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Casio Exilim EX-S12 12MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Black) |  | Brand: Casio
Buy New: Too low to display
as of 3/12/2010 11:26 CST details
New (11)
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 4519
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Monitor Size: 270
Optical Zoom: 3
Digital Zoom: 4
Display Size: 2.7
Maximum Focal Length: 18.9
Minimum Focal Length: 6.3
Maximum Resolution: 12
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5.3 x 2.9
MPN: EX-S12BKEBD
Model: S12 Black
UPC: 079767624354
EAN: 0079767624354
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | 12.1-megapixel resolution | | • | 3x optical zoom; 2.7-inch widescreen LCD | | • | State-of-the-art Exilim Engine 4.0; Dynamic Photo function | | • | HD Movie function | | • | Capture images to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included) |
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| Accessories:
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| Similar Items:
Camera Case for Casio Exilim EX 2700, S10, S12, S20, S3, S100, S500, S600, S770, S880, Z4, Z5, Z9, Z10, Z29, Z30, Z40, Z50, Z55, Z57, Z60, Z70, Z75, Z77, Z80, Z85, Z100, Z110, Z120, Z200, Z500, Z700, Z750, Z850, Z1000, Z1050, Z1080, Z1200, Z33, Z90, Z450 and more... | |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The EXILIM EX-S12 is the perfect combination of design and technology in an ultra-slim format. The camera, which is as slim as it is elegant, is equipped with amazing functions, such as the EXILIM engine 4.0, 12.1-megapixels, an extremely bright and high-contrast 6.9-cm wide-screen TFT display (super clear LCD), HD video recording and 3x optical zoom.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
 Neat Little Camera! Does what it needs to do! May 12, 2009
Happy in Russia (Originally from Atlanta, GA)
49 out of 49 found this review helpful
Ok, I don't know why others are giving this camera a low review. Perhaps they haven't played with it enough. I have only had this camera for about two weeks. I gave it to myself for a birthday present cause it was time to get rid of my old Nikon 3.2 mp camera and I am about to spend a semester in France and throughout Europe doing some field work for my Master's thesis.
First of all, the sheer size of this camera is amazing (its smaller than my ipod video). I was originally going to get the s10 but was unable to find it (I guess they're not selling it anymore), but quite honestly 2 mp difference is no big deal. 12mp is more than enough. I have gotten so many compliments on this camera so far just because of its size and the fact that it has 12mp rather than 10 or even 8.
I think the picture quality is outstanding! I have been playing with it practically everyday taking pictures of anything and everything to get a good test out of it. So far, all these pictures look very very nice. One thing I like to do with cameras is play around with its settings. This camera, although it has a Best Shot Feature (pre-programmed settings for certain situations), I'm the type of person who likes to experiment with those settings anyway. This camera allows you to do that with the best shot feature and it has a manual feature so that you can adjust everything! I hate cameras that won't let you mess with its pre-programmed settings cause let's face it they don't always get it right! Then the best part is, you can save these settings that you've created and the camera will remember them for you.
One thing I see in these reviews is that the picture quality is bad. The s12 (as I'm sure with other casios) has a "quick shutter" setting. This setting will immediately take the picture before it has a chance to focus (why you would do that I'm not sure). You can turn this off! That was one of the first things I changed when I started playing with it.
The HD videos this camera takes are very impressive! I have posted a couple of them on Youtube (look under my name: vsa23). They look fantastic on our 52" HDTV! Have not run into any problems like the sound not being in sync with the video.
My ONLY complaint about this camera is that when the camera is on "Best Shot Auto Focus" (the lowest, easiest, setting for grandma), the focus makes very loud almost scratching noises because it is constantly focusing. I took the camera back, exchanged it for a new one, and even tried the store's two displays and they all seem to do that. Perhaps this is something that will change with the later s12s that come out. But in all honesty, I don't use that setting anyway (not that I'm a pro or anything), so it doesn't bother me too much.
All in all, I am very happy with this little camera! It does everything I need it to do (which is really to primarily take pictures) and it offers so much more than I need at the same time (make up setting, dynamic photo, smile shutter, face detection, youtube capture, and more!). If you're looking for a very nice camera with lots of features in a small compact travel-friendly camera then this one is a very good choice. I will be posting some of my sample photos on Amazon's customer images thing. Hope you all find this review useful!
 Hard to recommend this camera... July 5, 2009
Brian K. Martin
46 out of 49 found this review helpful
I usually shoot with a DSLR and wanted to get a new small camera to carry around and replace my 5 year old Pentax Optio S4i. My main criteria for picking the camera were weight, HD video capture, image quality, and ease of use. I've since updated this list to include image stabilization.
