Casio EXILIM® Card EX-S770 Digital Camera

Full Review

Great CASIO (so far) in the Exilim tradition.
Case is red on mine
Good photo features - with lots of choice
Quality pics
Ease of Use
Large LCD 2.8 inches, lightweight

This is my 6th digital camera and 4th CASIO .. the first two casio's were the original slim Ex2 and S3 models - great little cameras but only 3.2MP capability. The last CASIO I had was the Z750 which has the frozen out lens problem and almost turned me off Casio completely. I got a good deal at $140 on this one, so decided since I already had extra batteries and cases and memory cards for it ... why not. So far it has been very good.

This is the one that comes closest to that size therefore is handy for travelling, or carrying pretty well anywhere.


LCD screen has been increased in three ways: 1) screen size is now 2.8", up almost 30% from the earlier models, and 2) screen brightness is now noticeably brighter to allow for a wider range of shooting conditions and finally 3) Screen is now a wide-screen format allowing wide-screen movies and a wider range of picture formats. The screen now has a (settable) dynamic lighting mode that allows the backlighting to vary based on usage and this helps conserve battery life. For me, I keep it in static bright mode since the dynamic hi-low effect is a bit distracting to me.

The 'pixel' rating is now up to 7.2 MEGAPIXELS too. Again up from the S600 by over a meg (and over 2 meg bigger than the S500). I am fully convinced that the image quality is now EQUAL to anything that SONY or NIKON can dish out. (I actually compared S770 pictures I took to the new SONY T50 samples and could NOT tell any difference in image quality). Edges look great. No color bands or blurs. No edge blues or anything. Should be easily able to produce 11x14's on a good photo printer (like the Epson R380 or HP K550) without any problems. I use the R380 and it is a truely stunning combination.

Don't ever overlook CASIO's "BEST SHOT" feature. Best Shot is a set of 35 shortcuts which allow changing the camera's various settings for typical situations quickly. Shooting a racecar outdoors followed by a birthday party with candle lighting can take quite a few changes to a typical camera otherwise. As I always tell folks, one of the biggest measures of any Digital Camera value is how well it works for YOU! ('Amazing' features can be horribly buried in complex menu/navigations that ultimately deem them worthless because you can't get to them!). BEST SHOT from Casio on the Exlim series is a CLEAR WINNER! I find myself using it all the time. Shooting outdoors is a world of different settings versus indoors, etc.

Battery life is excellent and a replaceable NP20 style (replacements available from Duracell and Eveready for about $20). I have used it for a few full charge cycles and did
get 200+ pictures without using the flash, I got well OVER 200 pictures when shooting outdoors! This unit also comes with Casio's typical USB docking cradle and stand. AC Charger included for the cradle.

Focus and ZOOM is now a bit faster. I am guessing at less than 1/2 second to fully focus and about the same for full range zoom.

Control placement is well done and NORMAL sized fingers will have no problems hitting the various controls. THEY SIMPLY MAKE SENSE EVEN IF YOU DON'T READ THE MANUAL!!! They did move the wide/tele buttons to the back surface on this S770 (versus the 500/600) but still easy to get to.

The DATA feature is awesome! It allows downloading to the camera of JPEG files ... so maps and documents that you may need to review regularly can be right there in the pam of your hand - terrific when travelling and not wanting to carry around loads of paper!

Street priced at $260 shipped (Jan 31 2007), this is a GREAT value for the money. I would couple it with a $50 4GB standard SD Memory card and you should be able to shoot high quality pictures all day long! (Be careful not to set the camera for too much compression since you'll lose the option of making photo changes in the future. Just get a bigger SD card, like the 4GB now available cheaply, and then make changes FROM the original once loaded into your PC. Always, leave the original file as large as possible to keep detail otherwise lost).