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Pogue Reviews Casio's 1,200FPS EXIFILM Pro EX-F1 (Verdict: Built for Pure Speed)
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 2:55 PM on April 8, 2008
We pretty much flipped over the Casio EXIFILM PRO EX-F1's insane rapid fire mode when we get our hands on it: 60fps still shooting, and up to a retardiculous 1200fps video for super slo-mo. David Pogue gives the full review, and spends a page lauding how freakin' fast this camera is. Besides loving the sheer rate of fire, he really digs the pre-record mode, which constantly shoots while you're just halfway pressing the shutter, so even if you're too slow to hit just the right moment, the camera's already got it. But! "Unfortunately, this highly unusual, almost experimental piece of equipment includes nearly as many downsides as breakthroughs."
The low light performance sucks, courtesy of a tiny light sensor, which is half the size of a beginner's DSLR. So you need brilliant lighting to avoid dim or blurry shots. And Casio's solution of "one of the brightest and fastest flashes ever on a consumer camera" ain't much of one, unless you're into harshly lit photos.
Topping that bit of suck off, the digital (not optical) eyepiece is crummy, and both start-up and focusing are sloooow. No zooming, during HD video capture either. And high-speed videos offer no sound or any setting changes mid-filming. But overall, Pogue says that those sniggles are "like complaining that your 7-year-old violin virtuoso is lousy at sports" and that "Casio deserves congratulations for innovating in so many big, bold, industry-defying ways." Buy it for speed, not the other stuff. [NYT]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
MyPetFly
Posted 2:12 PM 8/4/08
Hell, I'd buy one of those. Anyone that's going to shoot those kinds of frame rates would need suplemental lighting anyway. I want one!
MyPetFly
MisterSleep
Posted 2:43 PM 8/4/08
Everyone I know is going to going to get a flipbook of me sneezing in slow motion for Christmas this year.
MisterSleep
fastmike
Posted 3:46 PM 8/4/08
i wouldnt buy this purely because of the brand name...I,l always relate CASIO to those cheap digital watches from the 80s
fastmike
CODIFEROUS
Posted 5:09 PM 8/4/08
Retardiculous FTW!
CODIFEROUS
kickace
Posted 5:18 PM 8/4/08
i wonder what porn would look like at 1200 frames per second
i bet awesome
kickace
ps61318
Posted 9:08 PM 8/4/08
@kickace: Hmmmmm. If by "awesome" you mean "disgusting because you can see every wrinkle, blemish, piece of fakery, and piece of cellulite highlighted in super-slow motion," then, yeah, awesome it might be.
ps61318
scarbrtj
Posted 9:00 PM 8/4/08
Seems like this rookie has a good shot at the Piston Cup.
scarbrtj
strider_mt2k
Posted 9:53 PM 8/4/08
I guess mentioning porn is the new HD meme.
It seems to me that with the specs being touted here that there would HAVE to be some major compromises in other areas.
That frame rate is...hmmm...if someone could only come up with an accurate descriptor...
Pogue is always a great read.
I miss his show.
strider_mt2k
ps61318
Posted 10:57 PM 8/4/08
@Yossarian: So we have slow, blurry, porn. Don't know why, but that just takes me right down memory lane....
ps61318
Yossarian
Posted 10:42 PM 8/4/08
@ps61318: You wouldn't be seeing any details with this thing thanks to the fact that its 1200 fps mode is something like 320x240. Get out that magnifying glass.
I'd have to disagree with Pogue here. Casio shouldn't be lauded for doing something different; they should be ridiculed for trying to cram in capabilities that have no place on a still camera, let alone a consumer-grade camera.
If you want to shoot slow motion video, you want something we in the industry call a "video camera" - and a good one at that. If you want to shoot pictures, you want your camera to be able to handle less-than-perfect lighting - unless you're a well-appointed hobbyist or pro, in which case you have both a better camera and lighting equipment.
Pogue names several absolute deal-killers for a camera, then he says, "But ooh, look - it can shoot those crappy pictures really fast!" Yeah, I'll definitely be picking up one of these.
Yossarian
mdnttoker
Posted 1:51 AM 9/4/08
The underlying technology is actually licensed from Sony. Casio is clearly doing a better marketing job though...
mdnttoker
m4ximusprim3
Posted 1:36 AM 9/4/08
@Yossarian: I'm not sure you totally respect how fast 1200 FPS is. It's unheard of in any consumer gadget.
I would assume the resolution limit is due to image storage bandwidth limitations, which should go away as storage media gets better. Overall, this is a very good first step toward crazy, crazy cameras.
m4ximusprim3
LittleJon
Posted 1:58 AM 9/4/08
@mdnttoker: The sensor is Sony's, but it takes more to build a camera than just the sensor.
LittleJon
mdnttoker
Posted 2:56 AM 9/4/08
@LittleJon:
Agreed, but you need a hell of a sensor to support those kinds of read-out rates...
mdnttoker
powerball
Posted 4:50 AM 9/4/08
I wonder what Sony is going to do with this sensor, if Casio can do it Sony can do it better. The other thing you need besides a CMOS Sony sensor is ram, lots of buffer. Nothing impressive here for Casio, just the first. I shot this at PMA, it looks ok on their LCD, we'll see how it translates to prints and TV.
powerball
Yossarian
Posted 5:33 AM 9/4/08
@m4ximusprim3: No, I know full well how fast it is and that it's something completely new. My point is that until the image quality at least catches up to that of a cell phone camera, 1200 fps is a novelty.
The point of good slow motion is that you can see detail, and you just can't at that resolution - yes, it's a buffer limitation, but until they have issues like that worked out, it doesn't deserve to have praise piled on it; it's releasing a new implementation of technology before it's actually ready simply in order to get name recognition (because, really, who buys something that says Casio on it and isn't a cheap wristwatch or calculator?).
Yossarian
1roll20s
Posted 6:22 AM 9/4/08
You can get a still impressive 300fps as a reasonable resolution. I think the camera is a very cool idea.
1roll20s