New Ceramic Lensed Exilim Ex-S100 209
stuart miles writes "pocket-lint has managed to be the first to review the new ex-s100 3mega pixel from Casio that uses a ceramic lens rather than the standard glass version.
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New Ceramic Lensed Exilim Ex-S100
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This is bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Informative)
"The bad:
Only 3.2 megapixels, no SD card in the box"
No SD card in the box is a GOOD thing, who uses wimpy 8-16MB cards that come with the camera? SInce the Casio Exilim line has builtin memory (10-20MB), there is no sense in including small SD card.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
My biggest beef with this camera is the battery choice. Re-chargable batteries self discharge. When I need shots, I need to grab and go. Expensive batteries that may or may not be ready to go are not an option for me. This camera takes a Li-ion battery. This means, dead camera at unexpected times, insufficient capacity for the birthday party, parade, sporting event, wedding, Burning Man weekend, etc. I'll take a slightly l
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Actualy I do prefer rechargables. I have come to not rely on them as a single power source as I often find them dead after the first 10 shots or so. This is true for the intermittant amature photographer. In regular use, the batteries are maintained, charged and used before they self discharge. In an amature setting, the state of charge is not known due to self discharge and discharge by the camera to maintian the clock and such. This is why I often have batte
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
I often find them dead after the first 10 shots or so
I am currently on my 4th digital camera, a Canon 20D. The 3 previous - Fuji 4700, Fuji 6800 and Ixus SD-10 took 150+ photos (a full card) on their rechargable batteries (I used 2100mA AAs in the 4700). The 20D's battery is rated at 1000 shots w/o Flash. I charged the battery when I bought it - a week and a half ago - and have taken, viewed, dumped, etc over 700 photos so far. The battery is still going strong.
On the other hand, when I went to
My batteries... (Score:2)
...are Powerex 2300mAh NiMH batteries. Four batteries + charger cost $50 total. My charger is a "slow/cold" charger that bounces polarity to reduce crystallisation. I haven't charged my batteries in over two weeks, and I'm at around 150 shots, about 30-40 with flash with no problems. The camera is a Canon PowerShot A70.
My mom's Kodak is a devourer of batteries. I don't know why anyone would put out a camera that can only take 30 shots before running out of juice. I take up to 150 is a typical outing.
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
No thanks, I'll take a couple of Li-ion any day. Just plug them in a few hours before I intend to shoot and off I go. One Li-ion generally lets me take about 90 photos at 3.2 megapixel resolution, with a bit more than half using flash (Casio has pushed that l
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Informative)
NiMH have very little 'memory effect' - NiCd's are the offenders there. However, all batteries need to be treated correctly - I keep my batteries in sets and don't mix the batteries within those sets, that way I never end up mixing fully charged batteries with semi-charged, etc (which really does kill batteries).
NiMH cell capacities are now on-par with Alkalines, the only downside of NiMH cells is that they do discharge over time.
Whilest Li-ion's have a higher energy density, they are also not compatable with alkaline batteries, and when I'm on holiday and stuck with a dead battery I'd prefer to have the option to buy some alkalines from the shop rather than do without my camera.
(I have a HP Photosmart 850 and am _very_ happy with it)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
NiMH AA rechargeables self-discharge much more quickly than Li-Ion, and as you point out they take up more space for the same amount of power. You don't like the camera? Fine, don't buy it. Yay, free market capitalism. But many people are just casual camera users. For them it often makes sense to have a very compact camera that doesn't have batteries that need to be topped off once a week and treated gingerly. Yeah, you can buy some alkalines in a pinch,
Re:This is bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Li-Ion batteries have the lowest discharge rate around, superior to NiMH and definately NiCd. Better yet would be Li-Poly but they're still a tad risky for some people's likings (I have videos of model planes bursting into flames due to a bad lipo).
The trouble with Li-Ion/Poly is that they have a comparitavely low draw capacity on demand, especially if they're cold. This is where a lot of people pick up the feeling that Li-based batteries are a poor choice relative to NiMh/Cd. Typically if the battery cannot supply the required current the apparent voltage drops and it seems like the battery is 'flat'. The trick is to keep them warm - not always an option I know.
Incidently, I've had lipo cells have nearly full charge (over 80%) despite having been left after a charge for more than 2 weeks.
