Physical Tour

**Back
**The design of the back of the camera also doesn’t to have changed much after several iterations – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, we suppose. Most of the metal rear section is taken up by the 2.5-inch LCD. On the left side of the back, it’s almost a shock to see a little porthole for the optical viewfinder, considering that most small camera models have done away with this feature. At the top of the LCD on the right are the playback button and the mode buttons. On the right is the control dial with eight straightforward icons marking the settings – another enduring and endearing Casio trait. Below the dial are the menu button and the multi-controller. At the very bottom is the display button.

On the left edge of the rear of the camera are a button for setting the continuous shooting mode and the "EX" button, which allows for one-touch manual adjustment of multiple camera settings on one screen.

**Left
**The left side of the camera has four screws to hold the two metal plates together and a small speaker for playing back sound in movies and audio clips. The left rear side – as stated above – also has a continuous shooting mode button and the EX button.

**Right
**The right side of the camera also has four screws to bolt the two metal sections together and a raised chrome lug for the hand strap.

**Top
**On the top of the camera on the right is a big chrome zoom lever with a chrome shutter release button in the middle. Next to it on the left is a small on/off button. In etched letters on a light silver band across the top, going from left to right, it states the megapixel capability of the model and the model’s name.

**Bottom
**The bottom of the camera has a sliding door for the battery and an SD memory card slot. There’s also a metal tripod mount and port to connect to the included dock.

Components

**Viewfinder
**The welcome surprise of the Z850 is its optical viewfinder. While most compact digital cameras have ditched this feature in deference to the large LCD on the back, the Z850 is able to get the best of both worlds with optical and LCD viewing capability. Compact models at the higher end seem to maintain their optical viewfinders, but with LCD screens getting larger and larger we wonder how long users will appreciate this feature until it too becomes a rarity.

**LCD Screen
**Casio runs into trouble here with its LCD. While we love the large screens on small digital cameras, why oh why do manufacturers fill them with so few pixels, especially on the advanced models? On the Z850’s 2.5-inch screen, there are only 115,200 pixels, which is not nearly enough to get an accurate read of captured image quality. Perhaps general consumer electronics manufacturers, including Sony and Panasonic, are less mindful of photographers’ particular needs? In contrast, Nikon, Canon and Kodak included lovely screens with upwards of 230,000 pixels this year.

On the upside, the LCD does include Casio’s "Super Bright" technology. According the press material, it generates about 1,200 cd/m2 of luminescent output, which is designed to make it easier to view when outdoors. Unfortunately, since we saw this camera tethered to a booth at a trade show, we weren’t able to fully review this feature in a variety of lighting conditions. We’ll revisit it in an upcoming full review.

Flash
**

**The Z850’s flash ranges from 0.33’ to 14.11’ (W) and 1.64’ to 7.87’ (T). An interesting new feature called Rapid Flash lets the user take three flash photos in succession in one second to better capture the moment. When the EX-Z850 is in this mode, also called Flash Continuous Shutter, the flash’s range is 1.31’ to 10.83’ (W) and 1.64’ to 5.91’ (T). We will more fully test these specs and flash performance under controlled conditions in a follow-up review.

Other flash modes on the camera are Auto Flash, Forced flash ON, OFF, High Power Flash, Soft Flash and Red-eye reduction which uses a pre-flash.

**Lens
**The variable focal length lens on the Z850 is a pretty standard 3x zoom, which translates to approximately 38mm (W) to 114mm (T) in a 35mm format. The lens is made up of 7 elements in five groups with an aspherical lens. Aperture range is f/2.8 (W) to f/5.1(T). Along with the 3x zoom, the camera comes with an 8x digital zoom for a total of 24x when combined. As always, consumers should be aware that digital zoom degrades the image. On brief tests with the camera’s 3x optical lens, the zoom seemed fairly responsive though further testing will be necessarily to evaluate color fringing and corner sharpness.

Design / Layout

**Model Design / Appearance
**While it has a nice, classic style and is rock solid, the Z850 is not a thrill to look at.

But though it lacks some sparkle, the sturdy all-metal Z850 does feel good in your hand. It’s well balanced, evenly proportioned and has a straightforward classy design that’s obviously the result of much trial and error. We can’t fault Casio for going with a conservative style – we know there are a lot of unpleasant-looking experimental cameras out there – but I wish that they had done something to add a little pizzazz.

**Size / Portability
**Dimensions on the camera – as expected with a line name that’s a near rhyme with "slim" – are petite. The Z850 measures in at 3.5" (W) x 2.3" (H) x 0.93" (D), which is almost the exact same dimensions of comparable cameras from Sony. However, despite its weight of 4.59 ounces unloaded, the Z850 though feels more substantial than its counterparts.

