Looks like a superb little camera.

Got a first quick look at the specs and the manual settings are just what everybody dreams of. (i guess) Also the very fast lag times are a nice surprise in a compact class where that isnt always the standard.

Overall, quite a good camera, too bad it has this really ugly design , who created this :s ? I'm looking for a compact class camera as well. And i've made a list and now i'm reading some user reviews and forums on this site about the cameras I listed. Luckily! The choices were narrowed down to the HP r707, a canon digital ixus (s410, s500), a sony dsc W1. Perhaps some others but those are the ones I was thinking of. I read the coupon of the W1 and I almost went and bought it, high points for me were the large LCD screen (2.5 inch!) and also fast lag times. But then I went ahead with reading the forum of the ony W1 on imaging-resource, and boy did that change my mind!!! Never seen so many people agreeing on the lesser points af a camera (being here soft images, to agressive NR, not really good auto mode, requires lots of personal settings to achieve good results).

There's where the ixus comes short in my opinion. The r707 got my attention because of the appearently good results with adaptive lighting, seems like a real advantage. Gives nice images, (little more noise though, but reduces contrast in dark light situations) This is also called digital flash. But not much info here or on other forums, looks like no one noticed the arrival of the all new HP But now that i've read this coupon of the new casio, I think i'll hold off a little longer and wait for some users opinions here. It looks like just the perfect camera.

Looks like it's got all I wanted from the three other cams I mentioned before but in one camera. To bad it's quite ugly, maybe I can get used to the design, I dunno. It certainly made my final shortlist, which grew to r707, s410/500, sony W1 and now casio exilim. and i'm leaning towards the latter mentioned. If anyone can advise me on which one to purchase i'd appreciate it.

Is it worth the extra 100$ (i think it is) (i almost got the W1 and it seemed good that I didn't, I don't want that to happen with the casio, that's why i'm waiting a little, you never know) What I liked on the W1 is that you can screw on extra accesories on the lens , is that possible here? Anyway, it gave me lot to think about. Greets from Europe. Alejandro..

Alejandro: The Exilim Pro accepts accessory lenses. As far as I know, macro, wide-angle and telephoto lenses are available. I have long wondered how accessory lenses affect maximum aperture, if at all. For example, if I got a telephoto accessory lens, would it take the camera's telephoto aperture performance from a reasonable 4.0 to a slower 5.6? I have owned the Exilim Pro for about one month and have been deliriously happy with it. I have not had time to explore even half of it's capabilities. Ignore the list price; you can get it for under $500, shipping included.

Here are some slideshows of photos taken with my Exilim Pro: "First Pictures with the Casio Exilim EX-P600".

Http://johnfulwider.com/photos/firstpictureswithcasio/ "Jami's Garden".

Http://www.johnfulwider.com/photos/jamisgarden/ "Jami's Second Graduation Party".

Http://www.johnfulwider.com/photos/secondgraduationparty/ Please note that most of the photos were treated solely with iPhoto's "Enhance" function and cropped in that same Macintosh application, for speed's sake (the slideshows are on my blog, http://johnfulwider.com). Thus they do not represent the quality someone handy with Photoshop could easily get out of them...

Hi Alejandro, The P-600 doesn't look that bad. After all, it's surface finish is shot blast stainless steel instead of paint like so many others. I've had mine for three weeks and I already love it. Here are the issues that pleased me most: -Image quality: Fantastic. When exposures are longer than 1 second the camera runs a noise reducing routine that makes 30 second exposures come out as if taken by daylight. -Everything is fast: Auto focus, shutter response, battery charging, even setting up the camera is fast because all the important controls are reached without going through the main menu.

