That seems to be where I have the most problem. Well really low or poor light anywhere.



Again I was sitting about 4 rows up right behind the team, camera on auto mode with white balance set to tungsten, digital zoom off, and zoomed nearly all the way out to the end of the 3x optical zoom.

Do you see the noise and the lack of focus? or is it just me.

[smc1377]

Your Flikr photos are set to private so I can't get into them to read the EXIF info so this is going to be just an educated guess on what's going on.

The lighting in your gym photos aren't ideal, so you should adjust your ISO to match. I don't know what your ISO is set to in those photos, but I'm guessing that it's not high enough. IIRC, the Exilims only go so high in ISO in auto mode. You'd have to actually choose a higher ISO if you wanted to go higher.

So if your ISO is 100, 200 or even 400, I'm gonna guess that it's still not high enough and so your shutterspeed has to compensate which means that your shutter will stay open longer. This then has a side effect. The longer the shutter is open, the more susceptible it is to camera shake or motion blur. That's why your pictures aren't coming out sharp. Also, the more you zoom, the more noticeable motion blur or camera shake will be.

Your best option here is to increase ISO in order to quicken your shutterspeed. But in doing so, you're inherently going to get a lot more noise in your picture (grainy colored specks). This can be taken care of with post processing whereas motion blur can't be done quite as easily (sometimes impossible).

General advice would be that if you're in the stands taking pictures zoomed all the way in, try to at least get your shutterspeed up to 1/125 (if you have steady hands) or faster if you want to avoid motion blur and/or camera shake.

[BulldogMom]

Opps sorry about that, I just sat up that Flikr account the other day and still don't know much about it. I think I have changed it to public now.

Please forgive my ignorance but what is the EXIF? and can I see it? Is it like the display that shows on the camera when you view the photos you have just taken? Shows the histogram, ISO setting, F stop....

On this little camera, in the auto mode, I have a choice of auto, 50, 100, 200, or 400 for the ISO.

It does have an "S" mode in which I can change the shutter speed manually. I have tried that a couple times and haven't got it right yet. Last game I set it at 1/500 and the pictures came out black. There is, in that same mode, another setting I can change. I'm sorry I don't know for sure what it is called but it has a little box with a + and a - in it and it adjusts the lighting (I think). I took several shots with it sat at 1/500 and played around with the other setting from +2.0 to -2.0 and that seems to have had no effect on the pictures, still black.

In the "S" mode I can change the shutter speed from 60" to 1/1600.

I am sitting on one end of a long skinny kitchen in which the sun (what little we have today) is coming in the window, the light on this end of the room burned out and I haven't got up to change it yet, and the light on the other end of the room is on. So, poor lighting here too.

I have zoomed the camera all the way out and pointed it out into the hall at the other end of the room at a door about 20 feet or so away. I have taken several shots changing the shutter speed each time starting at the 1/1600 and going down to the 0.5" where I stopped. At the 1/1600 end the pictures were black and lightened up as I went down but the further down I went the pictures became blurry from the slight jerk of the camera when you press the shutter button. Till at 0.5" the resulting picture is nothing but blur. Even though the pictures lightened up as I went down they were never clear and varying degrees of out of focus with lots of noise.

The camera also has an "A" setting where I can adjust the f stop (I think that's the right word for it). When zoomed all the way out I have a choice of f7.4 or f5.1. Zoomed in one step I can choose f6.9 or f4.8. You get two different choices with each step that you zoom back in until it is all the way back and you have a choice of f2.8 or f4.0.

The last mode the camera has is a manual mode "M" It will let me adjust the f stop and shutter speed both and choose from auto, 50, 100, 200, and 400 for the ISO.

Add all that to the choices in white balance and free, spot, or multi for the focus and choice of how many shots to take with one press of the shutter button (single shot, normal continuous, high speed continuous, flash continuous, zoom continuous, and multi continuous that takes something like 25 mini shots with one press of the button (like a film strip) and you have a ton of confusing settings to choose from!

Any and all help will be greatly appriciated. It seems I get ok enough results on close ups and outdoor photos it's just the further away shots and the indoor shots that are frustrating me.

I am thinking about getting a FujiFilm FinePix s700 but I'm sure I'll need to learn just as much as I do with this little pocket Casio.

[mr_lemon]

Try setting the camera to ISO 50 and leave it there. In Auto ISO mode, the camera most likely increases the ISO to as high as 400 which will give u faster shutter speeds, but lots more noise.

You may need to use the flash in more situations though. Also keep in mind that even at ISO 50, with flash, in darker situations the images will have some noise in the shadow areas.

It's the price you pay for tiny sensors with huge pixel counts.

TOM...

Personally, I've never liked the Casio sensors.

[mrs.turner_2u]

Hello, I have a Casio Exilim EX-Z77 and sometimes it's hard for me to get a clear photo. Esspecially when I switch between best shot scenes. All and all I love my Camera. Here is a photo taken with it.

From Practice Flower shots