Casio QV-4000

Casio's latest offering may sport the usual digital camera design, but the 4-megapixel QV-4000 has features you wouldn't take for granted in a digital camera.

Best Shot
One of the highlights of this still camera is Casio's popular Best Shot mode, which instantly recalls the best camera settings for shooting in various scenes. For example, during Night Scene mode, the camera turns off the flash and uses a slow shutter speed of up to 1 second. There are five built-in Best Shot modes: People, Scenery, Flowers, Night Scenes and Soft Focus. The included CD-ROM contains 100 more preset modes that can be copied onto the CompactFlash memory for instant recall. You can even save your own customized camera settings as Best Shot scenes for quick and easy access in the future.

Digital Soft Focus
However, according to Casio, the unique feature of the QV-4000 is the Digital Soft Focus mode which the company claims is a world's first for a digicam. Similar to the effect of using lens filters, the soft focus function gives images a soft, dreamy look while maintaining the quality of the original picture. This is useful when taking portraits, such as personal and wedding ones and certain product snapshots.

Advanced Camera Features
As a digital camera, the integral features are there. You'll find a 3x optical zoom lens with the option of digitally zooming up to 3.2 times. The QV-4000's 4.13-megapixel CCD sensor can capture images at the highest resolution of 2,240 x 1,504 pixels in either JPEG or TIFF format. For recording short video clips, the digicam comes with a movie recording mode that can capture up to 30 seconds of AVI (320 x 240) clips. An auto-stitch panaroma mode helps combine multiple images into a seamless 360-degree endeavor. There's also a fully automatic capture mode for simple point-and-shoot convenience.

But for those seeking more out of their camera, the QV-4000 has an impressive list of advanced manual features. One of them is real-time histogram display during recording and playback, which provides valuable feedback on the exposure of the image under different lighting conditions.

In addition to the various auto focusing (AF) options, such as Multi-area AF and Spot AF, the camera also comes with AF assist light for improved focusing in dim light, and Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) mode for recording three to five images of the same scene in different exposure settings.

But the feature we found most useful is the orientation detection. This automatically shows the picture the correct side up even when shots are taken in portrait (vertical) mode, making it much easier to view images during playback.

Great Quality Captures
Although each image captured at the highest resolution took up an average of about 1MB (which is approximately 16 shots on the included 16MB CompactFlash card), it was well worth the space used as the pictures turned out really good. For indoor as well as outdoor shots, the high-resolution CCD sensor produced extremely sharp images and the colors were vibrant. However, we did encounter slight overexposure in some of the indoor pictures (in automatic mode) which was easily solved with a change in the white balance setting.

Image processing also proved surprisingly fast on the QV-4000. We were impressed with the short interval time between shots as well as the quick startup everytime we turned on the camera.

A User Interface That Grows On You
With a variety of controls for its wide range of features, the Casio digicam has a user interface that resembles those of prosumer cameras like the Nikon CoolPix 995. Experienced photographers should have no problem navigating through the various menus and adjusting camera settings, but first-time users will need to spend a little more time familiarizing themselves with the camera's features.

Once you are have mastered the controls, the camera is pretty easy to handle. All the settings can be viewed on the bright 1.8-inch LCD display. Although the Casio QV-4000 is not a compact camera by today's standards, falling somewhat into the midrange category (420g, with a footprint of 118 x 75 x 65 mm), the camera feels decently sturdy, comfortable to grip, with a full metallic casing and ergonomic design.

The battery runs out rather fast, though, but is easy to replace because the camera can use four AA alkaline batteries or two CR-V3 Lithium packs.

We had little problem transferring captured images to the PC, either. The installation manual was a great help as it pointed out in detail the necessary software to install, depending on what you intended to do with the images. For instance, if you wanted to transfer images only, you would need to install the USB driver. If you were looking to edit and print images, the guide would recommend installing the supplied PhotoLoader graphic editing software.

Affordable 4-Megapixel Camera
While most 4-megapixel digital cameras can be expected to cost over S$1,500, the QV-4000 retails just below at S$1,499, making it one of the most affordable models available. Add to that an impressive list of features and high-quality image captures, and the QV-4000 could be considered a serious contender in the 4-megapixel line-up.

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