Oh, one other last problem with Li based batteries is that if they drop below a specific voltage then technically you're not supposed to try revive them (else things can go boom!). A lot of laptops with Li based batteries suffer to this, people throw out 'dead' packs which actually just were left too long without a charge.
PLD.
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Actualy, I've bought too many things and was impressed by the ooh- aah bright and shiny thing, only to be disapointed later by something that spoiled it BY DESIGN.
Being unable to replace the battery without emptying the wallet was a bummer so yea ooh aah it's a shiny thin cool camera. We will see who is still shooting at the end of the parade. Hope you got extra money for batteries (can you get them? how much? how long t
Re:This is bad? (Score:3, Informative)
Going up just one step there is a group of prosumer cameras with an 8MP chip that have all been out for several months. 8MP will give you the ability to stretch
Re:This is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
Can I go above 5X7 prints? no. but 99.5% of all photos taken also cannot. (blow up an 8X10 from a ASA400-800 speed film... it looks like hell.)
people obsessed with megapixels are simply uninformed.
most people do not shoot 35mm with 100 speed or lower that is required for a fantastic large print. so people thinking they need 5-20 megapixel cameras are simply nuts if they are not professional photographers, and then getting that outside of a S
Re:This is bad? (Score:2)
ceramic (Score:2)
Re:ceramic (Score:5, Informative)
Optical quality (and price) general go as the following:
Cermics
Amorphous Solid (glass)
Single Crystal
The more "regular" the structure (the less interface bounderies and material gradients) the better the optical qualities are.
Re:ceramic (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ceramic (Score:2, Funny)
Re:ceramic (Score:2, Informative)
eg: the rado ceramic watchface cannot be scratched with mild steel.
Re:ceramic (Score:2)
Re:ceramic (Score:2, Funny)
image noise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:image noise (Score:5, Insightful)
3 MP is more like 2048 x 1536.
The image noise is probably more due to the ludicrously small CCD unit (4.54 x 3.42 mm) that Casio are using. As a comparison the 2.8 MP Nikon D1H uses a largish CCD of 23.7 x 15.5 mm and I know which one would give better photos, lenses notwithstanding.
The ceramic lens would impact the sharpness of the photo more.
Re:image noise (Score:3, Informative)
Re:image noise (Score:3, Insightful)
This is one case where smaller is not necessarily better.
Re:image noise (Score:3, Insightful)
What's up with the ceramic lens? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's up with the ceramic lens? (Score:2)
Re:What's up with the ceramic lens? (Score:5, Informative)
Highlights:
Re:What's up with the ceramic lens? (Score:3, Interesting)
I do a tiny bit of UV photography [exocet.ca], BTW.
Ceramic vs. Glass (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ceramic vs. Glass (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ceramic vs. Glass (Score:2)
Cool potters job title, but is that the "I design high-tensile turboprop blades" type of ceramic engineer or the "I slipcast plates for a living" type?
(not attempting to undermine you, just wondering where you fit on the scale...)
Re:Ceramic vs. Glass (Score:3, Informative)
As the other ceramic engineer pointed out, glass is considered a ceramic. What makes it good for lenses is the fact that it is amorphous, i.e. has no periodic crystal structure. Thus, light will pass through it without being refracted in strange ways because on a macroscopic level, all the glass is the "same" (or the heterogeneity is small enough and distributed evenly and randomly).
Now, I didn't read the article, though I wouldn't expect it to get into details. I assume by "ceramic" they mean "crystallin
Re:Ceramic vs. Glass (Score:3, Informative)
Transparent polycrystalline alumina (not aluminum) has been in regular use for 40+ years. It's called Lucalox by GE and is the refractory material that makes up the tube used to hold the molten s
The same reason... (Score:2)
That reason being an uncritical appreciation of snake oil.
Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Skeptical (Score:2)
Re:Skeptical (Score:3, Informative)
Umm you're calling glass "regular", glass is amorphous, it doesn't get much more irregular. Ceramics have an ordered structure.
Re:Skeptical (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a gimmick. Can someone say if ceramic is truly better than glass, or just better "in theory"?
I'm guessing, but I think in this case the ceramic is better than glass because production can be less expensive.
