Casio Exilim EX-Z3

Opinion: A very good point & shoot camera. With its compact size, large 2.0" LCD, 0.01 seconds shutter lag time, whatelse can you complain. Convenience is the key word to this camera.

Opinion: Bought mine at S$799 with free 56Mb upgrade. Really compact with 2" LCD. 3.2 Mega pixel, good for 4R pictures. Ease of use; able to shoot/delete pic within 10 mins after purchase. Pretty dummy proof. COmes with a cradle as well, no need for card reader.

Was contemplating between Canon V3 and Casio R4. When chanced on this set, I was sold.

Opinion: [quote]
Stevick Lee write on: 14 March 2003

Problems
When playing back movie clips no speaker.
[/quote]

ehm, I look @ Steve's Digicam and I found this:

In addition to still images you can also play back your movie clips. The sound will be heard through the camera's built in speaker.

Opinion: I purchased my camera in Duty Free in Heathrow airport for GBP £297 (about $500).

I was looking for a camera that was compact (ie. would fit easily into my pocket), takes SD memory (as I have a Palm and a camcorder that both take SD memory), was a 3MegaPixel with 3x optical zoom. This camera fit all of those perfectly.

The cradle with the camera is excellent. It connects the camera to the PC, but only after pressing a button on the cradle to allow it to connect. It also charges using the provided 100-240V 50-60Hz power supply, so you can use it anywhere in the world (so long as you have a plug adapter!) (My sister has a DIMageX and you need to remove the battery and place it in a seperate charger). This means that you don't have to put the camera back together when you want to take a shot - it's always ready.

The camera has some nice handy settings like preshot and split shot. The PreShot allows you to take a photo that is used as a transparent guide, the idea being that you can then ask someone to take a photo of you, and they have a guide as to what photo you want taken. The preshot isn't saved.

The split shot allow you to take the left hand side of the photo seperate to the right hand side, so you and a friend can both appear in the photo. The left side, once taken, appears semi-transparent so that you can align the right hand side.

It has settings also for night shots, etc. and warns you on the camera to keep it still. This is difficult without a tripod and the shots I took using this method were a little blurred (thanks to my shaky hand).

You can do manual focus as well as auto. Turning the flash off, on, red-eye and auto is all controlled by one simple button, as is the means of focus.

The menu system is simple and easily viewable, even by my friend with really bad eyesite. The 2" screen really helps here.

I'd like to see the test shots ( Colour Patches and Resolution Chart ) for this camera, but I'm sure they would turn out quite excellent.