For carrying around just about anywhere, this camera is ideal. It’s solid enough and seemingly scratch-resistant for all kinds of travel but light enough such that it won’t feel uncomfortable in your pocket.

**Handling Ability
**The Z850 handles great. It’s well balanced, is smooth to the touch and has enough heft from its all-metal body to feel like a serious device. The zoom lever is responsive and easy to use, and

while using this camera will be a little unwieldy if your hands aren’t small, that’s the tradeoff for having a camera you can slip into your pocket.

**Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size
**Button layout and dial positioning seems about as good as you’re going to get on a camera this small. Casio does a good job of putting buttons in places you can get at without the impression of too much clutter. There are maybe a few more buttons than on your average slim camera but it’s not really noticeable because use of space has been optimized. Again, this camera is made for people with small hands, though people with large hands though could do worse on some cramped competing models.

**Menus
**The Casio menu system has also traditionally been a strong point over the years with easy to read fonts and a great choice of color themes (light and dark greens and browns, orange arrows) that are easy to navigate. Scrolling through the Casio menus feels efficient and you definitely don’t waste time falling into dead ends. The clean steel multi-selector on the back of the camera, while certainly not revolutionary, is easy to use and helps to move through menus quickly. Iconography for the various Best Shot modes are also clear and helpful text explains what each mode does. Casio has licensed the eBay name for its eBay Best Shot mode for the next year and the eBay logo appears on the screen when that mode is selected.

Considering how many features and functions Casio has packed into the Z850, everything is efficiently and clearly organized within the menus.

**Ease of Use
**Despite packing a range of functions into the small Z850, it’s fairly easy to use even for the novice. Advanced users will like the EX button on the back of the camera that lets you switch into aperture and shutter priority with the touch of one button and via one screen. Beginning users will like the easily selectable Best Shot modes which are featured on the control dial with a BS tag and easily navigable through the color coded, icon-laded menu system. Though there are indeed enough features to keep you crawling through this camera for two days or more, Casio does a good job of arranging them all in a logical and accessible order.

Modes

**Auto Mode
**While many camera manufacturers designate their auto mode with a green symbol, Casio goes against the grain a bit, marking it on the mode dial with a red box. In the auto mode, the camera takes over controlling a variety of features, including shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Users who want more choices can select the BS symbol, or Best Shot mode, on the dial which lets you pick from 34 preset modes. Those who want even more control should try the "A," "S" and "M" settings which handle manual and aperture and shutter speed priority options.

**Movie Mode
**The Z850 can shoot MPEG-4 movies in three formats. In its HQ (high quality) format, movies are captured at 640 x 480 pixels at approximately 4 MB per second at 30 frames per second. With the camera’s measly 8 MB of internal memory you can capture about 16 seconds of video in this format. With a 256MB SD card, you can capture approximately 8 minutes and 21 seconds of video.

In the Normal mode, video is also captured at 640 x 480 but at 2.1 MB per second, 30 fps. The 8 MP of internal memory can capture approximately 31 seconds of video. With a 256MB SD card, it’s approximately 15 minutes and 52 seconds. In the LP (long play mode), video is captured at 320 x 240, 745 KB per second, 15 fps. With the internal memory, you can capture about 1 minute, 27 seconds in this format. With a 256MB card, about 44 minutes and 17 seconds.

When shooting long movies, the camera automatically reduces camera shake electronically. In dimly lit settings, the Z850’s built-in Illumination LED light will marginally help light up a scene. Unlike some competitors who keep the movie mode pretty basic, Casio includes 9 Best Shot movie settings on the EX-Z850—Portrait, Scenery, Night Scene, Fireworks, Backlight, High Sensitivity, Silent, Short Movie, Past Movie. The EX-Z850 also offers a Motion Print function, for extracting stills from clips.

**Drive / Burst Mode
**The Z850 does have several continuous shutter modes including normal speed, high speed, flash continuous, zoom and multi. Unfortunately full specs for all these modes were not available at press time, though we can give a few details. Multi Continuous Shutter provides 25 low-res images on a single frame, like an index print; other cameras have modes comparable to this. However, we already mentioned Flash Continuous Shutter, which can supposedly take 3 pictures—with flash—in a single second. This is truly unique. Also unique is the Zoom Continuous Shutter, which can supposedly record two images with one press of the shutter button, the second of which is an enlarged area of the first.

Unfortunately, we did not have an opportunity to test these claims at PMA. We will look at the Z850’s continuous drive modes more thoroughly in an upcoming full review.

**Playback Mode
**Playback mode is engaged by pressing the green playback button on the top back of the camera. It’s one of the few areas on the EX-Z850 that’s not especially exciting. It offers typical options like a favorites folder, a calendar view and the ability to copy images from the internal memory to the card, and editing options like resize, rotate and trim for editing; the date edit function is maybe the most unusual, but that’s not saying much. I couldn’t even find a slide show option in-camera or on the spec sheet, though hopefully this is only because my time with the Z850 was limited and not because Casio didn’t include one.

