Casio Exilim EX-S600

April 10th, 2006 | by Vince Veneziani

Setup and Use

Unpacking the camera is easy and painless. Just hook up the dock to your computer via USB, plug the battery into the camera, and let it charge. Once charged, you should have lots of time to shoot some photos with this camera. Casio is pushing its “Super Life” battery, which is supposed to let you take up to 300 snapshots on a single charge. Not bad compared to other digicams, which normally quit after being on for more than 20 minutes.

This camera has some nice features that most people welcome. The anti-blur option significantly reduces motion blur when trying to capture a photo while moving. This feature also helps a lot when trying to take pictures of pets, automobiles, or when shooting in windy conditions. Don't be afraid to take pictures if you have shaky hands or are nervous; Casio takes care of this problem with ease.

Another feature Casio is pushing is the high-quality movie-recording feature. With one touch of the record button, the camera shoots high-quality MPEG4 movies like a normal digital camcorder; obviously you won't be replacing your traditional camcorder for anything over a few minutes long, though, as the Casio is held back by the size of your memory card. The movies it shoots are very clear and very nice for something coming out of a digital camera. You can even edit the movies inside the camera before transferring them onto your computer so that you don't need to go through the hassle of in-depth video editing. This is a great feature that is normally flawed on other cameras, but it's done right on the EX-S600.

After a day of shooting pictures in the park (or wherever you may be), you'll want to come home and look at them. As I stated before, Casio's only options are using their dock or using a third-party memory card reader. I consider this an inconvenience because I'd rather use the mini-USB cable that hooks up to many devices (such as my Blackberry, other digital cameras, and camcorder). Instead, I have to free up an additional USB port so the camera can transfer its photos over to my computer. Once it's all hooked up, though, it works fine and puts them right into my program of choice (iPhoto) just fine. If you want to charge the camera, you'll need to dock it as well, so I suggest you keep the dock plugged in and sacrifice another, lesser-used USB port.