Cheap cameras of this size use plastic lenses formed in molds, where the chosen plastic has a relatively low index of refraction. The lens is thicker, but is tolerant of the surface imperfections from the molding process, and is generally lighter than a glass lens that had the same optica
review (Score:3, Informative)
Re:review (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/ex-s1
Re:review (Score:2)
You are right, I forgot to do that because my main idea was that stevesdigicams.com has good review with sample pictures you can use to camera several cameras. Thanks for the link
Did I miss something? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Informative)
stuart@pocket-lint.co.uk
A little bit of self-whoring on his part.
expensive! (Score:3, Informative)
another review (Score:5, Informative)
Might want to check that one out too.
Re:another review (Score:2)
Ceramic is tougher than Glass ... but not the HULK (Score:3, Funny)
Hulk drop Ceramic digicam - still works.
Hulk get angry, SMASH ceramic digicam - stops working.
Hulk running for president. /.'ers vote for Hulk here! [komar.org]
Puny Human
Page 1 is just flashy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Page 1 is just flashy (Score:3, Informative)
uhhh digital? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ceramic lenses (Score:5, Informative)
In a nutshell, the transparent ceramic lens can be thinner and lighter than a glass lens because it has a higher refractice index (bends light more). It's also stronger, they say. Nifty, just what you need to make a smaller camera. Of course, if you put that tiny lens in front of lousy electronics, you get a lousy camera. As another post mentioned, the review said there was a lot of noise, which sounds like a lousy camera to me.
pssht transparent ceramic (Score:2)
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
What I've heard is that it is called an ``amorphous solid''. It has no crystalline structure, as do most other solids, but it is solid.
I've heard various stories on this one. I don't think that I believe them. Consider antique bottles. Even the ones which have been buried under many feet of soil don't seem to have ``drooped'' out of shape, even after several hundred years. I think that at human-survivable tempe
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Back then, they didnt create glass by pulling it out on molten tin, so their sheets were uneven in thickness. so of course they put the thick side down for stability reason....
Glass doesnt have a phase transition while cooling, thats true. But still it reaches a hardness at room temperature where the force to move 2 atoms against each other is greater than the breaking threshold.
Sorry, no normal glass is melting or deforming at room temperature.... (but at 200 or 300 C the matter is quite diffe
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Hey look, I'm just reporting the incorrect information fed to me by some tour guide, and I'm too lazy to check it out for myaself until everyone piles on like now. Garbage in garbage out, ya know?
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Don't take it personally - it's just one of those false bits of information that continually gets passed around as scientific fact.
Kind of like water supposedly going down plugholes in different directions in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Glass doesn't sag. Panes of glass in such windows are like that because that's how they were made.
A good example of glass not sagging would be in a large, modern reflecting telescope - a huge concave mirror ground from a disc of glass, with a shape accurate to perhaps a single wavelength of light. If glass was a liq
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:3, Funny)
Yes but they make telescopes out of fancy shmancy material so it won't sag. Obviously its all the impurities (like sand) in old glass that makes it sag.
Sigh. (Score:3, Informative)
You're spreading a myth [ucr.edu].
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
I could find no definitive research in the short amount of time I had to google it.
So it might be a manufacturing defect, or maybe it's the stress of bearing weight that might make it sag.
The one mention I did find said it would make a good graduate research project.
Re:Ceramic lenses (Score:2)
Not if you're talking diameter, only if you're talking about thickness. The higher refractive index means you can make the lens thinner. As the grandparent said.
The main thing that determines the diameter of the lens is the sensor in the camera. If it could have more pixels that were more light sensitive in a smaller package, the whole lens could be smaller. (To a point: then diffraction would start to mess things up...)
Quicktime VR (Score:2)
360 view [steves-digicams.com]
LS
Re:Quicktime VR (Score:2)
Re:Quicktime VR (Score:2)
What is a ceramic (Score:4, Interesting)
LS
Re:What is a ceramic (Score:2)
Re:What is a ceramic (Score:2)
Re:What is a ceramic (Score:5, Informative)
Glass is an amorphous solid, a liquid that is cooled at a rate too high to allow crystals to form. Glass ceramics have a high crystalline component to their microstructure. As a result the hardness of a glass ceramic comes to a higher level.
And yes, I am a Mechanical Engineering student. (Who should be typing a lab report for his material science class right now)
Re:What is a ceramic (Score:2)
Rubbish. Iron carbide is a ceramic, but steel contains not more than 2% carbon. Thus, steel is a mixture of a ceramic and a metal, with most of its properties determined by the metal.