**Custom Image Presets
**Casio heaps on Best Shot modes galore on the Z850 – 34 in all, and that’s not including the 9 Best Shot Video modes. One mode to note on this model, as well as on the Z60 and Z600, is the new eBay Best Shot Mode which is the 21st of the 34 Best Shot modes. This mode was added to these models as part of a licensing agreement with eBay, which remains one of the world’s most popular websites and is one of the Internet’s most marketable brands. While having the eBay name and logo in the Best Shot modes might be a good hook for Casio, the mode itself does not seem to do too much other than downsample an 8MB image to 2MB. Granted, most consumers probably wouldn’t want to do this basic task in Photoshop, but to call it an "eBay" mode rather than a basic Internet mode is a bit misleading. To be fair, the eBay Best Shot mode does includes an Auto Macro feature that’s not bad for shooting close-up images of items you want to post on eBay. But why not have a feature in the mode to make colors pop, or to optimize lighting or anything else to make that dreary picture of your red galoshes a little more presentable?

The Best Shot function also adds an "Old Photo" Best Shot Mode, which, according to Casio, "refreshes faded colors of old photos by bringing them back to life in digital format." We’re not exactly sure how this works, but at an initial glance, it seems like it boosts illumination and adds some contrast to faded 2-dimensional photos.

Aside from eBay and Old Photo, the custom image presets are: Portrait, Splashing Water, Pastel, Scenery, Sundown, Illustration, Portrait With Scenery, Night Scene, Cross, Children, Night Scene Portrait, Monochrome, Sports, Fireworks, Retro, Candlelight Portrait, Food, Twilight, Party, Text, ID Photo, Pet, Collection, Flower, Businesscard and documents, Natural Green, Backlight, Autumn Leaves, Anti-Shake and White board, etc.

Control Options

**Manual Control Options
**Since it’s aimed at a slightly more advanced group of users, the Z850 offers some pretty good manual features. For those who want a little more creative control, there are both aperture and shutter speed priority AE options. Those settings can be accessed either via the mode dial or by the handy EX button on the back left of the camera. The "one-touch" EX button lets the user manually adjust several camera settings on one screen – including ISO, exposure, shutter speed, aperture, white balance and other functions. Kudos to Casio for giving so much control to the user. Surprisingly, some of the major photo-centric camera manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon don’t even offer this much control on their top slim point-and-shoot models.

**Focus
***Auto Focus
*The 9-Point Multi AF offers the user a good range of focus areas that are clearly indicated on the screen. If a subject has multiple focus points, the autofocus does a good job of showing you just which spots you can hit. It’s also pretty quick, using contrast detection to lock in on a subject with just a half tap of the shutter button. There are also quite a few focus modes – Auto Focus, Macro mode, Pan Focus (movie only) Infinity mode and manual focus. Approximate auto focus ranges are: Auto Focus, 15.75" to infinity; Macro, 3.94" to 19.69."

*Manual Focus
*Under the manual focus setting, the user can select the AF area: selectable spot AF, multi AF or free AF. There’s also an AF Assist Light. Manual focus range is 3.94" to infinity.

**Metering
**Light metering is fairly standard on the Z850 with three settings – Multi-pattern, center-weighted and spot by CCD.

**Exposure
**Good control of exposure on Z850 is a welcome surprise. The camera has four settings – Program AE, Shutter Speed Priority AE, Aperture Priority AE and Manual exposure. Exposure compensation is also available from –2 to +2 EV in 1/3-stop increments.

**White Balance
**Another great function on the Z850 is the ability to adjust white balance manually. Enthusiasts and even some pros who might carry the Z850 around as a pocket camera will love being able to adjust the white balance as per the environment and/or the environmental conditions. There is also an Auto WB setting and six pre-set modes, calibrated to common light sources.

**ISO
**ISO is one area where the Z850 disappoints. Given all the manual controls, features and options, you’d think this camera would give you a broader range of sensitivity settings than it does. Unfortunately all you get is selectable ISO from 50 to 400. There is apparently also an ISO 1600 setting but that’s only selectable when the Best Shot Anti-Shake or High Sensitivity preset has been chosen. We’ll explore the capabilities of this 1600 setting in the full review.

**Shutter Speed
**Under Program AE, shutter speed on the Z850 is from 1/2 to 1/1600 of a second. In Shutter Speed Priority and Manual Exposure AE, it’s from 60 to 1/600th of a second. In Aperture Priority AE, it’s from 1 to 1/1600 of a second.

**Aperture
**In Program and Shutter Speed Priority AE, aperture ranges from f/2.8 to f/8. In Manual Exposure and Aperture Priority AE, it’s from f/2.8 to f/4.

