Mike Industries

When I think of Casio, I think mainly of the dorky calculator watches which kept all women a safe distance from me during my teenage years. “Kryptomack” watches are what we call them now.

So when I first heard about the Casio EX-Z750 digital camera, I naturally assumed it was some low-end throwaway device trying to fill the void between the VGA cameraphone and the high-end digital SLR.

Oh my was I wrong. Casio is back, baby. In a big way.

I picked up one of these babies for $379 about a week ago after reading reviews here, here, and here, and I have to say that in my opinion, this is the best all-around camera on the market. I won’t go over every single aspect of the camera since the reviews above are quite comprehensive in that regard, but allow me to spell out my top five raves:

1. There is no perceptible shutter lag whatsoever. Official tests have it rated anywhere from 0.0017 seconds to 0.18 seconds, but in reality, it feels like zero. One of the major reasons a lot of people shy away from digital ultracompacts is that they can’t stand pushing the shutter button and having the camera take a second or so to actually take the shot, but this Casio is the first device to completely eliminate that issue. Other new cameras like the Canon SD500 are getting faster now too, but the Casio is the fastest.
2. This camera is the size of an Altoids tin. My previous camera, the Pentax Optio S4, actually fit snugly inside of an Altoids tin, which was nice, but this one isn’t much bigger. Taking great photos these days is all about having a camera in the right place at the right time, and at this size, you really have no excuse not to have it with you at all times.
3. Unlike most ultracompacts, the EX-Z750 allows you to enter shutter priority mode, aperture priority mode, or full manual mode. Want to keep the shutter open for 60 seconds? No problem. Although the F-stop range obviously isn’t quite as wide as a huge DSLR, it certainly offers almost as much overall configurability.
4. This camera amazingly takes crystal-clear 640×480 MPEG4 video. At the highest quality setting, I can take 34 minutes of full-frame 29.97 fps video. At the next setting, about an hour. And at the lowest setting, over 3 hours! The quality is really quite shocking, as you’ll see from the sample video below. One of the coolest things about the video capabilities, however, is what people have been calling “Tivo-mode”. In this mode, I can keep pointing the camera for however long I wish and when I hit the shutter button, the camera begins recording from 5 seconds in the past. You can imagine how useful this is when you’re at an event and you want to catch the action but you’re not sure exactly when that may be. Why waste recording time when nothing is happening? Probably the only downside of the Casio’s movie recording capabilities is that the files come out as .avi files which you must then convert to QuickTime with something like ffmpegx. Or if you use a PC, you probably don’t care.
5. Interface, interface, interface. This is the easiest-to-use camera I’ve ever operated.

Talk is cheap, so I’ll close with a photo sample and a video sample, taken yesterday on a bike ride to Pike Place Market. Pardon the shaky hands on the video please… I just had a mocha and was holding the camera with one hand.

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Did you know Bigfoot carried an iPod Shuffle? I didn’t. But thanks to Craig “Trailhead” Grunemeyer of Sparta, New Jersey, we now have video evidence to the contrary. Craig’s Bigfoot video is the winner of the Mike Industries “Great iPods in History” competition, overtaking the rest of the field with a combination of original concept and fitting execution. I will be shipping Craig his iPod Shuffle this week, and thanks to the generosity of Dennis Lloyd and iPodLounge.com, Craig will also receive a pair of top-of-the-line $150 Etymotic ER-6i earbuds and a sport case for his new Shuffle.

With almost 300 entries in this month’s competition, judging was particularly difficult, but in the end, the combination of Craig’s Bigfoot video along with his Iwo Jima photo (pictured below as the first piece in the honor roll slideshow) was enough to set him above the rest. The Iwo Jima photo itself was arguably the best photo entry submitted as well.

If I could award multiple Shuffles, I would, but I can’t, so the best I can do for everyone else is include what I believe to be the top 75 entries in the honor roll slideshow below. The first 15 are my top 15, ranked accordingly, and the last 60 appear in order of submission.

I also want to give special mention to a few of the entries that I think deserve special praise:

For the better part of the contest (and before Craig’s entries came in), I had almost already decided who the winner would be. Entry #111, submitted by Tommy Perez, hung on my screen for days. It was a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but the subtle introduction of an iPod Shuffle into the scene in a non-obvious location transformed it from a statement about the way things were 2000 years ago to the way things are today. Here Jesus is, bleeding to death in one of the most important events in world history while detached warrior guy just sits there on the steps listening to Styx. If that’s not a statement about the effect iPods are having on our society, I don’t know what is. * Note: I’m not at all religious, so please no comments about how I’m belittling the plight of Jesus.

The second bit of kudos goes to Tomasz “Jarv” Dobrowolski of Poland who gets the award for best Photoshop skills. Tomasz’s Beethoven, Einstein, and JFK entries were all top-of-class in terms of execution and deserve special praise for their composition.

And finally, the “outside the box” award goes to Matthew Joiner for his “iPod Shuffleography” featuring the likes of Norman Rockwell, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry David Thoreau. Matthew’s mini site, created especially for this competition, is an exercise in creativity and deserves a heaping portion of compliments for its originality.

So anyway, enjoy the slideshow, and stay tuned for the next competition which will begin around the middle of this month (and every month until the end of the year). And remember, of course, that the submission pool for iPod Giveaway ideas is also open until the end of the year. If your idea is chosen, you win an iPod Shuffle.

And last but not least, thanks to Victor Paru of Intel for coming up with this month’s competition.