Casio's new Exilims: Smallest and fastest yet

By Lori Grunin on 09 January 2009, 12:43pm

When they launched, Casio's high-speed Exilim models with frame rates of 1,000-plus frames per second wowed all but the purists in the digital-photo community.

But cameras such as the EX-F1 and EX-FH20 are bulky and, for many, the features too difficult to use. So Casio put the circuitry in the dryer on high and popped out a sensor and chipset that packs its high-speed technology into tiny, easier-to-use digital camera packages: the 9-megapixel EX-FC100 and EX-FS10.

The higher-end FC100 has a 5x zoom lens and sensor-shift optical stabiliser; the much-thinner FS10 uses a 3x zoom and no stabilisation.

Otherwise, the cameras have the same feature set, with novel inclusions like 30fps burst shooting at 6 megapixels, and 'Lag Correction', a user-determined pre-record interval, which compensates for both slow human reflexes and hardware sluggishness.

The cameras both have slow-motion preview, which records at a high frame rate and plays back slowly, to allow you to pick and save the best frame; and 'High-Speed Best' selection, which automatically chooses the sharpest photo with wide-eyed and smiling people in it from a burst. They also shoot 720p movies for more traditional motion capture.

When they ship in the US in March, the $350 (£230) FS10 will be available in blue, grey, red and white, while the $400 (£260) FC100 will be available in grey and white.