Casio EX-FH20 hands-on -- in super slow-mo!

No, literalists, we won't be providing impressions of Casio's latest high-speed shooter, the EX-FH20, in the English-language equivalent of bullet time -- though feel free to sound out each word veerrryy slooowwwly if you'd like -- but we did get to see how the camera performed shooting 1000 fps video and high-speed bursts of stills under very ideal circumstances, and came away quite impressed. Casio had members of the press lined up across the ice from some hockey players engaged in hockey activities, with lights the power of many suns at our backs to make the slow-motion video come out as more than a grainy mess. And it did. We found the interface very intuitive -- more so than Casio's first stab at slow-mo, the EX-F1 -- and were shooting 1000 fps videos of the action within seconds. That top speed crops the top and the bottom of the shot, which turned out fine for the linear progression of a hockey shot, but 1000 fps is really overkill for anything more glacial than a flash of lightning, and we found 210 fps (which also provides more resolution and a better aspect ratio) to be a real sweet spot for sports action. The immediate effect of slow motion is the dimming of the scene, but it's easy to adjust the f-stop and film speed to brighten things up a bit. Bursts of stills -- up to 40, at 30 fps -- are similarly easy to execute, and you can even set the camera to capture snaps for about a second before you fully click the shutter, in case you're a little slow on the response time. Overall we're very impressed with the build quality, size, image quality, manual controls and ease of use of this camera, especially in light of its $600 pricepoint, when big brother EX-F1 is retailing for a grand with very few differentiating perks.

Gallery: Casio EX-FH20 hands-on

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[Nick @ Oct 21st 2008 4:10PM]

Flash of lightening?
No!
Please! Don't fall victim to that easily mis-spelled word!
Lightning! Often followed by ominous rolls of thunder!

...Now... If this camera could capture thunder in a visual interface... Photographing the sound waves... :)

[Fruition @ Oct 21st 2008 4:47PM]

"Flash of lightening" can make sense. What, you've never turned a lamp on and off again really quickly?

[Marc-O @ Oct 21st 2008 5:39PM]

Then that would be flash of LIGHTING... Ugh. *facepalm*

[MuzlL0dr @ Oct 21st 2008 6:00PM]

LMAO Best exchange on engadget *ever*.

In other news, I'm guessing this ins't an SLR due to the fact that it can capture content *prior* to pressing the shutter button, which (I think?) would basically occur around a constantly rotated buffer and no mechanical shutter. Certainly that would preclude flipping a mirror up/down.

[Smacksmackums @ Oct 21st 2008 4:15PM]

Haha. I recognized the wrong usage of lightening too.

A flash of lightening - often found in photoshop by clicking the adjust brightness button.

[Matthew Hilario @ Oct 21st 2008 4:20PM]

dey spilled litenin rong.

[Samboini @ Oct 21st 2008 4:23PM]

You spelt your full post wrong, winnet.

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 5:09PM]

spelled* winner*

Other than that, your sarcasm detector is way off.

[Samboini @ Oct 21st 2008 5:35PM]

http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Winnet

It seems your sarcasm detector is way off too.

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 7:01PM]

In that case, it would be my cultural language skills; and would be your 'grammar-detector', not sarcasm.

[Amerist @ Oct 21st 2008 4:21PM]

Is that a 28x optical zoom lens included?

[Leejin @ Oct 21st 2008 5:05PM]

It's not an SLR. The lens is a fixed lens.
Fail...

[Kevin Fox @ Oct 21st 2008 5:32PM]

SLRs don't have to have detachable enses to be SLRs. It means 'Single-Lens Reflex' and at its simplest means that the viewfinder is through the lens (TTL) so you're composing the same shot you're taking. Don't believe me? Ask the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-lens_reflex_camera

[Plothole @ Oct 21st 2008 6:18PM]

It also doesn't need to be a SLR to have interchangeable lenses. Rangefinders and now m4:3 cameras do that too.

Still, Leejin's point is that on a camera like this the lenses is usually fixed.

[gad get @ Oct 21st 2008 10:04PM]

20x zoom.

[pavlindrom @ Oct 22nd 2008 9:58AM]

So, is it included? I also want to know the answer

[Plothole @ Oct 22nd 2008 7:10PM]

@pavlindrom
The 20x is not only included, but in fact fixed to the body.

[MikeWard1701 @ Oct 21st 2008 4:27PM]

"Photographing the sound waves"

Technically, you can capture the air compression caused by a sonic boom and objects travelling at mach 1 or faster.

Great camera, would love to have one in my bag!

[Chris @ Oct 21st 2008 4:57PM]

Do you have one of those flash movie things from Vimeo to show us? D:

[Redbeaver @ Oct 21st 2008 5:02PM]

oh oh oh :D yeah, Vimeo or wutever video would be cool :D

[ssjchar @ Oct 21st 2008 5:19PM]

darn, 1000 fps is still probably too slow to catch a bullet shot from most rifles(even the average rimfire around goes around 1200 fps) or so i think. if a bullet goes, say 1000 feet per second, and the camera takes pictures at 1000 frames per second, does that mean the bullet will travel 1 foot in the span of 1 frame?

[PDubNYC @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:28AM]

No, i don't believe you can say that. You'd have to figure out how many frames are in a foot to get comparable numbers. Now if you had 1000 first person shooters firing bullets at 1000 feet per second and filmed it with a camera capturing 1000 frames per second, you know what you'd have? Nothing. No correlation between the various acronyms for FPS without some kind of conversion.

[Jason @ Oct 23rd 2008 9:03AM]

Yes, that is exactly what it means. I don't know what this other guy is talking about :)

[DirtyVegas @ Oct 21st 2008 6:31PM]

Uh, are there any pictures that the camera in question actually took?

[gad get @ Oct 21st 2008 10:07PM]

They're holding back on us; get them!

[dajimmers @ Oct 21st 2008 10:07PM]

I found this, apparently from the same hockey demo:

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/9856.html

1000fps is TINY, but the 420fps video posted looks reasonable for what it's for.

[heng @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:05PM]

Hey Casio
I want one of these super slomo cams but just as a low budget webcam with USB or so. how about it?

[Robert @ Nov 3rd 2008 12:16PM]

The EX-F1 is better.