Casio Exilim EX-Z19 review

Casio’s EX-Z19 is compact, stylish and crammed full of improved features

Casio’s EX-Z19 has a stylish look to it, not too dissimilar from others in the series. It has a weighty, sturdy feel to it and fits in the hand very naturally.

On power-up you simply go through the quick language and time setup and you are ready to shoot. The tiny lithium-ion battery takes two hours on first charge and is good for over 200 shots a time. There is 18.6MB internal memory to make the camera fully functional without a card. It does enable you to take a few images but this is really a token gesture and a card is hugely recommended on purchase.

The memory card slots in neatly next to the battery beneath the slider on the side of the camera’s body. Its USB/AV port is in very close proximity to the slider, giving you all your removable hardware sockets in one tidy place. The covers seal very well, so this gives you peace of mind that nothing will get damaged.

You will find the Power button a bit irritating at first, as it sits so flush to the camera body, it seems pointless sat next to the extruding shutter. All the rest of the buttons are all very practically laid out, apart from the left d-pad button; it can be hard to get to for those with bigger fingers, due to the protruding LCD screen.

Viewing the LCD screen for the first time, it is noticeably low-res and pixellated. This is not something that affects quality of images, but the slow viewing times can hinder your patience on viewing your shots.

Its 3x optical zoom is very fast and perfect for framing shots quickly and easily.

Unfortunately the digital zoom creates lots of noise in images, and is not even an option in low light. Image stabilisation holds up very well using the optical zoom, but shooting at distance is in no way this model’s strong point.

Macro mode on this camera is not one of the automatic settings. If you are looking for a model that will take good macro shots, this will not be suitable. The macro focus is barely worth having – it is easier to just crop in to images, but you will lose that sharp macro effect.

Simple menu systems make it very easy to initially setup and then you can do the rest from the panel or Easy mode. The Easy mode will suit novices with its simple prompts to functions. While shooting, with one touch you can bring up a histogram or the flash settings, which is a nice feature. The Best Shot feature is a one-touch menu where you can access 23 scene modes suitable for all occasions. The portrait modes are good combined with Face Detection, improving focus and colour quality.

It is a shame that the Best Shot selections are not retained when the camera is off, as the start-up and shutter are so quick and responsive. You can have the camera from switched off to taking pictures in a couple of seconds.

The Settings panel is one of the main features you will use on the camera, although it is optional. The panel does take in to consideration shot framing, but it does feel very unnatural looking at the screen in those dimensions while taking pictures. The panel makes capture settings a much quicker operation. Combined with the auto-framing feature it is incredibly simple to take good shots.

For those who like to shoot in video sometimes, this will offer 848 x 480 at 30fps and even has a YouTube recording mode for those who like to share their adventures with the world.

This is a good option for an amateur photographer looking for a sturdy budget camera to take nothing more than standard every day shots. Its price and design make it an appealing option but its lack of manual control and settings make it nothing more than an average shooter.