Casio FH20 previewed
By
Mike Tomkins
(Saturday, September 20, 2008 - 13:38 EDT)
Earlier this week, Casio announced a digital camera that captures much of the spirit of its stunningly speedy EXILIM PRO EX-F1, but at a much more affordable pricepoint.
At the time of the Casio FH20's announcement, we promised further details would be coming shortly, and later that day we posted our Casio FH20 hands-on preview. Unfortunately, in the rush of work that's preceding the upcoming Photokina tradeshow, we forgot to post an update pointing to the preview.
That's an oversight we really couldn't let slide, because the Casio FH20 is a very interesting camera indeed. For around $600, the FH20 offers a nine megapixel imager, 20x optical zoom lens, and sensor shift image stabilisation. Throw in the Casio FH20's SLR-like body with both a 3.0" LCD display and electronic viewfinder, make the whole package quite a bit smaller than any DSLR with an equivalent lens can manage, and that'd be plenty for most manufacturers.
Not for Casio though. The EXILIM FH20 needed another ingredient. Speed, and lots of it. At a slightly reduced eight megapixel resolution, the Casio FH20 can capture images at an impressive 30 frames per second. Drop down to seven megapixels or below, and this increases to 40 frames per second - not quite as fast as the Casio F1, but still enough to blow most any other camera away. Throw in 1280x720 high definition video recording, and the ability to manage frame rates of 210fps or faster at reduced video resolutions, and on paper there's no question that the Casio EXILIM FH20 looks like a lot of camera for the money.
So - how does that promise live up in the real world? Read our Casio FH20 preview, and see what IR publisher Dave Etchells thought of this interesting digicam!
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