After a long, frustrating wait (which involved the incredibly dull-minded signature system that FedEx has), my camera finally came in the mail. I'd rant and complain about FedEx, but that's not the purpose of this post.
I got it and opened it up, and was immediately pleased by the stylish, compact form factor of the camera (some of the online images made the "Exilim" logo look like it was rainbow-colored, but I guess that was a pathetic attempt at showing off the shiny glossiness of it.) Another thing I immediately noticed was that there are not ports on the camera for direct charging/syncing. No, instead, the dock has all the ports, which means I have to use the dock no matter where I go in order to charge the thing. Bummer. But it's a small compromise.
When I got the battery in there, I turned it on and saw that they had given me one bar of battery life to start with. I was annoyed by the beeping noise it made, so I navigated through the logical, easy-to-access menu and turned the sound off. Upon doing that, the battery life went up to 2 bars. Nice.
The screen is a-ma-zing. It's 2.5 inches of pure glory. Also, the startup time is almost instantaneous. The manual features and wide assortment of scene modes are also quite easy to access and select, and come in handy. I spent some time outside taking some test shots.
After taking the pictures, I connected the usb cable to the computer, and the other end into the dock, which connected to the camera *rolls eyes*. Of course, iPhoto immediately recognized it and started up, just like iTunes when I connect my iPod. If only iTunes worked that way with all portable media players, just like iPhoto works that way with all still cameras, and iMovie with all video cameras (except Chris Knight's video camera, which didn't work but for some reason is listed on their compatability list)...It was fun to be able to fully utilize the amazing "full-screen" editing mode in the new iPhoto, without a black frame around the image (my Dad's pictures were smaller than the screen). The pictures from this camera occupied the entire screen, and it was beautiful. My Dad's camera (a Canon) took great pictures for an ultracompact 3.2 MP, but the colors were always a bit faded on it (luckily iPhoto solved the problem and dramatically improved the pictures I took with it). But not with my camera. When using the standard enhance feature, iPhoto actually de-saturized and neutralized the color in my pictures, which I didn't like so much. Now, rather than use iPhoto to make all my pictures look better, I primarily improve them quickly and easily on my camera. iPhoto still helps, but its workload is reduced by a significant margin. Another good thing about this is that color enhancement on iPhoto made the files larger, thereby making them harder to upload, and sometimes forcing me to "revert to original" in order to upload them (often the enhanced versions exceeded the maximum file size).
These images were taken with the camera's "flower shot" (macro) mode. The flower turned out nicely. The architectural swirl was clear enough, but could be a bit sharper. I'm pleased with the focus quality on close-range shots like that.
This picture was taken with the "landcape mode" (infinity focus), and it turned out to be very clear. My clearest image, in fact. The details are very articulated, and I can only imagine how good it looks on a clear, sunny day and not on a cloudy late-afternoon.
These two pictures were taken both with the macro mode, but the left was taken with a combination of macro and the "natural green" effect, which increases the saturation in green hues. The left does have a noticeably vibrant green; my shaky hands are to blame for the bluriness (luckily there's the anti-shake mode, which will of course be set as my default). The right picture has some nice water droplets on it though.
This is by far the must useful and practical mode they have, which is the "backlight" mode. This can really come in handy. The angle on the first and second shot weren't identical, but the light was behind them both, equally powerful (I know this because I took several shots of each and got many different angles--of course, I deleted all but these two because I felt they made the most accurate representation). There is a huge change, as is obvious. Please excuse the creepy look on my face, and the sounds of female screeching every time the browser window shows it.
So far I like this camera. It fits nicely into my hand, it's zippy and extremely responsive, the menu system is logical and extensive but uncomplicated. The manual features are excellent, and it even has a nifty voice recording feature. The movie clips were not very high-quality (as can be expected), but the framerate wasn't too shabby at all, and the microphone seemed to pick up the audio very well. I even like the physical feel and the precise, satisfying *click* of the buttons (including the shutter). I can't really comment on the battery life because I haven't used it enough, but so far I've had no issues with it. It supposedly has "long-life" technology, but I'm pretty sure every company claims to have "long-life" technology in their batteries nowadays.
I'd recommend this camera to anyone, unless you're a pro. Then, of course, you'd go with something a bit more powerful and clunky. But for everyone else, give this camera a look if you're in the market. The price isn't too shabby either, I got it on Amazon for about $290 (not including shipping and tax). For all the features it packs, it's a great price.
The REAL test will be Mexico. I plan on taking it with me and using up all 512 MB of it's memory (which I bought separately...don't get your hopes up, it only comes with about 8.3 MB of built-in memory). It takes SD flash memory, so if you have one already in your old camera or other electronic device, you're in luck.
Wow, see how I am? I can't even keep a post about my camera that I've only owned for a few hours shorter than 10 paragraphs. Imagine how long my posts would be if I talked about my
feelings:P.
