Casio ZR100

[LeMaudit]

I recently broke my camera... so why not going high-speed and all

I wonder if the ZR100 is currently the best high-speed camera on the market (in that price range), or is there some competition?

Casio line, and their brand new ZR100 in particular, seemed to me the only choice in high-speed after Googling a bit... but I would hate to miss a competitor to compare it to.

[drex]

I ordered one a few days ago it seems to be a pretty solid camera that can do high speed, I did not find anything else as good for the price. I don't have it yet, but I can let you know more when it arrives as to how good it is for capturing spud gun action.

[LeMaudit]

Would be great! I'm in no hurry and can wait. Please let me know how much you like it.

[drex]

Amazon is telling me April 6th for the delivery date, I'll be sure to let you know, and upload some video from it.

[Gun Freak]

The Casio line are the only high speed cameras I've found in that price range. I got my FS-10 for only 65 dollars and I am very happy with it. It also has 720p HD and the HS is quite nice. The ZR100 has 1080p video which is VERY nice. I don't know how much better it is with high speed though if any.

[qwerty]

Ex F1 is the best highspeed casio to date. It's more expensive than the others but provides a better quality video aswell as being an amazing all round camera.

[ramses]

It's also discontinued. I sold mine for $1300, bought a broken one by some miracle for $160, had it repaired for ~$240, and sold it for $800. It has higher HS resolution at a higher frame rate. Keep your eyes open; prices fluctuate quite a bit. Even at 1200 fps, you can frequently encounter things that are too fast. The firmware wasn't the greatest, but you could shoot HS video with *apparent* manual control over shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. The firmware wasn't great, and the flash metering was pretty lousy, but gave acceptable results. covering the little sensor on the flash produced a very weak flash. Must be a sonar type sensor, not a light sensor, and certainly not TTL.

The amazon reviews on the ZR100 are not favorable; apparently there's no 720p option, and still image quality isn't that great. For $275, you could get the EX-FH20 or EX-FH25, with better lenses and more resolution.

[LeMaudit]

yup... EXF1 discontinued
and so are EX-FH20 and EX-FH25

and with all those problems in Japan, I'm afraid new more powerful models will not come soon...

Are you sure about Amazon? I can't find any customer reviews...

[edit] oh maybe not .COM THere's 1 review at UK. Which one did you check?

[Ragnarok]

Various notes relative to the other cameras in the Casio range:

- 1080p ain't bad, but if you don't need it over 720p (which it doesn't have), then it will eat card space twice as fast!
- 432x320 is the lowest resolution of any of the range when at the 210-240 fps speed.
- 12.5x zoom is very long, and while my FH-100 has proved itself quite good with 10x, it takes a bit of work and some steady hands to get sharp shots at that zoom level. Don't expect you'll get use out of all of those 12.5x.
- As far as I know, the FH100 is the only camera in the range with a high speed 480p mode. It's not essential, but it does have its uses.
- Wide angle lenses are invaluable on a camera. The ZR100 has a 24mm lens, but if you look at the others, bear in mind that not all the range has.
- The ZR100 seems to have the fastest "time between pictures" (outside of the rapid fire camera functions) of 0.37 seconds, which is also invaluable.

My advice is at least look at some of the older cameras in the range and work out if they've got the punch you need. If they could do, they'll save you a healthy chunk of cash, and should last nicely until Casio actually start to progress the power of their highspeed functions.

I mean, excluding the F1, they've been hanging around the same speed and resolutions...

- 210 fps at 480x360 or 240 fps at either 448x336 or 432x320.
- 420fps at 224x160
- 1000 fps at 224x64

...for some time. Pick up an FC100 or a ZR100 - and the high speed is much the same. The ZR100's backlit CMOS should improve low light quality, but that's not a boost in the actual image processing side of things.

To be honest, I'm not all that impressed with the advancements between models, which are all mostly mechanical (lenses, zoom, etc - and a lot of it has been on other cameras for quite a while), rather than the electronic side.

Right now, it might be better to only buy for the functions you actually need and save some pennies for future models.
I imagine they will actually start to hit things like 240 fps at 480p in a year or three, which'd be a welcome step up.

[LeMaudit]

Thanks for all the details.
Too bad Casio are the only ones (to my knowledge) with this super slow motion 1000fps capabilities. I would gladly pay a bit more for a better camera with that feature.

The other one I've heard of is the Fuji HS20:
http://www.fujifilm.com/news/n110105_03.html

Seem quite nice too. Any opinion to share about it?

[Ragnarok]

Seem quite nice too. Any opinion to share about it?

What I've heard (second or third hand, at best) about Fujifilm's HS range is that it's a poor parody of Casio's.

It'll do 320 fps at 320x112 (same number of pixels as Casio's 420fps), and 80 fps at 640x480 (which Casio has done at 120 fps).
So, it's slower in the same resolutions (I can't comment on image quality), and doesn't have the 1000 fps setting.

And while it's perhaps not relevant to us, I also think that having a CMOS sensor on an SLR is a very odd move (no matter who does it).
In the CMOS vs. CCD matter, CMOS is undoubtedly faster, but the CCD is a more mature technology with better image quality. If you're marketing an SLR, then I can't see why a somewhat gimicky high speed function is a better selling point than image quality.

[LeMaudit]

Thanks Ragnarok,

I appreciate again the details, I don't know much about all that but now I know better what to compare

My goal is to replace my faithful SonyF707, that took wonderful macro which I used a lot when I was publishing in modelers magazines, had a great night mode, and long battery life. But it's bulky.
I recently broke my small DSC-T10, that I use to carry in the pocket (this explain that) an also used for macro in modelers shows.

So, I was searching for a replacement for both, knowing that I do macro most, want to play badly with slo-mo, and night shot and panorama capability would be a nice bonus. A small camera would be nice too, but I do appreciate the very large lens of my F707 for night and macro mode, so it's not a mandatory to be small, a SLR size would be good enough.
I don't do much portrait and family shots, photography interest me at the extremes only. Who need the wife's pictures!

The ZR100 seemed on paper a good compromise for what I seek to do.

[ramses]

an affordable, port high speed camera with an APS-C sensor and interchangeable lenses would be nice

The biggest limitation to high speed is probably going to be memory speed, if not image processing.

"real" cameras store raw video to a bunch of RAM, then offload. Someone should make a FPGA or somethign that does will do video compression. Alternatively, sacraficing color depth or color would dramatically reduce file size. I'm sure high resolution, high speed 8 bit grayscale would be useful. You'd get a bunch more light in, too, since there wouldn't be a bayer mask

[drex]

My camera came in today unfortunately there is nothing interesting to film at high speed in my apartment, I'm going to take it to work with me tomorrow, I should be able to give it a good workout there.

[drex]

After playing with it all day I can say that I am very happy with it the still image quality does not seem to be the best, but it suits me well.



the zoom is very good this picture

was taken from the same spot as this picture was taken


the high speed works very well, made most of this video during lunch.