Casio Exilim EX-Z250 Review

The Casio Exilim EX-Z250 is a 9 megapixel digital camera. Its attractions include its small size, a larger than standard 3 inch LCD screen and a wide angle 4x optical zoom lens. It is available in a choice of six colours. The Casio Exilim EX-Z250 is a 9 megapixel digital camera with a 4x wide angle lens. It has a 3 inch LCD screen and image stabilisation.

This camera is aimed at someone who is looking for a simple point and shoot camera. It is small enough to fit into most pockets and the larger LCD screen is a plus point.

Outdoor 1 (Medium Zoom)
The Exilim EX-Z250 does quite well when it comes to handling the glare from the sun and bringing out detail in the lighter areas of the shot. It is not quite so good with darker areas and some of the foliage and bushes in the photo lack definition. This is not a big problem with 7 x 5 inch prints, but if you print any larger this problem will start to become more apparent. This is a bright photo compared to those produced by other cameras.

Outdoor 2 (No Zoom)
Even when looking at a thumbnail of this shot I could see darkness in the corners of the shot. This can be a problem with other digital cameras too, but I am not used to it being as obvious as it is with the Exilim EX-Z250. This is likely to affect photos taken when the lens is zoomed all the way out. Focusing drops away as you move away from the centre of the shot.

Outdoor 3 (Maximum Zoom)
This is the best effort so far. For a camera with a 3x optical zoom lens there is a lot of detail showing in the shot. Sharpness levels are impressive too.

Outdoor 4 (Building)
This is another photo that borders on being too bright for my liking. This shot also appears to have fooled the focusing system too, as the front part of the building is in much sharper focus than the side.

Outdoor Portrait
This picture works quite well. My only concern is that when I enlarge the photo to 8 x 11 inches I can see more clearly some extra pink that the camera has added to the skin tones at the expense of detail.

Indoor Portrait with Flash
The amount of light produced by the flash unit is overpowering. This leads to a very bright photo with some of the colour bleached out of the shot. In order to reduce the magnitude of the problem you could try reducing the intensity of the flash or consider how close you stand to your subject when taking this type of photo. The range of the flash is not that large and you may find it difficult to position yourself in the perfect place to stand.

Indoor Portrait without Flash
Considering the amount of light available for this shot the Exilim EX-Z250 does well in terms of the sharpness of the photo. It is not pin sharp, but the camera does better than many others in this test.

Colours
The colours produced by the Exilim EX-Z250 and some other Casio digital cameras are a bit different to those produced by other brands. They are a warmer and not as vivid. Colour is a matter of personal choice, so the colours this camera produces may appeal more to you than those from other cameras or they may not.

Macro
You need to have the Exilim EX-Z250 15cm away from the subject before it can focus. This is quite a distance and it makes true close ups difficult to achieve. This is not really the camera to buy if you are looking to take a lot of macro shots.

ISO 400 and ISO 1600
At higher ISO levels the camera holds its own against many cameras, including some more expensive models. Although there is the inevitable noise the colours remain true apart from in the darkest areas of the shot.

Overall
All digital cameras have good and bad points, but I found the Exilim EX-Z250 to be more inconsistent than most. I would be wary of blowing up any shots much above 7 x 5 inches.

Shutter lag times were inline with most compact digital cameras. A single photo recorded 0.42 seconds and five took 15.19 seconds. With flash turned on times were still respectable at 0.56 seconds for a single photo and 16.13 seconds for five.

Turning the camera on and taking the first picture was a slow process. This took 4.47 seconds.

You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.

This camera has a standard look. It is has rounded ends, is quite plain and unfussy. The camera is available in six colours silver, black, red, blue, gold and pink

96.7 x 57.3 x 23mm

119g

Lithium ion (NP-40). Casio suggest you should be able to take up to 280 photos in between charges.

Casio have built some storage into the Exilim EX-Z250. I was able to take 24 shots before the storage was full. The camera is compatible with SD and SDHC cards.

Click here to save money on memory cards..

Very Good There is nothing especially complicated about the Exilim EX-Z250. You will find that some of the options normally controlled through buttons on the back of the camera have been included within the menu system.

Options displayed on the right hand side of LCD screen - movie options

Overall picture quality - closer macro mode

Based on picture quality and price I think a better digital camera with similar features is the Panasonic DMC FS20.

Not every digital camera can get top marks. I found the picture quality struggled to match the better cameras and the price of the Casio Exilim EX-Z250 is not low enough to compensate for this.

Front View

Back View

Top View

Sample Menu

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.

Casio Exilim EX-Z250