"Picky Details" for the Casio Exilim EX-P505 digital camera
(Timing, Power, and Storage Info)
Timing
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time or delay before the shutter actually fires. This corresponds to the time required for the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations. Since this number is rarely reported on (and even more rarely reported accurately), and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, I routinely measure both shutter delay and shot to shot cycle times for all cameras I test, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Casio Exilim EX-P505:
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(secs) |
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| Power On -> First shot |
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Fairly fast, no wait for a lens to telescope out.
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| Shutdown |
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First time is time to retract lens, second time is worst-case buffer-clearing time. Pretty fast.
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| Play to Record, first shot |
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Time until first shot is captured. Pretty fast.
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| Record to play |
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First time is that required to display a large/fine file immediately after capture, second time is that needed to display a large/fine file that has already been processed and stored on the memory card. First time is on the slow side, second is quite fast.
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| Shutter lag, full autofocus |
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First time is at full wide-angle, second is full telephoto. Better than average, not quite as fast as some. (Average is 0.8 - 1.0 second.) |
| Shutter lag, manual focus |
0.285
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Pretty fast. |
| Shutter lag, prefocus |
0.012
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Time to capture, after half-pressing shutter button. Very fast. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution |
2.62 / |
First number is for large/fine files, second number is time for "TV" mode (640x480) images. Times are averages. In both modes, shoots this fast continuously, clearing the buffer after each shot. On the slow side by current standards. |
Better than average shutter response, good startup and shutdown times, slower than average from shot to shot. The Casio EX-P505 is a bit of a mixed bag in the speed department, its full-autofocus shutter lag times of 0.60 - 0.72 second being noticeably faster than average, and its 0.012 (!) second shutter lag in prefocus mode being among the very fastest I've measured. (You can "prefocus" most digital cameras by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the shot itself. Doing so generally reduces the shutter delay, sometimes very dramatically.) From shot to shot though, the P505 is on the slow side of average, at 2.6 seconds between large/fine frames.
Power
The Casio Exilim EX-P505 uses a custom rechargeable LiIon battery for power. The table below shows the power drain I measured in various operating modes, and the corresponding run times to be expected.
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(@4.5 volts on the external power terminal) |
(1230 mA LiIon cell) |
| Capture Mode |
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| Half-pressed shutter |
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| Memory Write (transient) |
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| Flash Recharge (transient) |
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| Image Playback |
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Better than average battery life. Despite its relatively small size, the Casio EX-P505 manages very respectable run time numbers, with a worst-case battery life of 151 minutes in capture mode. Playback mode is even better, at 209 minutes.
Storage Capacity
The Casio Exilim EX-P505 stores its photos on SD / MMC memory cards or in approximately 7.5 MB of internal memory, and no card is included with the camera. (I strongly recommend buying at least a 64 MB card, preferably a 128 MB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings.) The chart below shows how many images can be stored in the internal memory at each size/quality setting.
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Resolution/Quality 7.5 MB Internal Memory |
Fine | Normal |
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| 2560
x 1920 |
Images (Avg size) |
3 2.2 MB |
3 2.0 MB |
5 1.4 MB |
| Approx. Compression |
7:1 | 8:1 | 10:1 | |
| 2048
x 1536 |
Images (Avg size) |
4 1.8 MB |
5 1.4 MB |
10 724 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
5:1 | 7:1 | 13:1 | |
| 1600 x 1200 | Images (Avg size) |
6 1.2 MB |
9 808 KB |
18 414 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
5:1 | 7:1 | 14:1 | |
| 1280
x 960 |
Images (Avg size) |
10 776 KB |
15 507 KB |
27 279 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
5:1 | 7:1 | 13:1 | |
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Images (Avg size) |
35 217 KB |
47 165 KB |
75 103 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
4:1 | 6:1 | 9:1 | |
Download Speed
For some reason, the P505 refused to connect to our the Windows XP desktop computer in our test studio (a Sony VAIO, 2.4 GHz, 512 MB of memory). It did connect fine to my Apple G4 PowerBook (Aluminum case, 15" screen), and downloaded files there at the very reasonable pace of 1,386 KB/sec. (Cameras with slow USB interfaces run as low as 300 KB/s, cameras with fast v1.1 interfaces run as high as 600 KB/s. Cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces run as fast as several megabytes/second.)
P505 Test Images
P505 Specifications
P505 "Picky Details"
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