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Mac Design's 2002 Digital Camera Shootout is at
the press. Among the three cameras that staged in just under
deadline including a nice surprise: the Casio QV-4000. I
reported on the first shootout surprise several weeks ago: the
tiny Pentax Optio 430.
The Casio QV-4000 ($999) is a 4-megapixel camera
with a Canon 35-105mm f:2 zoom. It also Auto, Program, Shutter &
Aperture-preferred and Manual shooting modes and all the other
bells and whistles.
It uses NiMH AA batteries and a CF card. Shutter
speeds from B to 60 seconds to 1/1000. All told, a very
standard, extremely capable camera until… we get to the Casio
bells & whistles. And does it have 'em.
First, the standard compass rocker button is a
live exposure compensation control when pushed left or right in
any shooting mode. Right for plus EV in 1/3 stop increments to
+2.0. Left for minus EV. Furthermore, the bright LCD screen
changes accordingly.
Then comes the Histogram. Not the after-the-shot
histogram that shows up in everyone else's Play mode. The 4000
can display a before-exposure Histogram with the scene.
And if the Histogram is a bit skewed, say toward
the shadow end, just move the Exposure Compensation button to
the right (white arrow above). The scene gets brighter and the
Histogram corrects itself. This is soooo much fun that it's easy
to forget about composition.
Wait, there's more!!! Casio's Best Shot Selector
is not the same as Nikon's. This is a shooting mode that
provides five scene situations, from night, to portrait, to
wildlife, to… of all things, soft focus! You select the Best
Shot scene you want to use and the camera automatically makes
the proper settings.
Casio supplies a CD with 100 more Best Shot
selections which can be downloaded to the CF card for use
in-camera. And there's even more. The user can choose a
particular personal image as a Best Shot to be stored in-camera.
Does this nifty feature work.
The Soft Focus used a +.7 over exposure combined
with some other settings to create a wonderfully gauzy, romantic
portrait.
(Centered BFItalic) In the Panorama mode, the
second shot is previewed with a translucent stripe (left arrow)
to aid in lining up with image on right (right arrow)
Finally, and this is a neat finally, there's the Panorama
shooting mode. Select Panorama and the Casio makes the first
exposure and freezes the exposure setting for all subsequent
exposures.
After the first exposure is saved, the
viewfinder shows a small translucent stripe of about the 20
percent right edge of the first image on the left hand side.
Move the viewfinder to the right until the stripe lines up with
the object it shows and shoot again.
It's the neatest panorama system I've
encountered.
And even more. In the Play window (above), your
panorama appears fully stitched and scrolls back and forth for
review. Unhappily, the Casio does not stitch the images for
download. Still, the alignment in the Panorama Record mode is a
terrific feature.
Couple these features with the usual features of
all our test camera and the Casio QV-4000 represents an
unheralded, excellent acquisition. |