by Ralph Nuss
CASIO
EX-F1 Exilim High Speed Camera Review
The Perfect Camera for ATV Enthusiasts?
We constantly meet people seeking advice on how
to take better pictures. A lot of point and shoot
cameras out there simply do not have the speed
and quality needed in the world of photographing
ATV's. When we caught wind of CASIO's new Exilim
EX-F1 Camera we thought it would be the perfect
camera for anyone wanting to go out there and
get some nice pictures of their friends.
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CASIO's Exilim
EX-F1 High Performance / High Speed Camera
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The CASIO EX-F1 boasts some very impressive never
before seen features which are perfect for our
Sport. To Start off, the EX-F1 can shoot at an
impressive 60 frames per second at full resolution.
It can also shoot High Definition video and Super
Slow-Mo Videos. The feature that sticks out the
most is that It can actually take pictures before
you click the shutter so you never miss that perfect
shot.
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Ryan Fisher
taking a berm for the camera. The 60 fps
mode worked flawlessly for capturing riders
through fast berms.
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This features is very cool but at times is almost
overkill. I found that shooting at around 20-30
fps (frames per second) was more than enough. The
main problem when shooting 60fps is that the camera
has to save a lot of pictures which can leave you
with the “Busy” screen when you really
want to take another picture. Although the camera
is setup to let you save only the frames you want
out of the 60, it still leaves you with a lot of
downtime in between shots. Don't take this the wrong
way, you wont ever be disappointed with the speed.
You have it when you need it and when you don't
you can go down to a lower setting.
This is the function most people are excited about.
When you half press the shutter, the camera will
start taking pictures at 60FPS and saving them
into the buffer. Once you finally press the shutter
down all the way it will take 30 more pictures
in the next half second. The camera then keeps
30 frames from before you clicked the shutter,
and 30 after. This is great for catching riders
in berms, or flying through the air. I would imagine
that this setting would work very well for catching
some Quad Freestyle action because you would never
miss that perfect moment when a rider has the
full extension on a trick.
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Not only
will you capture the perfect shot with
the pre-record function, you can actualy
capture several good images in one shot.
With the CASIO EX-F1 High Speed camera
set to pre-record and shooting at 20fps,
the image on the left was shot before
the shutter was pressed and the image
on the right was from after.
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CASIO EX-F1
High Speed Camera Photo
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I should note that the pre-record setting also
works at other speeds so you are not locked in
at 60FPS.
CASIO has also just released a new Firmware Upgrade
enabling you to use the pre-record function for
all of the video modes. I have not yet tried this
out but the most important part of this is to see
that CASIO is devoted to making the best product
and even updating it with more features as time
goes on.
Overall the CASIO EX-F1 is a very capable camera.
The picture quality of the camera is good and
should not disappoint the average user. It is
defiantly not at the same level as some of the
pro-sumer Digital SLR camera but still does very
well. I had a few complaints as such as the lack
of a real light meter which made it nearly impossible
to shoot on Manual mode and I don't know how anyone
is really expected to. Hopefully a firmware update
could solve this because their very simple “light
meter” does not do the trick.
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The results
may not look 100% proffesional but with
enough practice your images will still
look very good. Surely good enough for
photo albums or sharing on ATV
Social Network sites.
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