Micro Casio EX-F1 Review -- part 3

[Steve Mullen]

At last -- control of exposure.

After watching a demo of the various tricks used to control the Canon 5D, I decided to see if I could find any magic buttons on the Casio.

First, what we have confirmed to date:

1. It seems that without using ND filters to push the shutter-speed to about 1/30 it's not possible to get enough motion BLUR to cover over motion JUDDER. (Motion judder is inherent in p25 and p30 because each frame is repeated twice during viewing.)

2. By using the MEMORY menu it is possible to disable the pesky pop-up flash and Digital Zoom through power-up and down.

3. It is possible to set Dynamic Range, Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation and have these settings be maintained when powering off and on the camera.

4. There are three ways of focusing: manual -- which is inherently stable when recording; Continuous AF -- which only works with lots of light; half shutter-press which forces AF to be obtained by increasing gain while focusing in low light.

5. To lock the two AF modes, the AF/AE-LOCK button is pressed.

What's missing is exposure control.

There are four arrow keys. The LOWER turns on the settings selection mode AND moves a selector down through the setting options: ISO, WB, EV, Focus mode (spot, etc.) and Meter mode (spot, etc.), etc. The other three arrows are unmarked. The LEFT and RIGHT move through settings, once the lower has been pressed. (The UPPER moves up through the settings.)

It turns out the Upper arrow when pressed ALWAYS re-enables the setting you last worked with. (So, after you have set EV once, the UPPER arrow always brings it back.) Once EV appears, the Left and Right arrows choose MINUS and PLUS bias, respectively.

Even nicer, the ring around the arrow keys can be rotated by your thumb to alter the EV. Just like an exposure ring on a lens.

So now, after pressing UP, just dial the in the exposure that looks right. (You do not need to press SET.) Then press RECORD. Whatever exposure look you dialed in remains locked while shooting video.

If you use the EV ring with the MF ring on the lens, you have the ability to manually control HOW your scene will look. You do NOT have to press either Shutter or the LOCK button before pressing RECORD! The exposure is auto-locked because you dialed in a bias. (Zero is a bias.)

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Remember, once you touch the Focus ring, the area in the yellow box will AUTO magnify to make focus EZ. You also see a numerical distance scale so you can follow focus.
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If you are using CONTINUOUS AF mode, you need to press AF/AE LOCK -- IF you don't want AF while you shoot, before you press RECORD. (Of course, you may want AF.)

In low light you do not need to turn-off CONTINUOUS AF mode. Half press the shutter button and the EV display will turn-off. (The bias will remain.) Half press the shutter button again and the image will brighten so the camera can set AF. (The white box will turn green.) Once AF is achieved, press AE/AF LOCK (to lock AF) and release the shutter button. Now press RECORD.

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What if you don't want to lock exposure?

1) Use MF and simply press RECORD.

2) Set AE/AF lock to only AF and now you can lock focus but not exposure.

And, no you can't simply bias AE.


PS: If somebody has already published this -- sorry. I missed it.

Happy Holidays.

[Daniel Thornton]

Great suggestions, the more I learn about this camera the more I like it.

3. It is possible to set Dynamic Range, Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation and have these settings be maintained when powering off and on the camera.

Steve, how did you get the camera to remember these setting when powering off and on?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Daniel Thornton

Great suggestions, the more I learn about this camera the more I like it.

3. It is possible to set Dynamic Range, Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation and have these settings be maintained when powering off and on the camera.

Steve, how did you get the camera to remember these setting when powering off and on?

It started to do this when I used the MEMORY menu to everything ON and turned OFF SLEEP. I don't know which -- or if both -- did it. (It works even with BS.)

[Daniel Thornton]

I have tried the Memory on or off with sleep on or off but mine is not maintaining settings on power on and off. Maybe its another setting?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Daniel Thornton

I have tried the Memory on or off with sleep on or off but mine is not maintaining settings on power on and off. Maybe its another setting?

HAVE YOU UPGRADED YOUR FIRMWARE TO 1.10?

I turned ALL the items under REC > MEMORY to ON so the settings are saved:

flash
self-timer
flash intensity
digital zoom
mf position
zoom position

I've now set SLEEP = 2 MIN

PS: now flash intensity is retained.

You are right -- there is no audio jack.

[Daniel Thornton]

I do have firmware 1.10 and I have set all items under REC>Memory to on. These items are working.

The camera is not remembering Dynamic Range, Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation when power on/off. If I could get it to remember these, it would save me some setup time.

If you would, check BS > Night Scene. Change the Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation to +1, save this then power off then on and see if it retained the +1 settings. Mine reverts back to 0.

thanks

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Daniel Thornton

I do have firmware 1.10 and I have set all items under REC>Memory to on. These items are working.

The camera is not remembering Dynamic Range, Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation when power on/off. If I could get it to remember these, it would save me some setup time.

If you would, check BS > Night Scene. Change the Sharpness, Contrast, and Saturation to +1, save this then power off then on and see if it retained the +1 settings. Mine reverts back to 0.

thanks

I don't use BS modes anymore as they do nothing I need done. BS modes do NOT remember their settings during power of and on. Another reason not to use them. For example, all the Night modes turn off EIS!