There is more detail about this here [vt.edu] than you want to know, unless of course you are a taking a materials science class, and are confused about what exactly steel is.
Phase diagrams-progress! (Score:3, Funny)
And we had to make our own steel out of charcoal, magnetite and a lot of clay...and we were lucky, our neighbors were still living in the Bronze Age.
Casio first developed transparent ceramic lens (Score:5, Informative)
August 02, 2004, TOKYO, JAPAN - Using its proprietary optical technology, CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD. has developed the world's first lens using transparent ceramics. This breakthrough will make it possible to create zoom lenses for cameras with greatly reduced profiles. [dcviews.com]
There are soom cool pictures of the lenses as well as some text and graphics that explain what is going on pretty well.
Refractive index (Score:5, Interesting)
LS
Re:Refractive index (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably this ceramic glass has the advantage of being hard and have a very low cost, otherwise they might as well use cubic zirconia [jewellerycatalogue.co.uk] (index of refraction 2.17)
This might be a case of a solution finding a problem.
Re:Refractive index (Score:2, Interesting)
Reduced weight and greater resistance to scratches would be of great value in eyeglasses. Where can I get Lumicera lenses to put in front of my eyeballs?
-
FINALLY!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
It's ceramic so you can... (Score:5, Funny)
*sorry*
Lens manufacturer's information (Score:2, Informative)
Comparison of Refractive Index between Transparent Ceramics and Conventional Optical Glass
The refractive index of the transparent ceramics is 2.08 (lambda = 587 nm). It is quite high compared with that of conventional optical glasses (between 1.5 to 1.8). Furthermore, as there is no birefringence in the ceramics, there is a potential for downsizing and advancement of optical devices with optical
Birefringence (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't know what birefringence was, so I looked it up: it's the phenomenon in certain crystals that causes them to have two indices of refraction, so light beams entering are split into two parts.
It's not a problem in glass lenses, but would be if you made a lens out of those crystalline materials.
Birefringence (Score:2)
For those not familiar with birefringence, it means that the material would have different refractive indices for different polarizations of light. Since most light is usually a mixture of different polarization planes, a birefringent lens would create a blur of multiple images.
Many ceramics are birefringent, because the ordering of the
Ceramics and glasses (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect the actual achievement here is managing to produce a transparent lens from a high refractive index material, but explain that to the masses who buy low-end digital cameras.
Glass is *not* a "supercooled liquid" (Score:2)
piece of crap (Score:2, Informative)
No matter that it's ceramic, the lens is still crap...
What will it take before we see a smallish digicam with a decent lens???
Shouldn't it read "stuart miles from pocket-lint" (Score:2)
His review is dated: Review posted on October 12 2004 16:38 GMT by Stuart Miles
Digicam Resource's review [dcresource.com]is dated: Originally posted: August 28, 2003
Steves-Digicams review [steves-digicams.com] is dated: Review posted 10/1/2004
It looks like stuart was third at best.
What about other optical properties? (Score:3, Informative)
Being highly myopic, I am interested in ophthalmic applications of new materials. Right now, I am wearing a Nikon 1.74 index plastic lens, which is quite thin for its power.
The highest-index material that I am aware of currently being marketed for eyeglass use is the Zeiss Lantal 1.9 index glass. However, this material is quite shatter-prone, having only 1mm center thickness. I am told that one can poke a finger through a Lantal lens.
In addition to refractive power, for eyeglass use one must consider other optical properties, in particular the Abbe value. The Abbe value characterizes the chromatic aberration of a lens. The lower the Abbe number, the worse color fringing will be; some eyeglass wearers cannot tolerate high-index lenses because they typically have lower Abbe values than plain plastic.
Interestingly, Abbe is potentially irrevelant in a digital camera, because any chromatic aberration can be digitally removed. Effectively, you treat the R/G/B images from the sensor as three independent images and size them individually to compensate for the aberration. This cannot easily be done with a film camera, and is not possible at all with eyeglasses.
Re:What about other optical properties? (Score:3, Interesting)
High index material also causes more problems with internal reflections. This is solved with coating (and multicoating), but I've read that suitable materials to multicoat high refractive index optics are unavilable.
Re:nice but.. (Score:2)
Consider getting a ceramic thumb. :-)