Babes and Kids Review

Digital cameras, where do I begin? I’ve had 3 digital cameras in the last 3 years. Bad luck, bad cameras, you name it, it’s happened. I’d recently been looking at small pocket cameras, and wanted something dependable, small, and of course that takes awesome pictures. I honestly hadn’t looked at Casio cameras in depth before but after using the Casio Exilim EX-S12 for the last month, I must say that I am impressed at what it offers.

The Specs
The EX-S12 has a stylish body measuring just .6″ thin (.5″ at the thinnest part). It boasts an effective 12.1 megapixel resolution with up to 3X optical zoom and 4X Digital zoom and a super clear 2.7″ LCD monitor.  To view all technical specifications, click here.

Pros:
  I’m no expert when it comes to cameras, but I believe I’ve used them enough to recognize what I do and don’t like about a camera. I love that this camera is SO slender. I can have it in my pocket and don’t really realize it’s there. Sometimes with little pocket cameras you sacrifice picture quality. That is definitely not the case with the Exilim. Big things definitely come in little packages.  All of the pictures in this post are unedited, so it lets you know what great quality you get without having to edit every photograph.  All of the pictures from My Country Inns Weekend were taken also with The Exilim.  You can click on any of the pictures to make them full size and really get the impact of how clear and nice the pictures are.

Video
One feature that I’ve never had in a digital camera is the ability to take pictures while I am capturing video. The record button for taking video is it’s own button, which I like. You push it to start recording and then take pictures as you would like. It does interrupt your video for a moment but as soon as the picture is taken, the video continues to record. Speaking of which, the video quality is amazing for a digital camera. I took this video of my boys playing in the fountains, and the clarity is amazing. It’s nice that you are able to zoom while the video is going, a feature I’ve also not had in a digital camera before.  It even takes video in HD! I am really impressed with how loud and clear the sound is as well.

User Friendly
I’m not a big one on reading manuals for cameras. I figured I would play around with the camera for a while and see how much I could figure out on my own and then read the manual. I think I figured out almost every feature within a few hours, which lets you know just how user friendly it is.

Picture Modes
With most cameras, you have a dial you turn to select which mode you want to take a picture in. With the exilim, you simply hit the best shot button and it takes you into a different screen which lets you pick your picture mode. With 42 different modes, you can capture a picture in virtually any setting. Some of the modes I use a lot include:

• Self Portrait
• Auto Best Shot
• Scenery
• Black and White

When viewing your pictures, if you go to picture mode and then come back to the play mode, it takes you to the picture you last viewed.  This is nice if you have a big memory card and don’t want to scroll through 500 pictures. 

Screen
The LCD screen is 2.7″ which is a great size for viewing your pictures back. Because the screen is nice and large, it’s easy to see exactly what you are capturing.

Lithium Battery
After having a camera that eats AA batteries, it’s nice to use a camera with a lithium battery. After charging the camera once, I must have taken close to 300 pictures and done numerous video before having to charge it.

Uploading and Sharing
Uploading your pictures is so easy.  It does come with software, but you can also upload pictures without it.  I simply plugged the camera into the computer and my computer immediately recognized it.  Very simple!

A few other great features that I was really able to appreciate was the face detection, focus, anti shake, and quick zoom.

Cons:
Deleting Images
If you are using the camera to delete images, you have to do one or all. I think it would be nice to be able to select multiple pictures and video and then delete those at the same time. It would definitely be time saving.

Loading Time
If you are using the flash it takes 5-6 seconds in between pictures to get ready for the next shot. This is hard when you have kids and are trying to snap a lot of pictures quickly. If you are not using the flash, the time in between pictures is more like 3 seconds.

 
Charging The Battery
In order to charge the lithium battery, you have to take it out of the camera. The charger is a cord with a charger at the end, and is bulky if you want to take it with you. I think it would be a great improvement to have something plug directly into the camera to charge the battery, or have a charger that plugs directly into the wall, getting rid of the cord bulk.

The Bottom Line: A super slim pocket camera that takes great video and pictures and is competitively priced at $249

Price: $249

Where to Buy: Find an online retailer here.

The product reviewed in this article was a sample provided to me by the company or PR representative. These views and opinions are my own and I was not compensated by this review.
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