2023 Weekly Challenge Week 10 - Casio Exlim Z850

 Back in the 2000's Casio was well known for making innovative pocket digital cameras.  While Casio never made a DSLR or ICL Mirrorless camera, Casio Digital cameras were well known and popular for simple no-nonsense pocket cameras and a few high end, high speed bridge cameras.  

Casio made several innovations well before their time including a camera with a global shutter that could shoot up to 60fps at full resolution which was something that wouldn't be offered by other manufacturers till over a decade later. They also pioneered in-body charging using a custom docking station years before USB charging would make an appearance on compact cameras.

I only own one Casio digital camera, as they are fairly hard to come by. The brand is often sought out for by collectors for their unique properties. I don't own one of the high-speed cameras but mine does support charging via the docking station which I also own as you can see from the photos below:

On the surface the Exilim Z850 is nothing special. Released in 2006 it has a more premium 8.1mp 1/1.8" CCD sensor though it's ISO performance is limited to ISO 400 in spite of having a larger-then-normal sized sensor.  

It has very basic controls and can be operated in "Aperture Priority" mode with only two selections per focal length: Aperture wide open or stopped down one full stop.  That was it.  So for example at full wide zoom you had a choice between F2.8 or F4, and no other options.

It also has a max shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second and lacks a built in ND filter so there are times when outdoor lighting will exceed the exposure of F4 at 1/1000 of a second ISO 50.  I ran into this mid-day shooting it during late spring last year which meant that in extremely bright situations this camera is just as bad of a choice as it is for low light conditions.

If put into Auto ISO mode the camera will only choose 50, 100 or 200. To shoot at ISO 400 you need to manually select it from the main menu; there is no quick menu or shortcut to change this setting. Changing the Exposure comp is a quick menu function, so it is pretty easy to adjust for the camera underexposing or overexposing, a feature that is often buried under a menu or several button presses in other point and shoot cameras of this age.

This is another "I like this more then I should" camera. It has a nice metal brushed body, and very responsive buttons. Tacitly it feels premium even with the limits of the camera's aperture control, lack of RAW support and a fairly meh/ standard 3x optical zoom.

The reason I like this camera is for the Sensor and the clean "Film like" look it gets. Provided you don't have too little or too much light it takes really crisp vibrant shots with a similar look to the XZ-1 just a lot more limited to what it can do.  

The ISO may not extend past 400 but there is very little noise at 400 so Casio likely put this limit in so you got clean, quality and consistent looking photos regardless of what ISO the camera was set to.

For those who are looking for a Digital Pocket camera that mirrors the limits and look of a Film point and shoot- this camera is one of your better options.  

The drabness of this long winter we've been having doesn't do justice for how clean and vibrant this sensor is. For the samples gallery I'm going to include two photos I took during my week of shooting with it for the challenge, and two photos I took last year.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 9- Fujifilm A345

I had originally intended to review my very first digital camera with removable memory (an Olympus D-390) but since the only memory card it could read was corrupted and was beyond repair with formatting that digicam will have to wait another week till I get another small XD card that it will read.

So after wasting the first two days last week trying to get usable photos out of the Olympus D-390 I switched over to the Fujifilm A345 pocket camera.  This was the camera that went to a lot of different travel locations from 2005-2007 including Hawaii, Seattle and San Fransisco and my frustrations about its limitations as a travel camera is what led me to save up for my first DSLR and really get serious about Photography.

The Fuji A345 is one of the few early cameras in my collection that is the original camera and wasn't re-bought later. This is the very same camera that I wanted to chuck into the ocean in Hawaii because I was so frustrated with it. This blog post is a reflection from 17 years after the last time I really used it other then checking to make sure it turned on in 2018.

The Fujifilm A345 was a very minimalistic entry level pocket camera from 2005 with a 4.1 mp 1/2.5" CCD sensor.  I got mine in 2005 as an Open Box display model at one of the local electronics big box stores.

It has a fairly compact albeit thick footprint for digicams of the era especially those which took AA batteries. The Fuji A345 shoots on the proprietary to Olympus and Fuji XD memory which I don't have a reader for but thankfully the camera still has USB drivers for Windows 10.  It's comfortable to hold and shoot but that was perhaps the only thing I liked about this camera.