-There are some very interesting auto-bracketings available (besides the usual exposure bracketing): White Balance, Portrait Softness, and even Focus ! -What pleased me most is the way User Settings are stored: They are saved with a thumbnail image of the photo for which the settings were used, and are placed right after the 25 built-in "Best Shots" modes. That makes it extremely easy to recall (and remember) any of the settings that you saved, and you can save up to 999 modes! (In three weeks I have already saved half a dozen time saving modes for macro shots, tripod night shots, and hand held night shots. What I did NOT like: -The optical view finder does not have diopter adjustments (I wear glasses). -There is something I did not like at all: In my opinion the 1/8 second low shutter limit is OK on the "Snapshot" mode (this is the "auto-everything" mode), and on most of the "Best Shot" modes.

This limit however exists on the Aperture Priority mode also. I found this very bad because that used to be my preferred way of taking tripod exposures with depth of field control. Shutter Priority is better, but doesn't fix everything because it does not allow apertures smaller then 5.6. In other words:.

-If you want exposures longer than 1/8s you must use Shutter Priority. It then goes up to 60 seconds.

-If you want apertures smaller than 5.6 you must use Aperture Priority. It then goes to F11.1.

-If you want both you must use Manual Control. The camera does it well then. (I have taken perfectly exposed, perfectly color balanced, noiseless photos at 30 seconds F8! See the unretouched 2816x2112E attachment.) I hope Casio releases a firm ware upgrade to change that. Answering one of your questions: There is a 49mm male thread for mounting heavy accessories like wide angle adapters. It is accessed by removing the largest steel ring around the lens. When you remove that ring the optical zoom is disabled.

Joo Carvalho..

Hi Alejandro, The lowlight photo I tried to attach in my first reply didn't show up, so here it is again: This unretouched photo was taken by the Casio P600, using it's Remote Control, in full resolution Economy setting, ISO 50, Manual White Balance, Manual Exposure at 30 sec F8 (as recomended by the camera with 0 EV shift), and Free Area Auto Focus pointing at the lower left flower of the lamp base. The only light was coming from the variable lamp, which was set at it's dimmest power, consequently with it's warmest color. The text below was copied and pasted from the HTML data file generated by the camera's Album feature: File size : 1.2Mbyte.

 Resolution : 2816x2112pixels.

 Quality : Economy.

 Capture mode : Manual shooting.

 AE : Manual Exposure.

 Drive mode : Single shot.

 Light metering : Multi.

 Shutter speed : 30sec.

 Aperture stop : F8.

 Exposure comp. : 0.0EV.

 Focusing mode : Auto Focus.

 AF area : Free Area AF.

 Flash mode : Off.

 Sharpness : Normal.

 Saturation : Normal.

 Contrast : Normal.

 White balance : Manual.

 Sensitivity : ISO 50 equivalent.

 Filter : Off.

 Enhancement : Off.

 Digital zoom : Off.

 Date : 1/ 8/2004 0:38:23.

 Model : EX-P600 Greetings from Brazil, Joo Carvalho, Attachments:.

CIMG1169.JPG..

Hi John Fulwider, To my knowledge, focal length converters do not change maximum aperture. I have a .75x Tiffen Wide Angle Converter I was using with an Olympus C-720 Ultra Zoom, and it did not affect the camera's luminosity. I am now trying to figure out how to use this converter on the Casio P600. There are no adapters sold here. Joo Carvalho..

Hi Joo Carvalho. I have a Fuji 610 (6.3MegaPixel) and like most of it's features: very small , excelent color, big LCD, small size. But a HUGE problem : no focus assist light and very bad focusing in low light conditions. Does the P600 performs OK in low light ? Thanks : Mauro..

Hi Mauro, The darkest situation I have dealt with so far using the P600 is the one in the 30sec F8 photo I attached in a previous message. I did not try manual focusing there, but both regular Auto Focus and Free Area Auto Focus did perfect jobs. Although the scene was dark, and the camera does not have a Focus Assist light, the LCD screen was very bright. It had a little "live" noise in it (like a TV with a bad antenna), but I think Manual Focus would work also. The final image was well focused, and had no noise: I am satisfied. Joo Carvalho..