Casio
I’ve had the Casio Exilim H10 about 2 weeks, during which I was on vacation taking a lot of pics. I chose this camera over the competing pocket super zooms for several reasons. 1) The telephoto range is good – not quite as much as the Canon or Panny, but plenty for hand held photography. I really appreciate the long lens for candid photography – even if the subject is aware that you are photographing them, the extra distance makes the subject less self conscious. 2) The camera allows a good deal of manual control – I expecially like the ability to manually focus for those tough shots (this also eliminates focus lag). 3) This camera has the ability to focus quickly (important to me because shutter lag drives me nuts when I’m taking candids). The standard focus is pretty fast, and there is a quick focus mode that is very fast at the cost of a few mis-focused shots. 4) It is small – fits in my pocket easily, or in a very small belt pouch (Tamrac 3805 Neoprene). It is small enough to take everywhere, so I always had it with me when I saw an opportunity. 5) It takes HD video – a real advance from my last camera.
I was very happy shooting with the H10. This is the first camera I’ve had with optical image stabilization – a great invention for those of us who like long lenses or available light photography. Almost all my shots, day and night, were done with available light. If flash is turned off in the menu, it stays off when the camera is cycled off and on (avoiding those embarrassing unintended flashes in museums etc). My biggest complaint is that the zoom is too fast, making it hard to frame exactly. Although I generally don’t take wide angle shots, I did find the extra-wide angle useful on more occasions than expected. I did not use ‘best shot’ scene modes, nor did I find the makeup and vivid landscape gimmicks useful. I wish there was more direct menu access (or buttons) for features like self timer, picture brightness, flash and focus mode. I wish there were an optical viewfinder, but no direct competitor has one either. I have not yet had a chance to critically evaluate picture quality, but the pics look good on a computer screen. [...] A small camera like this can’t be as good as one with a larger sensor (and consequently larger size), but the pics look fine to me.
