Casio ZR5000. The poor man's nikon dl1850

[telefunk]

little leica?

The non-existant Nikon may appear one day, but here is a camera that fills a hole in the market: ultra wide angle 19mm to moderate zoom 100 or 200mm equiv. I expect that this camera will pass like the proverbial ship in the night for most DPR users, but here is my review for what it's worth!

The rounded edges of the body give this machine a little classic Leica look.

Compared to my ZR850 certain things have been improved, specifically the ergonomics. Thumb rest, flip screen, bigger buttons and dials, lens ring... Switching on is faster. Unfortunately the front grip has been dropped. The top plate is completely flat, so that the shutter release cannot easily be located (in the dark, with gloves, without looking) which causes unnecessary fumbling as with the Sony RX100 series.

Bigger sensor, less pixels: the pixels are around 2x larger than in the ZR850. Maybe same size as a RX100?

The front lens is a sophisticated concave funnel design. It performs as well, or better than the ZR850 right up to the corners and this with less pixels. Compared to my venerable LX5 (@ f4 and +1 sharpening) it provides (wide open) sharper pictures, but with less dynamic range.

HDR tends to soften the images when pixel peeping, so I wouldn't recommend

Multi SRzoom makes for sharper (maybe oversharpened), but noisier and heavier images

Why oh why did they remove the MultiSRzoom from the mode dial? Instead there are things there that are never needed in a hurry like Time Lapse...

There is a second shutter release lower down on the front of the body and it can be programmed to do several things like continuous hi speed shooting or snapshots without focus. Pretty handy for discreet street photography in conjunction with the flip screen.

+ 19mm wide angle

+ optical quality

+ flip screen

+ thumb rest

+ lens ring

+ huge battery life

+ big pixels

+ shoulder strap

+ extra shutter release with snapshot function

+ easy manual focus

+ bigger on/off switch

- heavy CA

- no MultiSR zoom on dial

- low light IQ

 

[telefunk]

The rear dial works great, same as the ZR850.

Push left or right and you instantly go up or down in iso. In my case left is then auto iso limited to 400 iso. Right is going up the iso scale from 80 which is my default point.
Turning the dial immediately sets EV compensation in 1/3 steps. Instant, so no sub menu or confirmation needed. This makes for very fast adjustment which I now take for granted and sorely miss in my other cameras, though some have a dedicated EV dial.

Front dial mostly duplicates the function assigned to rear wheel. A puzzling philosophy that I also encountered on the LX15.

You can use the front ring to zoom, without the back wheel redundancy but with shutter release rocker duplication... go figure....

Iso is OK till 400, but I keep the camera on 80 at all times except when in low light. Then the best is to switch to BS (best scene) mode "night scene". You can see examples of this in my other thread. This works great even in the dead of night, easily beating my Sony A5100.

As a bonus to those who actually read the Casio threads here are some more pictures from these great cameras:

Mr Patience ZR850 @900mm

19mm sharp edge to edge

ZR5000 art level 1

 

[eilivk]

Last image great! Only see images by phone now. Also use lowest ISO with compacts when possible. interesting camera.

 

[rube39]

Great shots and thanks for the advice.

 

[Cyril Catt]

telefunk, thanks for posting those excellent examples. However, I was a bit concerned about the stability of some of those buildings. So, for a quick fix, I copied my computer screen's display with my iPhone and used SKRWT to prop them up a bit. Though the perspective looks safer, I'm afraid that my quick fix has lost the finer detail of the original.

Presumably, the scene is somewhere in northern France?

--
Cyril

 

[telefunk]

Cyril, you have improved quite a number of my pics. Do you know of any free perspective correction software? The Oly OM5 has it built in!

 

[telefunk]

Did you buy it? Did you?

 

[Cyril Catt]

telefunk wrote: Cyril, you have improved quite a number of my pics. Do you know of any free perspective correction software? The Oly OM5 has it built in!

I don't know of any free perspective correction software for Macs.

Apparently "PerspectiveImageCorrection" is freeware for Windows.

SKRWT is an app for iOS and Android, so not at all expensive.

DxO ViewPoint is possibly the best known perspective correction software for Macs, but is not free, and is a bit less easy to use than SKRWT.

Many Panasonic cameras come with free SilkyPix software that has perspective correction, but although a comprehensive photo editor, it is not particularly intuitive

 

[Erik Ohlson]

Not free, but I bought PSE8 for very little on eBay some time ago:

A lot of things like scanners are (or at least used to be) sold with PSE "Bundled" with the gear for tweaking scans. The owners often already have software, so they sell it on eBay.