After shooting this camera for a few days I remember why this camera brought me to rage in my early days of Digital Photography. It's limited 3x optical zoom is extremely janky and not at all smooth, it pauses at three different "zoom levels" and you can't stop in-between.  

If you want to zoom in past the first stop you often have to tap the zoom lever more then once (you can't just hold it). The zoom lever itself is also something I hate- the rocker is stiff and not very responsive and it was this way in 2005 so I can't blame the camera sitting on a shelf for 15 years for this.

It also lacks a 4 way navigation control. To navigate the UI menus you have to use the zoom rocker to go up and down and the two left and right buttons to go left and right. Once you've used any digicam with the standard 4 way d-pad this feels extremely poorly designed and not very well thought out.

The camera does have exposure compensation but when I tried using it the output really didn't seem to change much.  It didn't significantly affect the output of the photo even when set to 1.5 above or below even exposure. While the camera has a fairly solid light meter and doesn't over or under expose that often its very frustrating not to have that control. The exposure comp is also buried in the menu system; there is no quick button or quick menu available to adjust exposure on the fly.

Output wise the photos are very often very cold for a CCD sensor, especially for a Fuji who was otherwise known to have incredible colors in their  CCDs (like with the Fujifilm S2 Pro DSLR).  Without that bump in saturation the photos looked pretty meh and being locked into JPEG shooting there was only so much I could do to change it.

The sensor also isn't the sharpest and has a lot of JPEG artifacting but that is to be expected with a 4mp digicam. This said the CCD in the Fuji A345 is still far better then the "newer" one on the GE RS1400 but that one is a very low bar to clear.

I was hoping that after my new found interest in Digicams I now have which I didn't have in 2005 would have made the Fuji A345 a much more enjoyable experience 17 years later, but honestly it wasn't that much better.  At the end of the day its a camera that can get the digicam "look" and runs off AA batteries but it is very frustrating to shoot. 

For me, how enjoyable and fun the camera is to shoot is often the most important thing when I do these reviews more so then even the results. Is the Fuji A345 the worst camera in my collection?  No.  But its a camera that frustrated me once back in 2005 and still frustrates me to shoot in 2023.

Here are some of the photos I was able to manage to take with the camera for the few days I took it back out. I'm glad I had nothing really exciting going on this week as this camera certainly would have missed a lot of shots with its laggy un-responsive zoom lever and slight shutter lag.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 8- Canon Powershot S90

The Canon Powershot S90 was Canon's first true premium sub-compact camera that came out in 2009.  It featured a large (for the time) 1/1.7" 10mp CCD sensor (the same sensor used in comparable G series Powershots like the G11) a fast f2 (at full wide angle) lens that dialed down to a reasonable f4.9 zoomed in, a fully customizable second command wheel around the lens with RAW shooting and Full Manual as well as priority modes.

Prior to the S90 the S series cameras while they offered more advanced controls and RAW shooting were not very compact and chunky cameras, with sliding lens covers that were prone to failure. And while they took decent quality images they were slow, non-responsive and very frustrating to use (I will be reviewing my older S series camera the S45 and I won't have nearly as much praise for it as I do the S90).

The S90 and S95 laid the foundation for the S1X0 series cameras which are about the smallest pocket cameras that you can buy that have two control wheels, RAW shooting and Full Manual control. Sadly I don't own a S1X0 series anymore (I had a S100 but traded it in towards a Panasonic LX100) currently but I may have the chance to review my friend's Canon Powershot S120 at some point in a future review this year.

This is a pocket camera I should be shooting a lot more then I do. It's limited 3.8x zoom is the big restriction from me taking it with me for everyday street photography as I prefer to have a bit more optical zoom so I can quickly change framing quickly. 

However the S90 is small, discreet and despite it being from 2009 still performs adequately in indoor lighting.  Between this camera and the Olympus XZ-1 (which I reviewed previously) I prefer the Olympus XZ-1 but only slightly.  This camera still delivers great looking shots on a crisp vibrant CCD sensor in a very small package that still gives me full control over taking the photo when I want it.