The casio s12 is one of the smallest cameras you can get. Reviews also said the camera was snappy. Looking at reviewer's test shots showed it had very good image quality, so I picked one up.
I wanted to like this camera. I tried to like this camera. But in the end the camera is just too unreliable to be used as a point and shoot. The images typically look very good on the camera's screen, but on a large monitor they were often under saturated, auto white balance was off, and most importantly they were frequently out of focus. With this camera, you need to pre-focus with a 1/2 shutter press before taking a picture. Far too often, the camera would never focus - even in sunlight. The only time there was reliable focus was when the subject was relatively close to the camera (a couple yards or less away) and cooperative. When the focus worked correctly, the picture quality was still not perfect (harsh chromatic aberration) but was admittedly much better than average. I cannot figure out why the focus is so hit or miss. Perhaps it is operator error or lack of image stabilization. It may even be that the camera defaults to focus a few feet away when its autofocus algorithm fails. This would be fine for taking a picture of your friends sitting at a table with you, but it does not work if you are zoomed-in on your kids playing in the yard.
The HD video quality was fairly good for nearby subjects. It did suffer from lack of any image stabilization technology and it is doubtful anyone would be using this camera for shooting video with a tripod. With a camera this small I really think you need some form of image stabilization.
I will return the Casio and try one of the new Canon's or the Lumix FX-35/37/48 (or even the new Pentax w80). I would only recommend the Casio for someone who primarily shoots nearby, cooperative subjects. Those images seem to come out OK most of the time and even excellent once in a while. This camera would not be my recommendation if you want to capture your kids candidly. If you like the Casio style or feature set, perhaps the Casio Z400 will be better since it has image stabilization, a longer zoom, and perhaps some updated firmware.
Positives:
* Easy to use
* Great feature set
* Small (but not too small) size
* Great set of 'best shot' modes, including a unique whiteboard and business card mode which can replace your scanner
* Unlimited length HD video capture in AVI format (good for Windows) at 24fps. The lack of 30fps in HD mode wasn't noticeable.
* Good build quality with excellent LCD screen
* Good low-light focus lamp
* Potential to take some very good pictures
Negatives:
* Very unreliable focus and sometimes unreliable white balance
* Terrible printed user manual (but the online manual is very good)
* No standard cable connections on camera for USB
* No digital video out from the camera
* Some of the in-camera features just did not work reliably. Most notable is the feature where you can subtract the background from around your subject and place the subject in another image.
* Lens not very wide (~36mm)
Not bad, but you'll need to get a bigger capacity SD card May 5, 2009
Kenneth Young (California, US)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful
This Casio EX-S12 was chosen over other compact cameras in the US market, due to its tiny size and price. My intention is to find a super compact but decent camera for my wife to travel with, where a full size DSLR is not desirable.
The camera started up quickly but does take about 2-3 seconds between shots (not bad considering that I had the automatic flash on and it'll take time to charge up the capacitor). The buttons and the menu are intuitive and easy to figure out. The camera is packed with features that I'll never use, such as BestShot, Youtube, Dynamic Photo, smile recognition, etc. On the other hand, I do find the historgram and the tripod mount highly benficial.
Battery life seems to be good. Although it didn't make sense to have a compact camera, but the battery charger is as big as the camera itself, with a long power cable to the outlet. It's a generic detachable cable so I'll replace it with a shorter one (or shorten the one provided). I've not tried if I can charge the battery by using the USB cable only.
As for the resulting photos, it does a great job with portraits as I'm impressed with the smooth and natural skin tone that it produces. I had no problem with noise with the normal ISO setting. It produces beautiful, peaceful pastile color for landscape photos as well. I did not play with any camera setting to adjust the internal processing, but you'll probably need to do so if you want photos with more contrast and more punch. It's not an issue with me, since I can always post-process the files later via Photoshop. As with most point-n-shoot, too bad it doesn't create RAW file format.
I tend to use the wide side rather than telephoto with my photography style. Thus, I hardly use the zoom feature. This camera has the 36mm equivalent, which is about the normal human's view point so images aren't distorted much. Not an ultra-wide, but not bad.
The on camera flash is okay for a tiny camera, and the output is adjustable. I do rather see a PC port added with the future model, so I can shoot with an off-camera flash.
