Casio Exilim EX-V7

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Image quality and performance
The Exilim EX-V7 showed decent speed in our lab tests. It took 1.47 seconds to start up and capture its first JPEG. Subsequent JPEGs took 1.63 seconds between shots with the flash turned off and 1.76 seconds with the flash enabled. Shutter lag measured 0.5 second in our high-contrast test, which is meant to mimic bright shooting conditions and 1.2 seconds in our low-contrast tests, which mimics dim shooting conditions.

	33 scene modes on this

Continuous shooting yielded about 1.4 frames per second (fps) when capturing 7.2-megapixel JPEGs and about 1.7fps with the pixel count reduced to VGA.

Given this camera's price range, we would've liked to see better image quality. While adequately sharp, images still appeared just slightly soft when viewed at full size and we also spied a minor amount of image artifacts unrelated to ISO noise. Colors, while generally accurate, seemed a bit washed out.

The camera's automatic white balance turned in slightly yellowish results with our lab's tungsten lights. The tungsten preset fared much better, as did the manual white balance. Casio keeps noise under control through ISO 200.

Though we saw minor noise at ISO 200 on our computer monitors, prints weren't adversely affected. At ISO 400, noise was more noticeable on monitors and the noise reduction algorithms smoothed away a significant amount of finer details. Also, a mild amount of shadow detail was lost. By ISO 800, noise became very prominent, destroying all finer details and most shadow details. We suggest sticking below ISO 800.

We were impressed with the Casio's video capabilities. In all but its lowest quality mode, the EX-V7 uses H.264 encoding for video clips up to 848 x 480-pixel resolution in wide mode, or 640 x 480-pixels in 4:3 aspect ratio. The video we recorded was slightly better than we're used to from a still camera, and Casio even includes stereo microphones on the front of the camera. Of course, since the mics are only 0.5-inch apart, we're not sure just how "stereo" that really is, but again it's more than we usually see on a camera such as this.

We give Casio credit for trying to push the limits of the compact camera market, but ultimately found this model's interface made it annoyingly awkward to use. Add its mediocre image quality to that and we find it hard to recommend this camera. If you really want a long zoom, you'd be better served with a real superzoom, such as Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-H2 or DSC-H5, or Canon's PowerShot S3IS. If it's an ultracompact you're after, try Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-T10 or Canon's PowerShot SD800 IS.

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