Casio Exilim EX-S600 6MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Silver)

I have owned several digital cameras. This Casio EXS600 is my eighth, and it is the most useful one so far. It isn't just that the camera is small, so that I can carry it around all the time. Picture quality is excellent, with sharp images and rich but not unrealistic saturation. The video mode is efficient, producing artifact-free (as far as I can see) videos in relatively little card space (my two Canon cameras yield video of equal quality but use four times as much memory space). The anti-shake feature, while it may not be the best technology (they move the CCD instead of variably bending light in the lens), seems to work. I've gotten hand-held overhead shots in low-light at 1/40 of a second that were quite sharp. There is also an ISO 1600 setting for extreme situations, but results are grainy. Battery life is excellent -- I have taken as many as 150 pictures and several videos in a day and have never seen the indicator fall below 3 bars (out of 3). I like the "past movie" mode, with which you can set it to take videos continuously but keep only the last 8 seconds of activity that occurred before you pressed the button to begin. I know this sounds confusing, but here is an example. I pointed the camara at a rooster and waited for it to crow -- after it did I pressed the movie button to turn the video mode on. When I viewed the video it turned out that I had captured the full crow. This mode is also useful for capturing something that my grandchildren are doing sporadically.There are a few downsides. The cradle is fine for home use but not for travelling. When travelling I use a card reader to feed photos to my laptop and an aftermarket battery charger to charge the battery (Amazon lists many chargers, some that come with spare batteries, for the NP-20 battery). The camera has an instant-on feature that was annoying -- it would turn on in my pocket when the button was pressed lightly accidentally. But it was a menu-selectable item and I turned it off. The flash takes a few seconds to recharge for the next photo when you've taken a photo that demanded full flash energy (a distant subject), and it won't let you switch to viewing photos while that is going on. But the flash is stronger than the ones on my Canon cameras.Overall, the negatives are minor. This is a great camera. You might be able to find it at a reduced price -- the Casio web site no longer lists information on it, which suggests they are phasing it out.UPDATE July 5, 2007. The LCD screen failed on June 21. The top half would not display an image. I sent the camera to Casio's designated west-coast repair shop and was told I'd have to pay $140 to have it repaired! They claimed the LCD screen failed because I had exerted undue pressure on it. Maybe they're right. I had kept it in a lower pocket of my cargo pants, not in a rigid case. Part of the charm of a slim camera is that you can have it with you all the time, pull it out quickly, and use it to capture a photo op. But I've kept a Canon SD400 in the same pocket for years with no problem -- so the Casio, with its larger screen, is apparently more fragile. But $140 to repair it! New ones are now selling on Amazon for $180. I called Casio's customer service and found someone who agreed that $140 is excessive. She called the repair shop and got the price down to $98 (including tax and shipping). More reasonable, though if I had known the camera was this fragile I think would have looked for a more robust brand.

I took this camera out the box, excited about my new toy, only to find that it didn't work. I chagred the battery for hours-- 5 or 6 HOURS!-- but no dice. I ended up wasting the better part of a weekend trying to figure this out; read the maual, looked stuff up on the Web, etc. Turns out Casio shipped me a completely dead battery that no amount of charging of fiddling would fix. VERY aggravating. Their customer service line was very bureaucratic and not very helpful or sympathetic either. They wanted me to write a letter saying what's wrong, ship it their warehouse (at my expense), and then they would supposedly send me a good battery.Luckily-- and the only good part of this story-- the vendor was J&R, in NYC. I just went to their store and exchanged it for another camera (a Pansonic), no questions asked, no hassle. Conclusion: Casio sucks, J&R rocks!

My lug around camera was a hulking Nikon D200. I wanted something small to take on vacation and to the pubs, so, after doing some research, bought this. I won't belabor the upsides, just say it takes really good pictures. My only complaints are: the digital stabilization is a scam. Instead of using an optical system, Casio simply increases ISO setting which forces an increase in shutter speed. My other complaint is that after less than two years, the outer metal ring surrounding the lens fell off. Once dust and crap started getting inside the lens gears, the zoom and focusing eventually stopped working. I've since gone back to Canon for my happy snap camera and now own a Canon SD 800IS (which has since been replaced by, I think, the 870IS). I love my little Canons.

I received my Casio camera barely three months ago and have used it maybe three times. I took it out this past week to find it had just stopped working. It turns on then immediately shuts itself off, making a sound like a broken ipod even though it has NEVER been dropped and the exterior is in perfect condition. Casio told me to ship it to their headquarters at my expense. After reading the reviews here, I'm very worried about whether Casio will honor its warranty, even though this is exactly the sort of situation warranties are made for. Even before it broke, the pictures taken with the Casio were mediocre and it often blurred itself on auto mode. Even if they fix the problem or ship me a new one, I may sell it for a better model. The one positive that does stand out, however, is it's "cool" factor; it's very small and sleek and stands out from the crowd. With its record of breaking and okay pictures, however, I couldn't recommend this camera.

I bought this to replace my aging Optio S, which was a tough act to follow. That thing was tiny (fits in an Altoids box!) and has decent photo quality.I wanted something with higher resolution and decent video, but I was not ready to sacrifice in size because I take my camera with me a lot.This camera is a little taller and wider but quite thinner. Very solid. It's beautiful. Great screen. Fast startup time and interface. Video is VGA, pretty food (similar to DV quality). Battery life is fantastic too. I only wish the photos were better. They are acceptable, barely so in darker places (such as bars).Because I think I'd rather have a camera that takes decent photos everywhere as opposed to a really great camera that takes fantastic photos but I always leave home because it's too big, I'm very happy with it.