The good, the bad and the ugly: Review Casio ex-s770 vs. ex-z750
In first parts I will compare ergonomics and in the following reviews – image and video quality.
Color/shape/overall looks
I must admit, that ex-s770 camera looks really stylish, especially in dimmed environment, such as a party or dinner in candle light, somewhat like a jewelry. Mine is graphite blue, but it’s almost black with a little bit of blue tint. I dunno about the red one. Comparing to silver aluminum brushed ex-z750, to my taste, the Exilim Card looks more interesting.
I must admit, that such looks can easily make one believe that they are dealing with an expensive toy, rather that a pro or semi-pro camera, which is actually true, but we want to believe otherwise. I’m pretty sure, that women should definitely like the camera.
It’s a little bit slimmer, as you can see from the picture, but, to be quite honest, I don’t understand, why make such a thin camera. Thickness of ex-z750 was just ok. Camera stood steady on a surface. Ex-s770 can stand as well, but if you want to incline it a bit, sticking something under one edge, it can tilt over easily. Also density of electronics stuck in! Oh, man, in old days I used to solder together amplifiers and home computers, and this one just scares me ;)
Ex-z750 is housed in brushed aluminum case, apparently, s770 has aluminum one as well, but it’s painted over, so it’s difficult to say what material was actually used – metal or plastics.
Size and brightness of the screen, viewfinder
The screen is exceptional (2,8”). Not only is it very bright, but also offers great resolution. If the screen of ex-s750 produced rough, pixelized picture - I simply have no complaints about the screen of ex-s770. Fonts and images of the menu look crisp and well saturated, pixels don’t catch attention.
Casio has also built in an automatic dynamic brightness control, so if the camera is exposed to, say, direct sunlight, the screen becomes brighter. And not just brighter, a
The screen occupies the most of the back of the camera, there is stylish “Exilim” label at the left bottom corner. You can be pretty sure, that people around you will be surprised what a huge screen your camera has. Haha.
There is no optical viewfinder in this camera. I never used the rudimentary one in the ex-z750, so I don’t care.
Grip, difference in controls
The grip is perfect, for my pretty big hands. No complaints about that. There is, however, that button, “DATA”, it’s on the top side, the most left one. Occasionally, I press it if holding camera with 2 hands. Then it enters data mode, and, as I didn’t use it yet, says, that there is no data stored in the camera and switches back to normal mode. Pity that can’t turn it off. Usually costs a couple of lost seconds. I consider this as a minor issue though.
The best improvement in controls is the red button. This one directly starts video recording. So no more hassle with the dial of Casio z-750. How much time I spent selecting the video mode, whilst should be already taking the movie instead!
Even better, in film mode you can press the shutter button, take a full quality picture and proceed with video! Great!
You cannot change zoom in video mode, but normally it’s changed via the swing button. I found it handier, that the control ex-z750 provided.
In overall, controls feel pleasant, responsive, no complaints. Same quality as ex-z750 though.
There were 2 buttons on the left side of ex-z750, where one could easily change shooting mode (burst, one by one, etc) and EX button for changing extra camera parameters.
These buttons are gone now, but the same parameters can be adjusted easily from the onscreen menu, which is not the same as options menu, but I will describe it in coming days.
posted by Vadim P. at 8:33 PM
346 comments
links to this post
