CES 2012: Casio stand report

My perspective on point and shoot cameras is as another photographic tool, like a wide angle or long telephoto lens for a DSLR, one of their prime advantages being compactness. I went without a digital camera for about 5 years because there was not something in the price range and with the feature set I required. Looking at the market, I could see different makes had their strengths and weaknesses. In the end, I ended up with a Finepix 70EXR, before then getting a DSLR. Having informed myself of the what is out there, I can tell you that one of the advantages of Casio point and shoots was that they were amongst the first manufacturers to use CMOS sensors, not CCD. This enabled ultra high speed shooting in their cameras several years ago, that others are catching up to just recently. Otherwise, if you read the reviews, their cameras are competitive with others makes.

So, yes, in a way you have confirmed your own point of the necessity to be an informed person.

Casio was a strong force in the early digital era. Unfortunately, their class leading performance has diminished, with their last strong performers being the Z-750, Z-850, and P700 (easily besting the best of the best Canon/Nikon/etc had at the time).

While their current flagships aren't the pinnacle of "performance", they're still some of the best photographic tools around. What Casio has learned from being the market leader has carried onto these new cameras.

Casio's have extremely simple, fast, and intuitive menu/interfaces. Easy access and extremely fine control of commonly used features and uncommonly used features. (Such as a per-setting option to memorize the last known setting, from Flash mode, WB, Zoom setting, AF, shoot mode, etc).

Casio's also have extremely good white balancing. Canon is still very, very poor in this department. Casio excels in tough artifical lighting, from poor green/pink colored florescent, or low CRI orange stage lights.

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