Casio Exilim EX-FH100

Opinion: . . . if the flash would charge faster and if it could save raw files faster. Both are Major faults with this camera. I don't understand how Dpreview could have rated it so highly. I baught the camera mostly based on the review done here but boy was I disappointed. If I plan to should with flash, I had better send out for pizza because it is going to be a long evening.

Opinion: I bought a Z500 as my first Casio camera and was very pleased with it, until its focus broke down and decided to buy a new model.
I purchased FH100 mostly for its design, wide angle lens and 10x optical zoom. As well as I found HD movie recording handy.
Now only after a year, I have a malfunctioning piece of parts that Casio won't even bother replying to my support requests. It has the same failure as my Z500 or something else, having a pixeled pink stripe across the whole image. As well as flash doesn't go on twice as it should, but only once, so all pictures are underexposed.

If the camera would work fine, I still was very unhappy with it. I mainly do portrait pictures of my family and scenery occasionally. In day light it has lovely pictures, although I saw sharper examples from older and cheaper cameras. In low light and indoor, you can forget it! The ISO comes 400 all the time, and the blur is just too much. You can set it up for 100 or 200, but you need a stative, so totally useless. Flash is too intense, even on -2 settings. It's too direct and narrow. Also it is very easy to cover the flash with your finger while you're holding your camera.

Response time is bad. Charging flash after each photo is too long and the green-red indicator blinks too often, too fast being confused what is it there for. Image recording is acceptable, even on standard SD card.
Video recording is fine, never bothered with the 1000fps option as it was useless for me.

I miss the many auto presets as I used to have in my old Z500 like candle light, sunset, black and white, document, party etc. They halved it in FH100 and gave many more that can be used for a taking off bird, which I find useless.

Only good thing about this camera is it design, weight (I like bulky semi-compact cameras) finish and materials. Even though I have a pouch for it, already few crumbs and dust are under the lens, unacceptable after 1 year of usage.

I paid £200 for it last year, and now it's broken, do not know if it makes sense to repair it and what new one to buy. Totally unhappy.

I was a loyal Casio customer, now will never buy their camera again.

Opinion: I came from an older Kodak easy share. The Casio seems like a fine camera. Close up shots are very grainy much more so than the Kodak. Wide angle lens is a great feature. High speed video is also great. I took some video of humming birds and you could see the wings beating clear as day, very cool. Biggest complaint is the button layout. The power is a touch button on the top. You cant pick up the camera or pull it out of a case without accidentally tuning it on. The power button should be a slide switch. The back right side of the camera is covered with touch buttons. This area is where my thumb normally would be when taking pictures with one hand and even with two. I am always accidentally pressing random buttons. I would check the button layout before I buy another camera. I think the Kodak multifunction button worked much better.

Opinion: Can you use optical zoom while filming ? I didn't find this information anywhere.

Opinion: Its strength is the 24mm (wide) HS video at 1000fps or down to 240 fps. Does
an excellent job of capturing sports in bright/good light conditions. Slow motion
has NO Blur at all.

Stay at ISO 400 or below if you don't want too much smearing, and stay away
from the low light shots, however, a noise reduction software will help save some
shots if you keep the pictures small or just want to view them on your PC or digital
frame.

Aperture selection is limited to 2 settings, fully open or fully stopped down.
The Best Shot mode takes the guess work out if you want to flip thru the 20 or so
choices...it does work and produce a discernible difference over AUTO mode.

RAW, don't think so, as it takes more than 10 seconds to write to the card.

Its a pretty decent camera, I'm enjoying the ease of use, however, my G11 takes
better still pictures, but then again the G11 is bigger, takes a bit more skill to use,
and has a lot of buttons that may confuse many newbies and doesn't have the HS
video.

Oh I should mention, one cannot change the FL after you start recording!

Overall, very happy with the camera, but then again, I got it primarily to get
24mm HS video in a small package. Works well at photographing golf swings!