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If you have looked at the new pictures I’ve posted on Wings Open Wide and flickr, you might have noticed that I’ve got a new camera: a Casio Exilim EX-Z40. I’ve been thinking about getting a new camera for a while, because Mr. Bsag often uses the Nikon Coolpix for recording scenes that he might paint. This means that one or other of us often doesn’t have the camera when we need it. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I thought that it should be me who got the new one. This isn’t quite as mean as it sounds; Mr. Bsag doesn’t need very high resolution for his purposes, and the Nikon is fine for him.

At first, I thought about getting the best camera I could afford, with lots of manual controls and a huge lens. If I had lots of money, I would get this Panasonic LC1 (I’m a sucker for a Leica lens). However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that a fancy camera isn’t really what I need right now. All of the photography that I’ve enjoyed the most in recent times has either been done with my low tech Lomo, or with my Treo 600’s camera.

What these cameras have in common is that they are quick to turn on with a low shutter lag, they are small and light and therefore easy to carry everywhere, and they are easy to use. So you can see a shot and grab it before it disappears. With these things in mind—and after a lot of searching of reviews and technical comparisons—I decided on the Casio Exilim.

The photographs probably explain things better than all my ramblings, but I’m really pleased with the camera. It’s tiny, and genuinely small enough to put in the pocket of your jeans and forget about¹. It’s quite sturdy looking, with a metal body and an integrated metal lens cover that closes when you power the camera down. It starts up and shuts down impressively quickly, and the shutter lag is the lowest I’ve seen on a digital camera. There’s a nicely designed dock, which serves as a charger and USB transfer station. However, I decided to get a multi-format card reader at the same time to use with both our cameras, so I don’t worry about using it to transfer images.

The battery life is quoted as being very impressive—360 shots for continuous recording. I haven’t used it enough to really test the claims, but if I can fill my card (250 shots) on one charge, I’ll be very happy. If I don’t have anywhere to charge the camera, the chances are that I don’t have any way of downloading the images either. Certainly, using the camera almost continuously for several hours yesterday left the battery indicator still showing a full charge.

I haven’t had a chance to try the camera out in a very wide variety of conditions yet, but I’m pretty impressed with the image quality that I’ve got so far. The images are sharp, with little noise (except in low light conditions), and the colour rendition is rich and true. Focussing seems to be quite quick and accurate, except for reflective surfaces like glass or water—but then most auto-focus systems struggle with those. The controls and menus are also very well thought out and simple. I think that it would be good to have a separate selector for the ‘Best Shot’ scenes, but other than that, it’s quick and easy to alter frequently used settings. You can also set what settings you want to be remembered between power cycles. This is a great touch, as I was forever setting the flash to off on the Nikon, then trying to take a shot after the camera had powered down and finding that the flash was back on again.

The best part is that taking photos with this camera feels as fun and spontaneous as using my Lomo, but with the added advantage that I can get at the images right away. I had a wonderful morning yesterday, just pottering around the city and shooting anything that caught my eye. It made me think about the kinds of things that are characteristic of autumn. The sun is low and the light very clear, so texture is picked out with great definition, and colours are rich and vivid. I took a lot of shots of shadows and light coming through the leaves. I think that I’ll be taking a lot more photos in future.

However, that raises another issue. Since I’ve been using flickr, I’ve got used to uploading photographs being a really quick and painless process. By comparison, loading new images on my blog yesterday was a bit of a drag. I’ve tried using the ‘Post to Blog’ feature of flickr, but it doesn’t work that well for a complex structure I use on my site, with thumbnails forming part of the navigation. I’m tempted to just use flickr for now, but I do prefer the look of my images on my own site. The other advantage to using flickr is the shared nature of the site, so that your images end up in a stream with those taken by other people—this can be interesting and can spark off new ideas.

¹ For that reason, it’s wise to put the camera in a front pocket rather than the back.