The camera has very little shutter lag and startup/shutdown lag.  It's not going to win any records for burst shooting but for a quick take out of pouch, take a shot, put back into pouch it works really well.

The Canon Powershot S90 is solidly built and has a nice comfortable weight to it.  It has the fairly standard "Deck of Cards" shape and lacks a grip on the front, but you can buy 3rd party adhesive rubber and 3D printed plastic and wood front grips that work well for it should you wish.

The front control ring was groundbreaking for pocket cameras at the time, and led to more modern cameras like the Sony RX100, Canon G9x and Panasonic ZS100 implementing this feature.  Without the Canon S90 we likely would have never seen this feature come to life.

The Canon Powershot S90 is a pioneer in high-end digital pocket cameras, and even in 2023 fourteen years later it is still Solid and a lot of fun to use.

I only ran into two issues with mine and this is likely specific case due to the age of the camera and usage. First off the battery life is not the best; but the batteries are so small and slim bringing a spare with is not a big deal.

Secondly my S90 has a weird glitch where it will refuse to focus on "landscape" images, that is a scene where all elements are beyond the infinity range of the camera under very specific conditions.  It will struggle with getting this infinity focus in less then ideal outdoor lighting conditions for example a very overcast day especially one with a little haze on the horizon. But I have not been able to replicate the issue indoors or in better lighting conditions outside IE a sunny day.

Overall I can easily give it a solid 8 out of 10. Its fun to shoot, can shoot in RAW and gets very appealing looking photos. The only reason I don't carry it more is the S90 still has some limitations namely a more limited optical zoom.  But as far as the vintage Digicams I own it, along with the Olympus XZ-1 both are in a league of their own.

So without further ado enjoy a few photos I took from the Canon Powershot S90 this week:

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 7 - Canon Powershot ELPH 190

 Just like the Sony WX50 the Canon Powershot ELPH 190 is another little pocket camera that is limiting and no frills; but I like it a lot more then I should.

This camera is the last of the ELPH series Canon made in 2016; and you can still find them new on store shelves on at times. It is also the last Canon Camera to have a CCD sensor.  CCD sensors may have met a swift end in the early 2010s in DSLR Cameras, but they live on in pocket cameras even to this day in cheaper brands (IE Kodak, Vivitar) that still make Digital Cameras.

The ELPH 190 has a 1/2.3" 20MP CCD Sensor, one pretty standard for its class.  Its small, sleek and has a solid 10x optical Zoom (which I didn't use much in this test due to it being winter but I have from photos taken with it in the past). It also marked the end of an era (mostly) for low-end budget pocket cameras. Higher end pocket cameras from major brands like the Sony RX100, Canon GXx series and Panasonic ZS200 would press on and are still made today. However the era of the under $200 brand new pocket camera of major brands is coming to an end.

I bought this camera in 2019 as a Birthday present for myself.  It was available in blue which happens to be my favorite color and brought a splash of color to my otherwise gray and black pocket camera shelf.

Unlike the Sony WX50 this camera doesn't have any sort of AI processing in it.  However with its CCD sensor it gets really vibrant high contrast photos so long as you have good lighting.  This is where the camera shines.  Unfortunately this week I didn't get outdoors much, so most of my test shots below are really pushing the camera's limit indoors instead and aren't quite as good as the camera is when being taken to an outdoor shoot.

The Canon Powershot ELPH 190 is very quick and responsive which are a must for a camera that was once a daily carry. There is no real startup, shutdown or shutter delay. Turn on, point, shoot, turn back off and put in it's belt case and move onto the next shot.  The 10x zoom is also really quick to span its entire range so I have zero complaints about its performance- something I have already ran into with a few of the cameras I reviewed so far (and have many more in my collection that are going to be far far less responsive then this camera is).

