The Great Camera Comparison
In preparation for our upcoming climb of the Grand Teton (see, I told you), Mark and I are gathering and evaluating our gear and trying to streamline our climbing system. For me, one of the most important pieces of gear I carry with me is my camera. These days I shoot with a Nikon D80, often with a lightweight fixed 50mm lens, or a nice wide angle zoom (18-70mm), and almost always with a circular polarizer. But, this rig is heavy and expensive, and I could shave several pounds and a lot of space if I found myself a tiny point and shoot camera that I liked.
Based on recommendations from various friends and family, I narrowed my choices down to two cameras. On the LEFT: The Canon Digital Elph (8.0 megapixels). On the RIGHT: The Casio Exilim (10.0 megapixels).
At first blush, the cameras are about the same size and weight. The Casio has a much larger LCD, but the Canon has a nice aluminum shell that feels very tough. The casio has about 50 different “user modes” with options including pre-sets for “Landscape”, “portrait with landscape”, “self-portait”, “greenery”, “sunset”, “dusk”, “night shot”, “pets”, “backlight”, you get the idea. The Canon has just 4 or 5 modes including “Auto”, “manual”, “Macro”, “portrait”, “Night”, “color accent”, and “kids and pets”.
They both have anti-shake mechanisms, and the Canon has a nice “face recognition” helper that occasionally works. The Casio has an obviously much wider angle lens, which is nice in landscape composition, but seems to make the images less sharp than the more limited Canon.
The Canon has a better color scheme or auto white balance choice. The shots are much “warmer”, and the coloring is very good. The Casio seems to have a bit of a bluer cast, which could be a more realistic coloring compared to the Canon, but seems to “wash out” some pictures. However, that blue-ness makes for some really stunning blue skies, and the Casio does a better job of using the full dynamic range of the sensor. In other words, images from the Casio tend to have all levels of brightness, from deep black to bright white. The Canon seems to prefer to keep the exposure higher, without producing deep blacks at all.
The Casio has more creative options for movies, and more resolution options. It even has a fun little mode for “silent” movies, which it shoots in black and white, and speeds up a little to give it an “old timey” feel. I don’t know how or when I would use that, but it sure is fun. The Canon has a basic 640×480 video mode and a few options for that (color accent, etc). One bonus on the Canon is that it has a “time lapse” mode that looks like it would be really fun to use.
In the end, both cameras are really nice. They both seem to pick up and do really well where the other one lags. This has been a really hard decision for me!
I’ll be using the camera on long alpine climbs, in wide-open areas. The sharpness and rugged feel of the Canon appeal to me. But the wide-angle lens and great blue skies in the Casio are much much better for dramatic mountaineering shots. I have to make a decision about which one I want to keep this evening, and I’m still not sure!
If your reading this, take a look at my comparison shots, both here and in the gallery, please. What do you think?
OK, Canon vs. Casio:
Casio loses points for the YouTube sticker. YouTube is a drain on the global economy as well as making viewers just a little dumber. That rant is for another day… let’s continue.
Thunderclouds: A tiny preference for the right one, but perhaps just because it has more of the red farmhouse and I like that color. The clouds seem indistinguishable to me.
Self-Portrait: The left one. It’s colors are more warm and natural.
Sunset: Left. It has some texture in the dark bits.
Blue Sky: Right – Deeper blues bordering on black
Plants – Right. The shorter field of focus gives that blur in the background that moves the picture away from hobbyist snap-shot and towards enthusiast.
i have friends who have that canon and they both LOVE it. to the point of being pushers. isn’t casio only known for watches?
i’d say anything that requires the least amount of photoshop work later. so go with your personal preference. however, MINE is the canon.
Tough call, they both look good. First off, let me say that the Casio model I have is closer to the EX-S10 (slightly different line) than the one you’re considering. My Casio has an all-metal body, which was an important factor for me. I trimmed a Palm screen protector to size and applied it to the screen. I keep it in the same pocket as my car keys, no issues.
Bruce pointed out at lunch to be sure and check if there are any exposure-time limits that might annoy you if you like to take long-exposure night shots. Hadn’t thought of that.
The “BestShot” modes on the Casio are mostly fluff and window dressing, with the exception of the document modes. If you take a document and put it on a contrasting-colored surface, then take a picture of it in document mode, the camera does a really good job of cropping it and undoing the perspective transformation. We use this a lot to take pictures of the sketches Becky does for fans at comic book conventions, since we don’t have a scanner handy.
As for the pictures themselves, since neither camera shoots RAW, consider the dynamic range you’re getting. I know you’re handy with Photoshop, and without the ability to shoot RAW, you get what you get, in terms of pixels, filtered through the camera firmware’s opinion.
Lastly, I’ve used the movie mode on the Casio quite a bit, much to my surprise. I no longer pack a camcorder unless I’m doing 16:9 work, or shooting an event for someone else. Can’t say anything about the Canon’s movie capabilities, but I’ve been impressed with the Casio, with the exception that you can’t adjust the zoom while actually taking video. I’d check both models for that if you’re interested in video.
I apologize, but I didn’t finish my comment in time. I think you would probably do well by either one. I looked at battery capacity, and both are about 1000 mAh. They should be pretty close in battery life if they both are of similar power efficiency in auto-focus viewfinder.
I’m a partial to the Canon’s warmer colors, but you had a fine point about having more contrast and range to work with in photoshop with the Casio, so that seems like a personal preference there. I thought the movie mode on my much older Canon PS2 was of exceptional quality, and James liked his Casio so that’s probably similar again.
Do both cameras use a memory card format that you like? I would think so. Only Sony uses the objectionable Memory Schtick.
Can both cameras mount on a gorilla pod?
Sorry for the tardiness. It’s awfully hard to get not work done at work. I think you will do well with either camera.
To be honest, i would go with price on these two. The canon seems to do much better with people and indoors, and even though you’re not planning on buying this for that i think you’ll be surprised how much more you’ll be wont to bring a point and shoot with you to random gatherings than your dslr.
But, in my dorky readings and podcastings, I can tell you off the top of my head that the canon powershot 1000 is still the Editors Choice camera over the 1100 over at PCMag. It’s last years model, and can’t really be found in stores, but, is very very close in picture quality and only runs ~$180. Take a lookie.
I like the black one.