Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1

Opinion: I bought an EX-F1 second hand, purely for its high speed video modes. I'm looking to integrate high speed footage into videos otherwise shot in high def on Panasonic HVX200 but intended for web viewing. I'm in love with the 50 fps shooting the HVX200 can do and couldn't resist the chance to try really high-speed shooting.

I freely admit I bought the camera as a toy to play with, but with "proper" high speed cameras with high frame rates are horrifically expensive I wanted to see what I could get. These are my notes and impressions after a week or two of playing. 300 frames per second at a vaguely OK resolution (and faster, at lower resolution, as low as 96 vertical pixels at 1200 fps).

If you have a well-lit subject under your control, you can get absolutely stunning results.

BUT:
1) You do need a lot of light. Not unexpected, as running video at 300 fps means an effective shutter speed of 1/300th of a second tops. This is made worse by less-than-stellar noise performance of the camera. Even at ISO 400 it is noticeably noisy.

2) Once you press the record button, you lose all control. No zoom, no exposure control (as far as I can tell), no focus control and the autofocus stops doing anything. Depth of field becomes an issue because you'll be shooting wide open because of problem 1).

Of all of these, the lack of focus is the killer in practice. Track the motion of anything moving towards or away from the camera and you'll lose critical focus immediately and lose acceptable focus shortly after that. Critical focussing is hard enough on an LCD screen in the first place. I found myself repeatedly taking a still to check focus before starting the video rolling, which brings me back to shooting stuff under your control. Great for a popping champagne cork in a studio, awful for ducks landing on a pond.

3) The odd aspect ratio of the footage. With the world and his brother now shooting 16:9 HDV as standard, having a 4:3 ratio on the most useful 300 fps mode is an annoyance. The 600 fps and 1200 fps modes are non-standard aspect ratios like widescreen movie (2.25:1) and "even wider than wide" (3:5:1). All of which makes mixing this footage with other sources rather tricky.

4) The footage is 29.97 fps when recorded, which doesn't integrate well with 25 fps footage shot in Europe, but most NLE software can reinterpret the frame rate, and 300 fps played back at 25 fps just looks like slower slow-mo.

As you'd probably expect, there are an awful lot of compromises to squeeze that awesome frame rate out of a cheap prosumer camera. Am I disappointed? Not a bit of it! When you get everything right the footage is so spectacular that I'm looking forward to my next production shoot, where I have about a hundred ideas of stuff to try with the EX-F1.

I'll definitely have to be careful to work within its limitations- you can't point it at some random action, hit record, and hope to get anything useable. Each shot will need to be carefully planned to be as planar as possible (so everything stays in focus), very brightly lit, and under control so I can prefocus carefully.

But it has been a long time since I bought a bit of kit with as much of the wow factor for inspiring ideas. Good job, Casio... now please get the autofocus and zoom working in high speed mode for your next model!

Opinion: I tried the F1 for a while and wasn´t impressed. This camera has too many flaws for serious use.

IQ(stills):
Even in RAW there is a noticeable lack of sharpness and crip. NR ist too heavy. JPEGs look too flat.
6MP is enough, however I expected more from the "big sensor". Even old Canon G-series was ways better than the F1.

IQ(HD video/VGA):
Nothing special, HD ist a waste of memory and causes some problems on my computer. VGA isn´t even as good as this one from my Canon S5 IS.

Highspeed videos:
Nice idea but needs much light. It isn´t possible to film my cats playing in the living room with not so much light. The camera should boost the ISO sensitivity to work properly but it seems to be limited to a unknow(too low) value.

HS videos and many fps continuos shooting are nice gimmicks, however, if you need it depends on your needs for stills or videos. Maybe it´s nice for birding, however I don´t think that you need this camera and pay such a high price if you only take vids of bursting bottles or eggs.

Opinion: This is a very fun camera. The high speed 60fps and 300-1200fps movie modes are
endlessly useful for wildlife photography, which is what I use it for.

Opinion: You do realize that you need more then 5 stop more light to film at 1,000 frames per
second (1/2000th sec) then the normal 24 fps (1/50th second). Do you take photos
of your cats in your living room at 1/2000th of a second?!