This camera was a stop-gap in my pocket everyday carry after my Panasonic LX100 died and I was less then impressed with its replacement (A Sony RX100 mark I). There were two major features this camera had that I looked for its replacement as a daily shooter by my Panasonic ZS100 in 2020: a 10X Zoom and wifi transfer.  Both of these made this little camera very versatile in the field in spite of its shortcomings (that the 1" sensor ZS100 overcomes somewhat).  It had a great zoom range for Street Photography, could do limited nature photography in a pinch, and I could transfer photos to touch up on to my phone and post up in the field.

It's a basic camera:  It can't shoot RAW (without the CHDK custom firmware), shoot in any Manual or Priority modes, and has a very limited usable ISO due to it's sensor.  The lens isn't that fast but it does have a good range and is sharp enough to render images from it's sensor well.  It's not going to win any awards but for a basic throw in the car camera to go anywhere it does a fairly solid job.

And now here's some photos that really test this camera's limits.  All things considered it still did a decent job with these mostly indoors photos.  It's not a great camera at all for taking action photos, but knowing it's limits in this regard it can still be used to get some fun creative content to take advantage of its higher resolution CCD sensor.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 6- Sony Cybershot S950

For this week's review I shot another Sony Cybershot camera, this one an older model from 2009 the Sony Cybershot DSC-S950.  This camera has a 1/2.3-inch 10mp CCD sensor and a lot less features to the WX50.  Its not nearly as small either and has the typical boxy shape that was common to digital pocket cameras in the late 2000s. This is another borrowed camera from a friend and it will be returning to him after finishing this review.

From the outside of the casing this camera looks very sharp.  It has a nice brushed metallic case and an engraved model name in the front plate of the camera. It holds pretty nice too with a nice weight, as the buttons and casing do not feel cheap at all. Some of the buttons are small and oddly placed which takes a hit in the ergonomics of this camera however.

Looks and feel are not the only thing that makes or breaks a pocket camera, and that was really the only thing this camera has going for it.  Like most early Cybershot cameras it uses Sony's proprietary Memory Stick (whereas the WX50 shoots the standard SDHC memory cards). 

Its screen is very low resolution with cold color representation (the actual photos the camera takes are much more vibrant then what is displayed on the preview screen) and has a very dim backlight; about on par with the display on the GE camera I reviewed (its abysmal).  This means its really hard to shoot in bright sunlight with no brightness or contrast settings I could find for the internal LCD screen. There was a lot of guesswork and mostly blind shooting when I was taking photos of the snow sculptures with it

The DSC-S950 is the epitome of basic. It even lacks a lot of the extra scene modes the WX50 had as well as the AI. It can not shoot in RAW nor Manual modes. It also struggled with White Balance on occasion, turning one of my friends into Shrek during a dinner outing I had it with at.

Three things makes this camera better then the GE camera I reviewed however:  Its sensor is vibrant and contrast rich when its spot on with the WB. The build quality is a lot better, and it uses a rechargeable LI-ION battery pack which is pretty standard for a pocket camera; its not a gamebreaker but it is something to consider.  On a computer the photos were a lot better then the preview screen would show, and lacked the haze and poor color saturation the GE had.  As far as handling and shooting I had a lot of the same or slightly different frustrations with this camera.

There is about a half second delay between when you press the shutter button and the shutter actually fires. Which is super annoying and means I have a lot of blurry photos since my hand had moved assuming the camera had already taken the shot.  It also means this camera is about the worst thing you could have when trying to take photos of something in motion as the subject will be in a slightly different position then when you had intended to take the photo.

Not surprisingly this camera did not handle indoor lighting that well at all.  But this was fairly common for pocket cameras of this era especially one that was not high end like a Panasonic LX3 or Canon S90.

The 4x zoom without a fast aperture also makes it meh to me; and while Zoom is not everything nor a dealbreaker when the rest of the camera is underwhelming it solidifies the case of it not being memorable in any way.

I do have to give it credit that its Macro mode was decent, and did a better and more consistent then the WX50 for the simple fact you could force Macro focusing.  It did a fairly decent job of the photo of the stadium miniature on the first attempt. But with the shutter delay you need to train yourself not to move the camera prematurely especially with Macro photography as even the slightest bit of handshake blur is extremely noticeable.

