As Casio Europe notes, "the perfect moment pays no attention to ideal photo conditions." The company has released a couple of new cameras which aim to crash through common barriers that stand in the way of good photos, such as moving objects in the distance or poor lighting conditions. Wide-angle lenses and mechanical image stabilization have been included on both new additions, the EX-H5 benefiting from 10x optical zoom and the EX-FH25 combining high speed technology with a new "high sensitivity CMOS sensor" for quality shots.
Casio has certainly crammed some useful technology into the compact 4.07 x 2.33 x 1.14 inch dimensions of the EXILIM EX-H5. There's a 12.1 megapixel CCD sensor and a 24 mm to 240mm wide-angle lens with 10 x optical zoom for starters. The "the ideal tag along camera" is how the company describes the new model, "no matter whether at family parties, out with friends or weekend trips - the EXILIM EX-H5 will capture all the great moments of life in high quality."
As well as a startup time of less than a couple of seconds, a battery life capable of delivering 240 shots between charges, CCD shift image stabilization and intelligent autofocus, the compact also includes a speedier EXILIM Engine 5.0 processor to handle image quality, take care of color and noise and also offer editing functionality. All of which is said to lead to "even better performance and is even faster, ensuring effective moiré and noise suppression without losing details."
In common with most digital cameras these days, the EX-H5 is capable of shooting high definition movies. In this case at 32 frames per second, 720p in Motion JPEG format. All of the photo and video action is viewed via a 2.7 inch 960 x 240 LCD display on the camera's rear. There's a raft of helpful automatic features to help users capture the perfect moment, including face detection and BEST SHOT modes, although not as many as the EX-FH25.
Make way for the superzoom
Having previously enjoyed a Japanese release, the EXILIM EX-FH25 superzoom is now available in Europe. This model is geared towards helping the user get the best shot no matter the conditions, as the raft of high speed BEST SHOT auto settings confirm - one of which snaps three shots at different light settings and merges the images into one HDR photograph. The High-Speed Burst of up to 30 photos per second makes it unlikely that users will miss a great photo opportunity and poor lighting conditions should present little problem to the 10.1 megapixel high sensitivity CMOS sensor.
Then there's the 26 mm to 520mm wide-angle lens with 20 x optical zoom with CMOS shift image stabilization, startup time of just over 3 seconds and a 340 image battery life. The 4.82 x 3.2 x 3.32 inch camera gives users both a 3 inch 960 x 240 "super clear" LCD and a 0.2 inch electronic viewfinder to the rear and both RAW and JPEG image formats. High-speed film recording of up to 1000 frames per second is on offer for super slowmo as well as 16:9 aspect 720p high definition recording at 30 frames per second.
Both cameras record images and video to SD/SDHC memory cards and offer numerous helpful auto settings to help users get the best from the cameras, including a dedicated YouTube capture setting for frustration upload to the internet.
The EH-H5 has a recommended retail price of EUR199 (about US$240) and the EX-FH25 EUR399 (about US$481), with no word on US release. More information is available at Casio's EXILIM Europe website.