Casio Exilim EX-FH100 (Black) review: Casio Exilim EX-FH100 (Black)

The Casio Exilim EX-FH100 camera is all about high-speed shooting and a high-zoom lens in a compact body. Its high-speed capabilities come courtesy of a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that let the camera capture 9-megapixel images at speeds up to 40 frames per second and movies at up to 1,000fps. It'll prerecord images before you fully press the shutter, too, so that you have the best chance of getting the shot you want. Casio combines those features with a 24mm-equivalent wide-angle lens with a 10x zoom, giving you a lot of flexibility for capturing things you normally can't catch with a point-and-shoot.

7.3

Casio Exilim EX-FH100 (Black)

The Good

Flexible lens in a compact body; good control layout; useful and fun high-speed shooting options.

The Bad

No fully automatic mode; mixed shooting performance; near-useless raw image capture.

The Bottom Line

The high-speed Casio Exilim EX-FH100 is a compelling compact megazoom camera for those constantly worried about missing a snapshot.

This camera is not for the lazy, though, or for those fearful of actually participating in taking photos beyond hitting the shutter release. It has plenty of easy select-and-shoot options for the high-speed features, but without a fully automatic shooting mode, taking a normal photo requires more effort. Also, regardless of how fast this camera is at continuous shooting, its other shooting speeds are below average in comparison--especially its raw capture--to the competition. The camera's photo quality is very good, as long as you're not looking for poster-size prints or to do a lot of heavy cropping. For those afraid of missing a shot, this might be the compact camera you want.

The FH100's all-black metal casing and heft give it a very durable, high-quality feel. I'm not sure how much abuse it could actually take, but its design gives the impression that it'll withstand rattling around in a bag better than most compacts will. The camera is also remarkably small and can easily fit in a loose pants pocket or small bag. We have only two minor design complaints with the camera that you can remedy by paying attention. The camera's flash on the right side is so close to the hand grip that you can easily obscure it, and you can likewise block the left side of the stereo mic with a misplaced finger.

Past Casio models have had a couple seemingly unnecessary buttons that made them a little confusing to use. In this case, Casio's extra control options make sense, as it gives you direct access to the camera's two key capabilities: high-speed shooting of photos and video. On top is a power button, shutter release with zoom ring, and shooting mode dial. There is also a button for switching to continuous shooting--either high-speed or normal depending on what you've set it to in the main menu system.

On its back, to the right of the LCD, is a discrete movie record button with a selector for going between the high- and normal-speed capture modes. Below that are buttons for moving between playback and capture, a circular directional pad centered with a Set button, and a Menu button. Both the play and capture buttons will turn the camera on into their respective modes. Pressing up on the directional pad changes the amount of information on the display, down sets the flash, and left and right can be programmed to do a function of your choosing such as change focus, turn on face detection, set the self-timer, or change ISO. The Set button brings up mode-specific shooting options while the Menu brings up three tabs of recording, quality, and system settings. The FH100's menus are deep with options, too, nearly to the point of being overwhelming so if you're not one to play with settings this camera might be a poor choice. There's so much to experiment with here, it would be a waste not to dive into what it offers.

The FH100 is CIPA-rated for a remarkable 520 shots, and battery life was excellent in testing. However, the more you use the continuous shooting or other high-speed settings, the faster your battery will drain. The large rechargeable pack is behind a locking door in the bottom of the camera as is the memory card slot. You have to remove the battery to charge it. The camera uses SD/SDHC cards and supports Eye-Fi wireless SD cards that let you transfer photos off the card and onto a computer over a Wi-Fi network. Lastly, for connecting to an external display and/or a computer there are Mini-HDMI and Mini-USB/AV ports behind a door on the camera's right side.

What's most odd about the FH100's shooting modes is there is no fully automatic mode where the camera handles everything for you. There is an Auto mode, but it's really a program auto, giving you control over ISO, white balance, focus, metering, and more. And if you compile a mix of settings you like for a particular subject or situation, you can easily establish a User Scene mode for them; you can create up to 999 of them, in fact. Again, if a reliable put-it-there-leave-it-there mode is something you value over the capability to tinker with settings, this camera might not be a good choice.

The Casio EX-FH100's continuous shooting and high-speed movie presets are plentiful.

On the other hand, there are the scene modes, what Casio calls Best Shot, such as Portrait and Scenery that you can switch to easily enough. In fact, if you're considering this camera for its high-speed functions, the BS options are plentiful, letting you select continuous shooting and high-speed movie options according to your subject. The Continuous Shooting options feature different amounts of prerecord photos. When you press the shutter release half way down, the camera will start to prerecord images. Once fully pressed it will record a certain number of shots before and after it's pressed.

