Photo gallery: Casio Exilim PRO EX-P700
Features
Unlike its predecessor, Casio didn't leave the back door open with the P700. Attempts to gain access to the hidden service menu with the P600's combination of button presses were futile. As such, the P700 doesn't even have the unofficial RAW file support that existed in its forerunner. Although Casio has never released a firmware to allow RAW capture, there have been various workarounds floating on the Web to enable the use of such files.
In the case of the P700, such flexibility does not even exist. Apart from JPEGs with three different levels of compression, the only uncompressed image format available is TIFF. With the resulting 7-megapixel TIFF images often taking up 24MB in size (requires a 4MB JPEG file for in-camera browsing), users who are demanding image quality will have to be prepared to shell out big bucks for higher-capacity storage cards.
Design
In terms of design, Casio has chosen to stick with the P600's offbeat design. There's no attempt to gain back more of the characteristic slimness that the rest of the Exilim line has been renowned for. Still, this Casio retains the brushed metallic styling as well as the solid feel of its more slender siblings. As a slight aesthetic revamp, the P700 comes in a darker shade of grey -- which seems to be a popular choice by most manufacturers with regard to small incremental upgrades.
For the more photo-savvy users, the 4x Canon lens incorporated into the P700 allows the use of both Canon and Casio add-on lens converters -- a godsend when picking and matching for additional accessories that aren't always offered by Casio.
The 2-inch LCD is almost a standard on the new crop of cameras and the P700 retains that feature. With regard to controls and navigation, Casio has similarly not changed a thing and accessing the various functions remains coherent and simple.
The novel display that first made an appearance with the P600 remains, offering plenty of photographic information such as shutter speed, aperture, focusing, and even a real-time histogram.
On the downside, Casio has done little to alleviate the issue with storage. The EX-P700 arrives with approximately 9MB of internal memory and support for Secure Digital (SD) cards. Likewise, the P700 does not feature a hotshoe but a sync connector, requiring the need to purchase an additional bracket to attach external flash equipment to the camera. In short, resulting in more accessories to lug around.
Performance
In our tests, we found the P700's achievements to be generally ok. We were expecting slight improvements with regard to image capture performance but were somewhat disappointed. While the P600 booted up in 2 seconds, the newer make took 3 seconds to start up with the music and startup screen disabled. In the shot-to-shot stakes, the unit proved mediocre with our Ridata 66x SD card, taking 2 to 3 seconds with the flash disabled and 4 to 5 seconds with the flash switched on (JPEGs). Due to the lack of a larger buffer, write times for a single TIFF capture took approximately 40 seconds -- an eternity for just about every kind of photographer.
The zoom mechanism was reasonably quiet. However, we'd have preferred if there were more discrete steps. The autofocusing (AF) system was also quite peppy, often taking less than a second for situations with adequate lighting. Under low ambient lighting, the AF was a little iffy but timings remained decent, coming in at 2 to 3 seconds.
With regard to image quality, the P700 delivered mostly detailed and sharp photos. The colours captured were pleasing and metering was generally spot on, churning out well-exposed photos. We should mention that in the camera's widest angle of view, there's slight light fall-off when shot with the aperture wide open.
The automatic white balance performance tended to produce warmer results and needed touch-ups on occasions. On the other hand, ISO noise was generally acceptable with sensitivity options at 320 and below. We found photos shot at ISO 320 to be usable for 4R prints untouched; for larger prints this had to be processed with a noise filtration program.
Conclusion
With a sticker price of AU$1,199, the EX-P700 debuts at a lower price point than its forerunner. Normally, barring any usability issues, that would be enough to earn our stamp of approval. However, unlike the P600, the P700 faces stronger competition -- namely Canon's PowerShot G6. Sporting similar specifications, the more expensive PowerShot G6 may prove a better buy, especially with support for RAW images and a hotshoe -- both of which address our two biggest qualms with the P700.
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