On first glance, the 2.5" display seems an advantage. However, at 555X220 it's aspect ratio is too wide relative to the 4:3 format. It would appear then that in recording mode you will only use a 292X220 area of the screen for the image and almost half of the display is devoted to control data. This means an image size of about 1.5" diagonal which is less than most others! Am I correct on this?I also note that the Casio website claims sleep mode settings of 15, 30 and 60 sec at opposed to the 30, 60 ,120 stated. Who is right?..
They must be re-sampling the image in the 555 direction, to end up with ~278 x 222. - There's no "dead" space on the display, the image fills it completely, and the control readouts are overlaid on the picture when they are turned on. As to sleep settings, I'm holding the unit in my hand as I write this (well, actually, I set it down to type), and it has "sleep" settings of "off", 30 seconds, 1 & 2 minutes. Power Down settings are 2, 5, 10 minutes...
In my opinion, QV7000sx is a lot better than QV5000. I tried QV5000 for a week and returned it. Right now, the price of QV7000sx is $599 (reduced $100 from $699). In Japan, you can get QV7000sx for $400. If you look at Japanese Casio website, you will love this camera because the site has a lot of info as well as user homepage or test images for QV7000sx.I really think if Qv7000sx mini-movie also reocords sound, then it will be better. I am going to Japan tomorrow and will see if QV7000sx has other accessories e.g. zoom lens...Sidney..
The coupon addressed the "consumer electronics" approach of casio to it's digital cameras (the 5000 excluded), I find this approach a lot better then the "digital camera as an SLR with a jpg output" approach. the plain usability of the camera is the overwhealming factor, in my opinion, for a digital camera. in the area of optics and performance an "analog" camera with a film scanner is still the best option. a digital camera is for easy to shoot, access and use snapshots on your computer.In this respect I find the qv-7000 superior to.
The "photographer" cameras like the coolpix 900 and the oly d600l. the lcd approach is fun and intuitive to use, it's low light performance increases significally the range of images you can take (even without a tipod, that I personally do not carry around often .this is a great camera to carry around with you for spur of the moment photograpy.not to sound too much like a casio sales.
Rep there are some things to be desired. faster startup and cycle time,use of the lexar compactflash cards x4 speed, usb support (might as well make some use of it), and for imac or powerbook users: infrared support in the qv-link mac version...
Have purchased a QV7000 and have been working to learn it's tricks. Here's what I have so far:Overall.
Outstanding. Very happy with it. Nice solid feel with good tactile touch on the controls (like an HP calculator). Black/Satin silver body says quality; Agfa take note. In comparison, the Kodak260 is a dog and the Nikon is just a camera (though a good one).Display.
The LCD measures 2"X1.5"; a 4:3 aspect ratio. I suspect this display is taking half of the interlaced 525 line NTSC video-out (e.g. every other line). The image fills the display in both play and record. (Contrary to what Jack Ng alleges; although for Panorama and Movie images, the display can be toggled between reduced and full screen modes).Metering.
Exposure metering is by spot or a multi-metering matrix method. Matrix is similar to that in the Nikon900 as opposed to (and much better than) the review's claim of whole frame averaging (number of frame subdivisions is unstated though).You can lock exposure and focus separately by: 1) frame area of interest and press shutter halfway to set focus. 2) engage manual focus mode freezing focus at current value. 3) reframe on exposure area of interest and half press shutter again to lock exposure. 4) hold shutter at half point, reframe on subject and shoot. Another way is to just engage Panorama mode.
The 4X digital zoom is very useful for magnifying the image to set focus in Macro and Manual focus.Sports Mode.
This function just engages continuous auto-focus at half shutter instead of the normal set/lock. (The Nikon is continuous focus only = power hungry)Manual White Balance.
This camera offers a MWB option. Very good. You can handle any weird combination of sky/day/fluorescent/incandescent light and get proper color balance. Just first aim at a white card then engage the MWB menu option and you're good for the session. All cameras don't have this?Image Sharpness.
You have 3 sharpness settings available: Soft, Normal and Hard. The factory default is Normal. This setting seems to control the degree of JPEG smoothing applied. Hard seems to select minimum smoothing. From looking at the coupon test shots and how this setting affects my test shots (Under high magnification you see a checkerboard effect in the diffraction halos under Normal. Soft includes obvious contrast reduction), I strongly suspect that the Normal setting was used in the standard House, Dave Box and Resolution shots.
Actual resolution capability therefore may be better than reported.In my view you should lock this setting to Hard. You can always add softness in postprocessing and it does little to decrease file size.Image Management.
The coupon did not mention that the memory is divided into 5 "folders". Images can be quickly moved to/from these folders and is useful for image organization as Play mode scans only the current folder. Since you can save literally hundreds of images it keeps you from getting lost. There is a back-panel button to instantly toggle between folders. This touches on Rick Andrew's comment. These cameras are way more than just picture takers.
You don't have a natural place to grab with your left hand. The left end is filled with lens, focus eyes and flash feedback. A lifetime of SLR use has me trying to remember not to finger the lens!If you use a card reader the viewable html page gives you extensive camera status info for each image. You don't get this info using the serial port.I grieve for the lack of a lens cap (major oversight) or threaded fitting. A lens hood improves contrast on any lens and I can't add one. There's just nothing to grab...
Just a brief comment on battery life. I have had the unit for about 10 days, and already I have run through 7 sets of four AA batteries! Is anybody else experiencing this?..
Jack Ng has clarified his point on the cropped LCD image. While the LCD in record mode gives a very accurate preview of image capture, in play mode (normal and zoom) display does not show all of the captured image. It crops about 5% from the bottom and 3% from right side. It's there but you can't see it.This thing is as power hungry as any of them. Spec power draw is 7.2 watts (that's 1200 mA). For an AC adapter, buy the Casio (1500 mA rating); none of the Radio Shack models have enough capacity.
Rayovac Maximums don't work, Duracell Ultras are the best but still overmatched. Battery life is improved by setting the power-on default to flash=OFF; so it doesn't charge the flash capacitor every time you turn the camera on. The CCD is a big power draw. My camera shuts down in record mode at 1.16 V (a direct in the operating camera reading, not open circuit voltage). In play mode it's happy down to 1.05 V and draws less amps.You can do exposure compensation while using manual focus.
It stops-down right now. This means a dim/slow-refresh LCD display under lower light conditions (e.g. using flash).Have not been able to improve resolution using sharpness=hard. I get 650 lines/image-ht just like Dave. The culprit is the JPEG compression; which is causing checkerboarding at fine line spacing.
If you can't do postprocessing, killing these macro-flaws can be more important than a little more resolution. However, with CF cards now at 200+MB, I would be happier with the option of an ~800K no-loss JPEG...