Casio QV-3000EXCasio steps into the 3-megapixel era with great picture quality and 340 megabytes of storage!<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 2/14/2000 |
Exposure
The QV-3000EX gives you a nice variety of options when it comes to exposure. First of all, there are eight modes to choose from: Program, Movie, Panorama, Aperture Priority, Shutter Speed Priority, Landscape, Portrait and Night Scene. Program mode is the traditional, let-the-camera-do-everything mode. Movie mode lets you record movies up to 30 seconds long without sound in a 320 x 240 pixel AVI format with options for Past or Normal. (Past records events occurring before the shutter button was pressed, meaning that the camera is actually recording to a buffer memory once you enter the mode. Normal mode just means that the camera records normally, beginning when the shutter button is pressed). Movie recording stops automatically 30 seconds after you first pressed the shutter button in normal mode, or can be stopped early by pressing the shutter button a second time.
Panorama mode lets you record a series of images to be put together into a panoramic shot on the computer and features a nice guideline for lining up images. Landscape and Portrait modes are pretty self-explanatory as the camera adjusts the focus and aperture so that the entire image is in focus on Landscape and so that the background is slightly blurred in Portrait mode. (In more technical photographic parlance, the "Portrait" mode biases the exposure system toward wider apertures and hence shallower depth of field. Conversely, "Landscape" mode is biased toward small apertures and greater depth of field.) Night Scene mode sets up the camera for recording twilight or night subjects with slow shutter speeds and you can use the flash for a slow synchro recording effect.
Shutter Speed and Aperture Priority modes let you control either the aperture or shutter speed while the camera controls adjusts the other exposure value accordingly. Shutter speeds range from two to 1/1000 seconds and apertures from F/2 to F/8. An interesting feature here is the hidden full manual control option: If you hit the Set button and the left arrow button simultaneously while in Shutter Priority mode, you are put into a full manual mode that lets you control both aperture (the left and right arrow buttons) and shutter speed (the up and down arrows). There's also a hidden mode to give you very long timed exposures and a "bulb" exposure capability. (This last means the shutter opens when you first press the shutter button, and doesn't close until you press the shutter button again, or after 60 seconds, whichever comes first.) You can access the long-exposure feature from shutter-priority mode by going to the longest standard exposure (2 seconds), and then pressing the Set and down-arrow buttons simultaneously. The camera will remain in this mode until a different exposure mode is selected, or the power is cycled. (Interestingly, it will retain a long exposure setting even through a power on/off cycle, but will exit the long-exposure mode as soon as you increase the shutter speed above 2 seconds.) We literally stumbled across the manual-exposure and long-exposure functions on the QV-2000UX and are glad to see them repeated with this camera. (Although a Casio rep cautioned against taking multiple very long time-exposures in rapid sequence, as it can overheat the CCD itself, producing unusual amounts of image noise, and possibly damaging the chip. (!) - We'd say that you should definitely exercise caution when taking exposures longer than several seconds!)
You also have control over the type of metering that the camera is using. Three metering options (Multi, Center and Spot) are available through the record menu. Multi takes readings from across the entire image and provides a balanced exposure setting. Center takes readings from a large center area of the image and Spot takes a reading from a very limited spot at the center of the image. In all exposure modes, you can set the white balance to Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent or Manual control. (In manual mode, you set the white balance by pointing the camera at a white piece of paper and telling it to set the white balance accordingly. A little-known trick using this feature is to deliberately bias the camera's white balance by using an off-white object as the reference. - Try it, you'll be surprised by the control it gives you!) You also have exposure compensation (with the exception of Panorama mode) from -2.0 to +2.0 EV in 1/3 EV increments simply by pressing the right and left arrows of the rocker toggle button. Other creative controls include adjustments for image sharpening (soft, normal, hard), color saturation (low, normal, high), and contrast (low, normal, high).
A Continuous recording mode (under the Drive option in the record menu) allows you to record up to 3 images at a frame rate of approximately 2.5 frames per second while holding down the shutter button. There's also a self-timer that can be set to two or 10 seconds just by pressing the Self-Timer button, which cycles between both settings and off. An interesting feature that Casio carried over from the previous model is the ability to program certain settings that the camera recalls when powered on. For example, if you don't want the flash to revert to Auto each time the camera is turned off, you can program it otherwise through the record menu. This is a bonus if there's a particular setting you'd like to keep the flash, white balance, etc. set to. Finally, another plus that adds to the camera's creative abilities is the Color setting under the Record menu. This allows you to set the camera to record images in full color, black and white or sepia tones.
The QV-3000EX incorporates a more extensive variable-ISO (light sensitivity) capability than did the earlier QV-2000. The QV-2000 only had two ISO settings, with not much difference between them (80 ad 100). The QV-3000 though, has settings corresponding to ISO values of 100, 180, 300, and 500. At the higher settings, the image gets pretty noisy, but they could be a real help in getting good stop-action shots of fast action.
Flash
As
we mentioned earlier, we were pleased to note the redesign of the built-in flash
on the QV-3000EX. The previous QV-2000UX flash popped up automatically when the
lens cover was slid open and remained open until the lens cover was closed. This
was somewhat awkward because the flash stuck out all the time, and was more prone
to breakage in this position. The QV-3000's flash is built into the camera body.
The QV-3000EX's built-in flash has four modes to choose from, all available by
pressing the flash button on the back of the camera: Auto, On, Off and Red-Eye
Reduction. Auto fires the flash in response to existing light levels. The On setting
means that the flash always fires and Off means that the flash never fires. Red-Eye
Reduction mode emits a small pre-flash before the camera fires the full flash,
reducing the occurrence of the Red-Eye Effect. The flash range is stated as being
from 1.6 to 13.1 feet (0.5 to 4.0 m), which agreed
well with our own tests. Depending on lighting conditions, the camera shake warning
will appear on the LCD when the zoom is all the way at the telephoto end or if
a slow shutter speed is being used, regardless of the flash setting. You can set
the flash intensity to either Strong, Normal or Weak through the record menu.
This gives you a little extra flexibility, especially when combined with all the
other manually controlled options. (Variable flash intensity is an option we'd
really like to see on more digicams.)Reader Comments! --> Visit our discussion forum for the Casio QV-3000EX!
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