Image Parameters

**Picture Quality / Size Options
**Still images can be captured in several sizes on the Z850. At 3264 x 2488 pixels in the Fine, Normal and Economy sizes, file sizes are 4.8 MB, 3.18 MB and 1.63 MB. Captured in the smallest size of 640 x 480 pixels in the Fine, Normal and Economy quality settings, file sizes are 360 KB, 240 KB and 120 KB.

In between these two extremes, users can also select options of 2816 x 2112, 2304 x 1728 and 1600 x 1200 in 4:3 aspect ratio, and 3264 x 2176 in 3:2 aspect ratio, optimized for 4 x 6-inch prints.

**Picture Effects Mode
**Casio was vague on this one. I could not find any picture effects in-camera, on the spec sheets or according to the Casio booth. Casio’s web page states that the EX-Z850 contains "Color enhancement / Color collection" but what that means or does is anyone’s guess.

Casio does include what might be considered picture effects as separate scene modes, though, with its Best Shot options like Pastel, Monochrome and Retro.

Connectivity / Extras

**Connectivity
***Software
*A CD-ROM is included with Casio’s basic software, Photo Loader and Ulead Movie Wizard SE VCD, which includes drivers and utilities.

*Jacks, Ports, Plugs
*Connections on the Z850 are made through its cradle which has a port for USB 2.0, audio/video output and power for recharging the battery. The kit comes with the cradle, USB cable, A/V cable, AC power cord and special AC adaptor.

*Direct Print Options
*The Z850 is DPOF compliant and can communicate with printers when on its cradle.

*Battery
*Consumer electronics companies definitely shine when it comes to the batteries in their digital cameras. The Z850’s "Super Life" lithium-ion battery is rated by CIPA at 440 shots per charge, which is on the more efficient end for digital cameras. We’ll test these capabilities fully in an upcoming review.

*Memory
*The 8 MB of internal memory in the 8 MP camera is so small that it’s almost insulting to include it. I suspect it was included so dealers can show the camera’s capabilities to potential buyers without the risk of inserting an easily-stolen memory card. You should definitely purchase a big SD card if you buy this model, preferably at least 1 GB, since this camera can capture some pretty big files.

Overall Impressions

**Value
**With a price tag of just under $400, the Z850 is at the higher end of point-and-shoot cameras. You get some pretty impressive features with the Z850, including a huge 8 MP sensor, a plethora of Best Shot modes, helpful functions such as Anti-Shake DSP and white LED illumination for both still images and movies, super battery life and a range of manual options. For all that money though you’d think Casio would have put a better LCD on the back of this camera. Just 115,000 pixels on a 2.5-inch screen doesn’t cut it in this price range.

Of course, we still need to look at image quality is our full review to see if those 8 MPs are really being fully utilized in this model, or if it’s just a number to sell more cameras.

**Who It’s For
***Point-and-Shooters –* A great pocket camera with a lot of firepower, the Z850 is made to order for the point-and-shoot crowd, though they might be disappointed by the relatively low resolution on the screen.

Budget Consumers – This camera is definitely aimed at the consumer with a little extra spending money. Budget consumers interested in Casio should look at the $249 EX-Z60 instead.

Gadget Freaks – Gadget freaks will probably have fun picking through the layers on layers of features in this camera, though there’s nothing really cutting edge to satisfy them over the long haul.

Manual Control Freaks – This camera surprises with its range of manual control, including aperture and shutter priority AE and the ability to manually select white balance. While not offering as much control as a DSLR, it’s not bad for a little camera like this.

Pros / Serious Hobbyists – If this model stands up to quality tests in an upcoming review, we’d recommend it to pros and hobbyists as a great 8 MP pocket camera you can bring along as a fun backup.

Conclusion

**Conclusion
**For a camera this small, the Casio EX-Z850 certainly packs in everything but the kitchen sink. Starting with the powerful 8 MP sensor and going to the superb battery life which is rated at 440 shots, there’s a lot under the hood of this petite, all-metal point-and-shooter. Best of all, there are manual control options for more experienced photographers, including aperture and shutter priority AE and manual white balance. Those who like to let the camera do all the work can pick one of 34 of the Z850’s Best Shot modes, including 9 more in the camera’s Best Shot video mode.

On the downside, the LCD’s resolution is far too low to be able to check 8 MP images for quality. There are also a couple of gimmicky options such as the eBay Best Shot mode, which seems more of a marketing maneuver than anything else. The design, while very sturdy, is a bit dull and it would be nice to see Casio bring some of the experimental elements from some of its other models into the Zoom line. Overall though, this camera is incredibly easy to use and highly functional and should be a good choice for everyone from beginners to more advanced users. Once we can full evaluate image quality check out how well the 8 MP imager in this model captures pictures, we’ll know if all these options add up to real quality.