A great investment
Written: Feb 12 '03
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Pros: Great design and build quality; incredible presets; flexibility; everything you need
Cons: Not much here - bundled photo software; no carrying case
The Bottom Line: A great, solid, compact camera for enthusiasts and beginners alike.
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| ingadog's Full Review: Casio QV-R3 Digital Camera |
First off, the QV-R3 is a 3.2 Megapixel digital camera, and not 4.0 megs as stated in the spec sheet. The 4.0 megapix model is the QV-R4, which, in turn is wrongly characterized as a 3.0 to 3.9 megapix camera. Click on the pic above and you'll see its a QV-R4 actually pictured.
Anyway, I have had this camera for around 2 1/2 months and I must say I am totally satisfied. I got it for 22,000 PHpesos (around US$440) after looking at Sony, Canon, Fuji and Nikon. While it is my first digital camera, I never expected it to be this good. I have had a chance to fiddle around with a borrowed Canon Digital Ixus and an ancient Kodak digital, and it is safe to say that the QV-R3 is worlds ahead.
Design/Build Quality:
Main thing about the QV-R3 is its size. Smaller than a pack of smokes or around the size of an IXus, it was the smallest I could find with at least 3.2 megapixels.
The build quality is great too - Real stainless steel. No cheapo silver plastic. Haven't dropped it yet though.
The buttons are easy to feel around for and the user interface is quite intuitive.
Features:
The features are incredible. It has a 3x optical zoom and 3x digital zoom. The zoom indicator bar also indicates whether the current zoom is still optical or is digital. In fact, zooming pauses when you reach maximum optical zoom. As I don't like the quality of digital zoom, I appreciated the ability to turn this feature off, so that I don't accidentally step into digital while zooming into a subject.
The presets (called bestshots) are incredible. It has dozens of presets for different situations-- closeup, candlelit, scenery, nighttime etc. What took the cake was the ability to take a picture of a group with a background and then "add yourself" into it later. This simply blew me away. No more asking passers by to take a picture of you and your girlfriend and then finding out later that they totally messed up the shot!
The camera also has dozens of controls for other aspects such as type of light, flash intensity, shutter speed, etc. If you're a photography enthusiast or professional, I think you would really appreciate the ability to manually control these things. However, if you're basically a beginner like me, you can just stick to the presets and still come up with incredible results.
The QVR3 also has the ability to shoot 30-second MPEG's at VGA resolution. No audio though.
Also great is the built-in 11 MB internal memory, which is somewhat higher than most digital cameras.
Photo Quality:
The first time I printed out some pics from the QVR3, I just had to show them off. Picture resolution was unbelievable. Even 8x10's were crisp and clear. In fact, I believe I can get even better results by changing to a better printer. (Stand by for an update) My current printer, while already producing great pics, can't really maximize the power of 3.2 megapixels.
Battery:
Pretty good battery. Lasts for around four to five parties or around 200 to 300 shots. However, to charge the battery, you have to take it out of the camera and insert it into a charger. This takes away the ability to use the camera while it is charging.
Shutter Lag:
When in bright light, no flash, you have virtually no shutter lag. Period.
Things change when you need a flash. Then it becomes close to being a normal digital camera again.
I have some minor gripes, though:
The bundled photo software is not good. While you can crop and resize on the camera itself, the software can't crop. weird. The browsing software is separate from the editing program, so its difficult to switch from browsing to editing and vice versa. Anyway, this is easily solved by getting good aftermarket photo viewing and editing software.
The QV-R3 does'nt come with any cover or carrying case. In fact, it only came with its USB cable and wrist strap.
Overall, I would highly recommend this camera to beginners and enthusiasts alike, since it is simple enough to use, yet flexible for those who want to fiddle around with the controls. It may also be ideal for professionals on holiday who don't want to lug around their gargantuan cameras.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 440
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
ingadog
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Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 0 members
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