Casio Exilim EX-Z77 YouTube Camera Review: Why It's Perfect For A Novice

I'm going to kick this off by stating that I am definitely NOT a photography expert.  Not at all.  But given that I've been very happy and excited about snapping photos of my outings and my life in general, I needed to finally ditch that old 3.2 megapixel cheapo I had and get on the horse.Casio Exilim EX-Z77 Front Shot

This was a tough decision, mind you.  Simply because the most important thing for me in a camera is ease of use.  I don't want to have to adjust exposure or focus.  I want the camera to think for me.  Frankly, so many of the models out there have about nine jillion buttons and options, which is fantastic for someone who is knowledgable about the art... but not for me.

So after numerous searches and store trips, I settled on the Casio Exilim EX-Z77 7.2 Megapixel camera, which touts heavily its ease of use and also its YouTube recording feature.

I'm so happy with my purchase, that I wanted to share the elements of this camera that I feel are unique, and what makes it a perfect camera for a novice.

1.  It's Super Fast

What I mean by this is that the responsiveness of snapping photos is almost instantaneous.  With my old cameras, I had to wait and wait for the picture to process, staring at a blinking green light, missing great photo ops.  With the EX-Z77, there was virtually no delay when writing to the card, either for pictures or video.  For my impatient self, and especially for any novice, this is a great feature.

2.  Lots Of Picture Modes and Neat Features You Never Thought About 

Casio Exilim EX-Z77 Best Shot Menu

The EX-Z77 has a system called "Best Shot," which allows you to pick between 41 various photo and video modes.  All it is doing, of course, is automatically setting those things which the experts could set manually, such as exposure and other settings.  I used this feature many times while on vacation recently, and found it worked well - especially the "Flower" (for closeups) and "Portrait with Landscape" (for taking pictures of people against picturesque backgrounds.)  This produced adequate results with very little fiddling required!

It even has an eBay best shot mode... pretty cool! There's also a bevy of other features, including keystone correction, "Old Photo" restore mode, and more, in its little bag of tricks!

3.  Excellent Battery Life

Maybe it's just me, but I'm used to cameras (and other gadgets) that get pretty miserable battery life.  This camera is not one of those gadgets.  I used it constantly, to snap hundreds of pictures and multiple videos each day on vacation, and only charged the battery once in four days.  For a low priced camera, that's crazy!

4.  Small, Portable, and Comes With A Case

Hey, this one's self explanatory.  I really liked the free case part - you get a leather-inspired black case with a magnetic clasp and a belt loop.  Nice to get you started and saves you the extra money over other cameras that may not give you one.

5.  The Best Part - The Video

I've never been much of a video person, either... what I mean by that, is that I've never been the type to run around with a camcorder taping everything.  Too much of a hassle, right?Casio Exilim EX-Z77 H264

With this camera... not at all.  It makes recording video so easy and quick, you'll find yourself recording clip after clip in no time at all.

On top of that, it uses some very impressive recording modes.  In 4:3 mode (TV Screen) it has 640X480 pixels in UHQ (ultra high quality) mode, and in 16:9 (Widescreen) mode it has 848 X 480 pixels in UHQ.  If this doesn't mean anything to you, let's just say that the video will come out looking much better than you would ever have expected from a camera in this price range.

In addition, it has an "anti-shake" DSP to help you with camera jitters (which I have, I drink too much coffee) and I have found this feature to be invaluable.  Finally, it records video in the high quality MPEG4 H.264 format, which many other cameras (especially in this price range) do not do, and also has the YouTube Optimized mode, which records in a format and compression that is perfectfor YouTube.

Conclusion

Overall, in my opinion, this camera stands above the rest in its price range due to its speed, ease of use, and simply awesome video recording features.  Here's a short list of the pros and cons of this great novice point & shoot camera:

Pros

  • Inexpensive at a suggested price of $159.99 (click to check prices at Shopping.com)
  • Small, light, and portable
  • Excellent battery life
  • Built-in "Best Shot" modes for photography dummies like myself
  • Awesome video features and quality
  • Comes with a free case

Cons

  • Fragile... don't drop it, or it WILL get a scratch or a dent
  • Doesn't always get the exposure right and some photos appear a little dark
  • Won't charge over USB (you have to use the included battery charger)
  • Definitely not a camera for expert photographers

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