Casio Exilifilm F1 – Brilliant Pictures And Video Too
The EX-F1 is such an interesting camera, in what I believe will be the first of a growing market segment, that it’s hard to categorize. Call it a crossover, or describe its marriage of stills and video as convergence, but regardless – whereas it stands virtually alone today, it won’t in the months and years ahead.
This is both a stills and a video camera. And while even the lowliest pocket point-and-shoot now records video (as do many cell phone cameras), the video produced by the Casio Exilim f1 isn’t a tacked-on afterthought; it’s the real deal. More on this in a moment.
As a very basic stills camera the EX-F1 is pretty much in the mold of many superzooms, and looks a lot like one. It has a 36 – 432mm (equiv) lens with an aperture of f/2.7 – f/4.6. It shoots 6 MP images with its Sony built CMOS sensor, which is of 1/1.8″ format (7.18 X 5.32mm). In other words, the lens on this sensor has a multiplier factor of 5X over 35mm, again, typical of this type of so-called superzooms.
At just 6MP it lags behind current competitors, which typically offer 8 – 10MP sensors, but it makes up for it by offering raw mode, something rarely seen in this sort of camera. And, much to Casio’s credit, rather then inventing unique raw format number 247 it shoots to the standard DNG format, so popular raw converters such as Photoshop’s Camera Raw and Adobe Lightroom can handle it right out of the box.
There’s so much more to the stills side of the equation, but let’s take a moment to return to video. The camera is quite capable of shooting Standard Definition as well as High Definition video, the later in both 720P and 1080i. These are two of the most common broadcast HD formats. 1080i is 1920 X 1080 pixels, interlaced, and 720P is 1280 X 720 pixels, progressive scan.
The recording media used by the Casio is standard SD cards, preferably SDHC – and as we’ll see, the bigger and faster the better.
If that’s all that the Casio Exlim F1 was and did it would be pretty cool. As we’ll see, it’s a competent digital stills camera with a very good lens, offering long reach, and though at 36mm not as wide as one would wish it’s certainly long enough (and as we’ll see as well, for video in fact possibly too long, because the camera’s image stabilization is substandard ).
But, there’s a lot more – much more. The EX-F1 is capable of shooting six megapixel stills at up to 60 frames per second, and video at up to 1200 frames per second. Neither of these capabilities has even been seen before in a consumer priced camera ($1,000 retail in the US), or in one that combines both capabilities and which can fit in the palm of one hand.
The ins and outs of how the camera shoots these high speed (and slow speed) stills and videos will be explored further below, but first, and before anyone becomes too excited, we need to address the question of image quality.
Please visit my compare digital cameras website. Which has the Casio F1 review plus many more camera reviews and articles.
Tags: 32mm - 720p - Adobe Lightroom - Aperture - Casio Exilim - casio exilim f1 - casio exlim f1 - casio f1 review - Convergence - Converters - Crossover - Dng Format - High Definition - Interesting Camera - Market Segment - Mold - Multiplier Factor - Progressive Scan - Raw Format - Raw Mode - Real Deal - Sd Cards - Video Camera