A great part of getting PSE on a disk is that you own it - no monthly fees for the cloud based system. The 'bundled' disks work on bot Mac & windows.

Get the newest version that works with your operating system. I got this PSE8 some years ago for 12 bucks, and it works up to Mac OS10.6.8 - so I've just kept the computer at 10.6.8 - works fine although my ISP scolds me daily wanting me to "Upgrade". No thanks.







--
"Measure wealth not by things you have but by things for which you would not take money"
www.flickr.com/ohlsonmh/ [email protected]

 

[Cyril Catt]

Erik Ohlson wrote: Not free, but I bought PSE8 for very little on eBay some time ago:

A lot of things like scanners are (or at least used to be) sold with PSE "Bundled" with the gear for tweaking scans. The owners often already have software, so they sell it on eBay.

A great part of getting PSE on a disk is that you own it - no monthly fees for the cloud based system. The 'bundled' disks work on bot Mac & windows.

Get the newest version that works with your operating system. I got this PSE8 some years ago for 12 bucks, and it works up to Mac OS10.6.8 - so I've just kept the computer at 10.6.8 - works fine although my ISP scolds me daily wanting me to "Upgrade". No thanks. [...]

Back in the 'eighties, having begun basing all my home computing on the small but comprehensive AppleWorks/ClarisWorks suite, I was disappointed when, after about 25 years, and having survived several comprehensive hardware and software updates, an OS update finally stopped me from opening any of my thousands of old files. Until a few years later when I found that LibreOffice could open the old files, I maintained a 'heritage' Mac to deal with the problem.

But in retrospect, considering the rapid rate of technological change in the digital world, I think Apple's engineers did a fantastic job to maintain the program for so long. I only wish that there was a current program that was so comprehensive. :-(

--
Cyril

 

[telefunk]

I used to love Claris, so much simpler than Word.

 

[rube39]

I used to love Claris, so much simpler than Word.

I have used Nisus Writer for years now, find it much better than Pages or Word.

 

[Cyril Catt]

telefunk wrote: I used to love Claris, so much simpler than Word.

I have used Nisus Writer for years now, find it much better than Pages or Word. - Rube

I use Text Edit to compose short items, Pages or Nisus for more complex ones, but I really miss the Claris Draw option for easy drafting.

Still looking for a cheap MacOS app for perspective correction.

--
Cyril

 

[JABB66]

telefunk wrote: I used to love Claris, so much simpler than Word.

I have used Nisus Writer for years now, find it much better than Pages or Word. - Rube

I use Text Edit to compose short items, Pages or Nisus for more complex ones, but I really miss the Claris Draw option for easy drafting.

Still looking for a cheap MacOS app for perspective correction.

 

[Cyril Catt]

Thanks, JABB66 for forwarding the details about the PHOTO WORKS software. I appreciate your help, as I was looking for a simpler way of dealing with perspective correction than DxO ViewPoint or copying to the iPhone to use SKRWT. However, I prefer to continue using them, rather than provide the range of personal information demanded to open PHOTO WORKS.

 

[Cyril Catt]

Whoops! Franzis registration service has sent me the necessary ID and Regstration code to open the program - without my personal details. But I can't find any mention of perspective correction.

 

[JABB66]

Whoops! Franzis registration service has sent me the necessary ID and Regstration code to open the program - without my personal details. But I can't find any mention of perspective correction.

 

[rube39]

Whoops! Franzis registration service has sent me the necessary ID and Regstration code to open the program - without my personal details. But I can't find any mention of perspective correction.

 

[Texas hobbyist]

Anyone know the difference between the ZR5000 and the ZR5100?

 

[Guy Parsons]

Anyone know the difference between the ZR5000 and the ZR5100?

Nothing really significant for the photographers here.

The changes are in the Mode dial http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/Casio/ZR-dials/index.html and updated Makeup settings for the selfie freaks. The ZR5000 was announced in September 2016 and the ZR5100 in August 2017, so there may also be a bit more of other minor firmware changes or improvements.

Basically the Slow Motion Clip was the added feature on the Mode Dial, just a gimmick.

Regards..... Guy

 

[Texas hobbyist]

Thank you. That's about the only model one can locate in the US anymore. I love my 850 I purchased from Roland last year but would like a newer model while they can be located for purchase.