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Flying High with the Casio EX-Z850 by Jeff Kent Photographer Cameron Davidson runs the new Casio point-and-shoot through its paces on a commercial photo shoot Article rating: 7.00

With more than 30 years of photographic experience, Cameron Davidson has seen just about everything through his lens. The commercial and editorial photographer is particularly well known for his aerial work, which has appeared in numerous national magazines, annual reports, advertisements and in five photographic books. He’s also an accomplished portraitist, with roots stretching back to his teens when a portrait photographer friend of his mother tutored him in the finer elements of the art form.

With these qualifications in mind, TakeGreatPictures.com asked Davidson to test out the new Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z850. The 8-megapixel, compact, point-and-shoot camera comes with a built-in image stabilization feature that was just begging to be flight-tested. It also boasts a continuous flash that allows three consecutive flash captures in one second, perfect for a high-speed aerial shoot. Back on land, we thought Davidson could try out the EX-Z850’s bright LCD display and high-quality optics on some portrait subjects and tourist attractions.

When we called him, Davidson had a project coming up for Virginia Tourism that he thought would be perfect for testing out the EX-Z850. The Virginia folks wanted him to do some aerials of the Godspeed, a recreation of one the original three ships that brought America’s first permanent English settlers to these shores in 1607. They also wanted some portraits and other people-oriented images at historic Jamestown.

Davidson figured he would use the EX-Z850 for some production shots during the project. The Casio’s first test came from about 900 feet in the air, shooting down on the Godspeed from Davidson’s perch in a circling helicopter. Davidson had his pilot hover above the ship, and then descend to about four feet off the deck so he could shoot the bowsprit. After engaging the camera’s image stabilization feature, Davidson was very impressed with the quality of the images. “Working in the helicopter, which is basically a thousand pieces of metal trying to bust themselves apart, the Casio did a very good job,” he says. “The image stabilization worked well, and the quality of the image files was great.”

© 2006 Cameron Davidson

© 2006 Cameron Davidson

The quality of the files was so good, in fact, that Davidson feels they could be worthy of submission to an editorial stock agency. “I set the camera to the lowest ISO (50) and there wasn’t much digital noise at all,” he says. “If you wanted to do some finagling with those files, convert them to TIFFs and up-res them, you could come up with some pretty good files that you could send to the stock agencies.”

In addition to the aerial shoot, Davidson spent some time with an archeologist on Jamestown Island, and also shot some editorial-style portraits in the recreated Jamestown colony. Again, the EX-Z850 impressed. “The skin tones were on the money, and the overall color was perfect,” he says. “There was a richness to the images, but they weren’t oversaturated. Before we started, I did a couple of test shots of my intern. He was backlit with early morning light, putting him in total shadow. The images came out great.”

Davidson’s favorite attributes of the EX-Z850 include the 8-megapixel file size, the quality of glass in the lens and the large, bright screen. Davidson also enjoyed the excellent portability and durability of this camera. “It was small and easy to carry,” he says. “Also, the ribbed metallic casing seems like something that could take a hit or a fall and do pretty well. That’s important for a photographer who puts his cameras through the paces like I do.”

After working with the EX-Z850 for a few days, Davidson had two suggestions for users of this camera. The first is to always shoot on the lowest ISO. Doing so will give you the least amount of digital noise and the best quality file for printing. Also, Davidson recommends using what photographers refer to as “the walking zoom.” Though the EX-Z850 has a 3X optical zoom (equivalent to 38-114mm in 35mm format), it’s always better to walk up to your subject rather than zooming from far away. This goes for just about any point-and-shoot camera. The more you’re zoomed out, the more difficult it is to stabilize the camera and capture a sharp image. “If your subject isn’t big enough in your frame, walk toward it rather than just standing still and zooming,” advises Davidson. “At its widest setting, this little camera is a little bit wider than a normal lens, so it’s really great for photographing people if you get up close.”

All told, Davidson loved the Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z850 and recommends it as a compact, easy-to-use, point-and-shoot camera. For tourists or other mobile shooters, it provides an ideal mix of portability and features, he says. “That camera is so small, and the quality is so mind-bogglingly good, for most people, why would you need to carry anything else? After the test was over, I didn’t want to send it back!”

To see more work from Cameron Davidson, visit www.camerondavidson.com.

Information on the Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z850 is available at http://www.casio.com/products/Cameras/Exilim_Zoom.

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