Digital Camera Home > Digital Camera Reviews > Casio Digital Cameras > Casio QV-3000EX

Casio QV-3000EX Casio steps into the 3-megapixel era with great picture quality and 340 megabytes of storage! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet QV-3000EX Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on QV-3000EX Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Viewfinder :(Previous) | (Next): Exposure & Flash>> Page 5:Optics Review First Posted: 2/14/2000

Optics
The QV-3000EX sports a 7 to 21mm, 3x optical zoom lens (equivalent to a 33 to 100 mm lens on a 35mm camera). By combining the optical zoom with the optional 2x digital telephoto feature, you get magnification up to 6x (although image quality always suffers from digital zoom with excess noise and a loss of sharpness). We liked the fact that you turn the digital telephoto on and off so that you don't accidentally slip into that mode. Aperture on the QV-3000EX ranges from F/2 to F/8 and can be either automatically or manually controlled. The aperture can be adjusted in one f-stop units across most of its range, with available settings of 2.0, 2.3, 2.8, 4, 5.6, and 8. While we like to see continuously variable aperture settings on digicams, the 6 settings of the QV-3000 are more than are available on many models.
The contrast-detect autofocus ranges from 1 foot (0.3m) to infinity when shooting in normal mode and from 2.4 to 12 inches (6 to 30 cm) in macro mode. A manual focus option is available as well, giving you a focus range from 2.4 inches (6 cm) to infinity. In all focusing modes, the minimum working distance of 2.4 inches is achieved only with the lens at its widest-angle setting. Sharp macro focus occurs at roughly the same subject size though, regardless of lens focal length. (That is, as you move to longer focal lengths, the minimum focusing distance increases in rough proportion, keeping the coverage area about constant.) Minimum area coverage in macro mode is only 2.23 x 1.67 inches (56.66 x 42.49 mm), average or slightly better for digicams these days.
We did note that you have to be pretty quick in manual focus mode as there's just a short window of time to alter the focus before the flashing "MF" goes away. You can easily get that window back by hitting the Manual Focus button a second time, however. Additionally, a time saving Infinity focus feature sets the camera focus at infinity for far away subjects.
The Canon-manufactured lens appears to be of good quality, producing sharp, clear images, with moderate geometric distortion, and very low chromatic aberration. The lens shows a 0.54 percent barrel distortion at the wide angle end and a 0.26 percent pincushion distortion on the telephoto end. Chromatic aberration is present but quite low, we characterized it as less than one pixel of coloration on each side of the black res target lines. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target). We did see 2-3 pixels of "coma" at the wide angle setting. (A lightening of the dark target elements, extending radially from the center of the frame, at the extreme edges of the resolution target image.)