As for high-speed movies, you can shoot at 120fps, 240fps, 420fps, and 1,000fps at resolutions of 640x480, 448x336, and 224x168 pixels, and 224x64 pixels, respectively. There are, though, variable 30-120fps and 30-240fps options letting you toggle the movie recording speed between 30fps and 120 or 240fps, basically going from normal to slow motion when the moment's right. Regardless of what type of movie, though, there is no use of the optical zoom while recording. While this is usually disappointing, the lens movement and autofocus are so loud that you would not want to use them while recording.

The high-speed CMOS gets put to further use in BS modes for night scenes, antishake, and high dynamic range. All of these options take a series of shots with a single press of the shutter and then combines them into one photo. Depending on the mode, it will help reduce image noise, motion blur, or exposure.

Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, and Manual modes take up the rest of the mode dial. Apertures are limited to two stops at any given focal length. Shutter speeds are selectable from 30 seconds to 1/2,000 of a second. Plus, you can select both aperture and shutter speed for stills and movies. These modes also give you control over the burst-shooting options, including how many images are recorded before and after the shutter is pressed. There are actually three continuous shooting selections: Normal, High Speed, and F CS. Normal mode is the slowest because it focuses and adjusts exposure before each 10-megapixel shot is taken; shot count is limited only by the amount of available memory. High Speed mode drops the resolution to 9 megapixels, but shoots at up to 40 frames per second for a maximum of 30 shots. The last setting, F CS or Full pixels Continuous Shutter, uses only the mechanical shutter to eliminate any distortion that may be caused by the CMOS sensor. As for other imaging tweaks, there's a list of color filters you can use; sliders for sharpness, saturation, and contrast; and adjustments for flash intensity and turning brightness correction for helping balance highlights and shadows.

As for its shooting performance outside of the burst modes, the FH100 is fairly average to below average when compared with its competition. From powered off to first shot, it takes a long 3.4 seconds. It's shot-to-shot times averaged 2.3 seconds without the flash and jumps up to 4.1 seconds with the flash. In raw+ mode, which is raw plus JPEG, the camera's wait time is a painful 13 seconds. (It's also only available at ISO 100 and ISO 200.) Its shutter lag--how quickly a camera captures an image after the shutter-release button is pressed--is average at 0.5 second in bright lighting and 0.9 second in dim conditions. Of course, if you're taking advantage of the prerecord function the shutter lag is virtually eliminated. The high-speed continuous mode lived up to Casio's claim of 30fps. However, like the burst modes on most compact cameras, you're left waiting and waiting while those shots are stored to the memory card. Casio's inclusion of the Normal CS mode on this Exilim is nice, but it's a slow 0.3fps. Still, few if any compacts offer as many continuous shooting selections.

Sample photos:
Casio Exilim EX-FH100

Photo quality is very good, at times excellent, from the FH100. However, a lot depends on the size at which you're viewing them. At 100 percent, subjects look painterly, even at ISO 100. When you view its images at smaller sizes, onscreen or printed at and below 8x10 inches, subjects appear detailed and sharp. That's not unusual, but Casio seems to have done a better job then most manufacturers. Unfortunately this doesn't make the photos anymore usable for larger prints or for aggressive cropping. And going above ISO 200 only increases the effect. Its image detail remain strong when shot at an ISO up to 800, though, and even shots taken at its highest ISOs are usable. In the end, if you're after poster-sized prints, you may not be happy with this Casio's output. But if most of your shots are viewed on a computer screen or TV or you commonly make 4x6-inch prints, the FH100's photos are fine quality.

Casio does a very good job of controlling lens distortion. At the lens' widest position, the Exilim's images show just a hint of barrel distortion. Pincushion distortion when the lens is fully extended is nearly nonexistent as well. Fringing in high-contrast areas is below average for its class, too. It's only really visible when photos are viewed at 100 percent. Sharpness is very good, though there is some softening at the very edges and in the corners.

The Exilim's image color quality is very good--fairly accurate, bright, and vivid--and remains consistent at higher ISOs. Its exposure and white balance are very good, as well. BSI CMOS sensors seemingly struggle with overly bright scenes resulting in clipped highlights. Fortunately, Casio's High Speed Lighting Best Shot mode can help get you a proper exposure when you're shooting in challenging lighting conditions.

The Casio Exilim EX-FH100 isn't your typical compact megazoom. It has a ton of high-speed shooting options with many set up as scene modes so you don't even have to think beyond picking the one for what you're shooting. However, beyond its high-speed features, its shooting performance is more below average for its class. Casio's choice to not include a scene-recognition auto mode on the camera is surprising as well. Nonetheless, there's plenty here to experiment with and if you're not afraid of diving into menus to get the best results, the FH100 is a nice choice.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V

1.8 

1.5 

0.8 

0.4 

Samsung HZ35W

1.9 

2 

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7

2.3 

2.1 

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Casio Exilim EX-FH100

3.4 

2.3 

0.9 

0.5 

Canon PowerShot SX210 IS

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0.8 

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