Ah, currently i own the Casio Exilim (EX-Z3) a 3.2 megapixel camera, and i love all the features it comes with, but the image quality isnt real good. I need something better so my parents offered to buy me the Casio Exilim
(EX-Z57)
I was wondering if this cam would be good enough, and if it has a high shutter speed so it doesnt blur moving things as much. Opinions?
Nini, I had the EX-Z3 and agree it's IQ is not all that great. I looked over the specs on the EX-Z57 and thought I would share a few thoughts. For starters there are only a few things you can do about low light conditions that cause the blurr you're talking about. Most Point and shoot camera's do not allow the manual adjustments needed to fix this problem.
1-You can change the ISO to a higher more number making it more sensitive to light. The camera you're looking at goes up to 50- 400. 400 isn't bad as long as you can adjust it manually. The downside, this degrades image quality.
2- You adjust the aperture to its largest size (smaller number) to allow more light and faster shutter speeds. This camera has a 2.6 aperture, not bad, but again, probably not manually adjustable.
3-Image stabilization. Rather effective on expensive lenses available for SLR's, normally not an option on P&S. I think Panasonic may have one buit into the camera, not sure how effective it is.
4-Exposure compensation. Again, not normally something you can adjust on a P&S. You risk under exposing to ge the shot you want.
5-Using a flash is about the only thing you can do for a P&S. This is ok most of the time, but certainly has it's downfalls.
6- Tripod will almost ALWAYS fix this, but normally not an option.
I know this is way more info than you care for, but just thought I would share.
The bottom line is, look at cameras you can afford with as many manual features as possible, but be prepared to understand how they work or they'll be useless.
good luck
read this:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/ex-z57.html