Casio Exilim EX-Z70 Digital Camera First Thoughts

The Casio Exilim EX-Z70 was introduced last month as the successor to the Z60.  I'm in the middle of reviewing the Z70 so I wanted to let you know that a full review was coming soon and give some of my initial thoughts about the camera.

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The Z70 is a 7.2 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom and 2.5 inch LCD (115,200 pixels).  Pretty "vanilla" specs, but what do you expect?  It's actually pretty slim.  Even though it's in the Exilim Zoom line, it is almost slim enough, at 0.78 inches thick, to be in the Exilim Card series.  I am reviewing the black model, but it also comes in silver.  The aluminum case has a nice brushed look to it.

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Casio cameras are known for their Best Shot system of scene modes.  If you want to get creative with the Z70, Best Shot modes are pretty much your only way to go about that.  The camera doesn't have any manual or program exposure modes.  There are a total of 33 Best Shot modes on the Z70.

Casio claims that the "Super Life" battery gets about 200 shots per charge using the CIPA standard of measuring battery life.  Images can be stored on SD or MMC memory media.

So far, I'm enjoying the camera.  It's a very nice size - very pocketable.  However, this can also be a downside, with smaller controls and so on.  The LCD is nice and big, but I wish it had more resolution and it gets pretty washed out when shooting in the outdoors.  The images I've taken are also very good.  The camera also achieves auto focus quickly and has minimal shutter lag.

Sample Images

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