That said, the Sony Cybershot S950 wasn't the worst camera in this challenge by far (nor will it be the worst; I have far more terrible cameras then this to endure). Overall its just very underwhelming.

It can still get some nice photos as long as you don't preview them on its rather limited and meh rear screen and use it mostly for photos of things that are not moving with some pre-planning involved.  

So yes, it would work just fine for a family gathering where you want everyone to look and smile at the camera on each shot. But for Street Photography it was a bit frustrating to use because that half second of shutter delay is more then enough to miss a moment.

I did manage to get a few photos that turned out decent enough.  Having a CCD sensor meant the contrast and colors are boosted a bit but its far as vibrant of a CCD as something like the Olympus XZ-1 or Canon Powershot ELPH 190 (which will be on next week's review)

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 5 - Sony Cybershot WX50

The Sony WX50 is currently the smallest pocket camera I own. I used to have a Canon Powershot SD780 which I traded to a friend a few years ago, which was about the same size as the WX50. Needless to say as far as digicams go this one is one of the smallest you can find.

It's really hard to explain why I like this little camera. By all accounts this thing should be a fairly meh little pocket camera but I liked shooting with it far more then my late Powershot SD780, the smallest pocket camera that Canon ever made. So let's chalk up the physical size as being one of the primary reasons I like it and makes it Unique. The thing is small enough that I can fully conceal it in the palm of my hand, as you can see from the photos:

The WX50 has a 1/2.3" 16mp CMOS sensor. This is a pretty standard sensor for consumer pocket cameras of the Era and it would be pretty Meh if that's all it had going for it.  

But this tiny camera has a few features which make it unique enough that I enjoyed shooting it; even if I had to basically un-learn everything I know about photography while doing so. It's the ultimate pocket camera for someone who's used to shooting on a Smartphone and maybe that's part of the reason these actually go for the higher end of used DigiCams on E-Bay right now.

The Sony WX50 was launched in 2012, right around the cusp of when Smartphones started to enter a niche for Digital Photography, and it shows.  It has a rudimentary AI processing software built in the Firmware which automatically reduces noise (more then a standard in body noise reduction) and does a scene detection to determine what mode to use and apply settings and contrast adjustments based on that determination.  

It has a small amount of manually select-able "modes" you can access manually but if you let it just do its thing and shoot mindlessly it surprisingly does a pretty solid job. For example, you can't manually set it to Macro mode manually- but if you point it at something close to the camera it usually will pick this hidden mode and change the focus engine to match. 

One manually select-able mode it does have is 3D.  When the camera is in this mode it takes two photos right after each other and writes two files, the Standard .JPG file and a proprietary .MPO file.  This isn't a RAW file per-say but it contains two stacked images that you can open with a 3D viewer or convert via a converter tool into something like this.  The tool I used really reduced the overall photo quality and color saturation when I exported it (There may be better ones out there), but its still a cool effect.

 

The Sony WX50's rudimentary AI is far from perfect. For the example of Macro Photography it did get confused a few times and wouldn't switch into macro mode for some D&D miniatures the first time I tried it out.  

Future attempts where it did detect that Macro focusing should be used it did an adequate job, so when it worked it worked when it didn't it failed pretty spectacularly. I certainly wouldn't use this camera for Macro work seriously as a result.

Alongside the AI mode the WX50 has a built in HDR processor as many times the camera will take multiple photos in a burst and will stack them together to even out the highlights if you have it set to its "Intelligent Auto" mode. The AI mode also takes a few seconds to apply its processing to each photo- so if you make use of this feature you'll be stuck for a bit before you can snap another photo.

The camera's Smart mode did a good enough job that for the purpose of this challenge that's all I used outside of the 3D shots I took.

The one thing that really sets it apart is that it has exposure compensation available in these "Smart" modes even the Intelligent Auto mode- which is something that you really don't see in most other pocket cameras. So this still gives you some control over the image if you are willing to press buttons to change it.