As for the HD video, it works fine. Originally, I tested it with an old SD card and was suspicious if audio and video were in sync. Later, I put in a better SDHC card and had no issue with the video. The video in HD mode started up quickly, but it's limited to 10 minute clips (due to size limitation of FAT32 file format as with other point-and-shoot?). You'll have to remember to find a break to stop-and-restart quickly before the 10 minute is up.
Be sure to get the biggest and fast SDHC card that you can get. My old 1GB SD card was filled quickly with about 7 minutes of HD video and few 12MP photos. Also, due to its tiny dimension, be sure to use the hand strap.
HD Video is nice Feature on an ultra compact and decent photos! June 16, 2009
Elizabeth M. Lawinger
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2LCAE9GLTUFJU Ok, the HD video is why I got this. I have 2 other ultra compact Casio's, the Z-80 and Z-85, both with good, decent photo quality and I like their video quality, so when they came out with one with HD, I snapped it up. The HD video quality is very nice for an ultra compact. (the video here was shot in a rush, just for an example for you to see, with the only adjustment being that I choose HD for recording quality). I will say, as this is my 3rd Casio ultra compact, I have by far had the best luck by NOT using the Best Shot feature (except to save my manual settings). I like to manually adjusting the sharpress, contrast, saturation, ISO, white balance and adjusting other settings such as color to vivid, etc. When I start to get consistent, good photo quality I save my manual settings so I don't have to reset all the settings next time I turn on the camera. To do this I go to best shot feature and then using Register User Scene (keep tabbing thru all the best shot features it is at the end), choose one of the photos of which you like the settings and save it under Register User Scene. Then the next time you fire up the camera, go to Best Shot and choose the icon of the photo you used to save your settings. Whoa la, you have your custom settings saved. Please don't buy expecting to go on auto mode (I think that is why this is getting some low reviews), if you dont' play with the menu and adjust the settings, paticuallary the megapixel count, sharpness, contrast, and saturation, you will not be impressed. Go in an make a few adjustments under menu and, photos will start to POP, and I have found that the quality is very nice for an ultra compact. I have far more superior cameras, the Canon S3 IS, Canon SX200, Panasonic Lumix FZ-28 and a dslr Nikon D40 and I am very accustom to high quality images. So I feel this ultra compact takes very nice photos. It is not the highest of quality, for that you will have to upgrade to a DSLR or Higher quality (but much larger) point and shoot. In my opionion, for a pocket (and I mean pocket, this is one of the smallest digital cameras made), photo quality is really good. I actually gave my compact Canon SD 750 to my sister because I really like the photo quality on this much, much better. Never thought I would switch from Canon compact cameras to Casio, but I bought a Casio for my son (the Z-80), for Xmas because it was inexpensive. Well, one day I found myself wanting to take a photo and grabbed his camera. When I printed it at home (canon selphy 760), I was so impressed, I grabbed my canon sd750 and starting shooting to compare. His camera out shot me every time for quality. So, hence how I came upon switching my ultra compact brand. I do have the Canon SX200 (which is my 2nd favorite camera (my Nikon D40 is my favorite), but the SX200 is not an ultra compact (hard to slip in your pocket unnoticed).
NON-TECHIE'S VERDICT: It's sleek, fits easily in your shirt pocket and shoots REALLY great photos! April 4, 2009
AmazonLoyalist (ALL OVER)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
OK, here is the non-techie's verdict on this camera... I really like it and rate it a SOLID FOUR STARS !!!
I will leave the techie's to discuss all the pros and cons of the specs. In a nutshell, here are my thoughts:
1) It's definitely mini and fits easily in a shirt pocket.
So bring one along in your pocket and you'll always
be ready for a Kodak...oops! "Casio Moment"
2) I was all set to buy the silver one, but when they
took it out of the box, it looked way tooo shiny!
Like the color of bright, polished tin... so I
asked to see the other colors and bought the gold,
champagne, beer-colored one. It looks fantastic.
3) WITHOUT the manual, I played around with the MENU
and the various buttons and got everything working
to my liking within 30 minutes. And I am no
techie!
4) OUTPUT: Yes, the photos and videos ROCKED for this
mini-camera. Expensive, separate-lens, high-end
cameras will take BETTER photos, but these are
DEFINITELY VERY GOOD! Colors are vibrant!
5) BEST SHOT - Pre-programmed settings for outdoors,
night, and about 20-other almost-any-event. This
is a fun gadget and let's you focus on the
subject/s while this little cam does all the
work.
6) PRICE: Definitely OK for all that you get in that
size!
7) C'MON !!!.. I said enough... go out and buy one!
YOU will be HAPPY you did. Trust me. It rocks!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 42
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