The lens is surprisingly sharp and the in body sharpening and contrast adjustment actually does a really good job of pushing up the contrast and highlights to a point where a lot of the images actually looked quite decent straight out of the camera.  For the test shots below I didn't do any further edits other then some very minor exposure adjustments; these are all pretty much as the camera exported them as.

This camera would fall short for so many reasons for being a daily shooter for me.  Its 5x Optical Zoom is limiting, and still has all the limitations of a small sensor when it comes to Dynamic Range and very limited Low Light capabilities. 

It also can't shoot in RAW nor has any priority modes for serious work. But for a quick snapshot of something that's not too far away its actually quite a fun little camera. 

A camera like the Sony Cybershot WX50 becomes an alternative to shooting with my Smartphone; having about the same limited level of creative control and image quality. What it does add that my phone does NOT have is a large physical two stage shutter release, wrist strap, optical zoom lever and physical control buttons vs relying solely on the touchscreen which is my biggest turnoff of Smartphone photography (and why my phone will NOT be used in this blog other then using it to take a few occasional reference photos of the cameras themselves).

Overall the camera is just Fun and I can't explain why.  Some of it comes down to it just being small.  The WX50 also takes a Standard SDHC card instead of Sony's proprietary memory which is a plus. 

I wouldn't use it for anything serious, and it won't likely ever be one of my daily goto shooters; but for a tiny camera that's a lot smaller then a phone that I can hide fully in my hand it was actually a fun tiny digital camera and I think that's enough to say it makes the cut as something I would take out again.

Starting things off - About the DigiCam Den

Most Blogs and Reviews about Photography feature the person's Real Life name as a branding.  Such as "John Smith Photography".  This doesn't fit me, and I wanted a place where I could bridge the gap between my two lives as it were (my "Real" life and my lesser known internet presence and Aliases). Wracking my brain for ideas I came up with a combination of two themes that encompass some aspects of my other interests and communities while still being relatable to the general public.  And so North Wolf Photography and the DigiCam Den were born.

I tend to be a fairly private person online, often using nick names and aliases instead of my Real Life name.  While I don't mind my given name, it just sometimes doesn't feel like me. I also tend to be the person behind the camera NOT in front of the camera so yes, unless you know me in the real world or I choose to share my face for a specific reason that photo of a plush wolf with a camera I took back when I was first getting into Photography is what I'm going to hide behind.

I'm a person who lives in two places in the "Real World" with one set of Friends, my Family and Professional life.  And on the other mask if you will is a different community of friends who mostly know me by one particular interest and address me by my Alias name rather then my Real Name most of the time.

Social Media is a place where I had a hard time to merge these two interests.  I gave up on Facebook years and years ago and Twitter let's just say I live behind a mask there of a certain aspect of my interests that I know a lot of people will not understand.  And for what its worth with everything happening with Twitter I'm not sure how long that's going to be around anyway.

So its time I went back to my roots. I'm old enough to remember a time before Facebook and Twitter and even MySpace.  Back in the days of LiveJournal (which I won't go back to for well... Political reasons I won't get into). But this seems a viable alternative for that Retro Social Media feel in a space where I can type as much as I want and share with whomever I want.

I get nervous in front of a mic but I can type for days, so starting a Vlog on Youtube as much as I'd think its fun is not going to happen, also see the note above about not being super crazy about having my Real Life face out there for all to see every week either.

So enter the world of Blogging.  Its nothing new but just like some of my cameras old retro things can be quite functional and sometimes work even better then the hip new tiktok, tumblr or Instagram trends.  I'm too old and grumpy to keep up with kids these days.

It's time to go back to Old School Blogging.  On a subject that is a common interest and passion for me regardless of where you know me. I have a lot of knowledge and experience to share for those who are willing to read more then 250 characters and listen to me.

My current challenge is to shoot a camera a week for a year. 52 cameras ranging from cheap pocket cameras from the early 2000's I found at Goodwill to more modern DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras.

 Believe it or not I own almost enough cameras to do this on my own, and a few I either plan on picking up for cheap or loaning from friends will fill in that gap.  I have four cameras I have already shot that I need to catch up on- but its fresh enough on my mind it will be easy to do.

So with all that said Welcome to the DigiCam Den!