Casio QV 5700

My Casio QV 5700 still looks like new after 3 or 4 years. I have never had anything that lasted me this long before! Still up there with the best in terms of general consumer friendliness, cheap replaceable rechargeable AA batteries, 3X+ optical Zoom, stores up to 10,000 images on 1GB card, I cannot fault it really. 2GB+ Card now available. Auto battery-saving mode.

If any improvement, Casio could make the 'update' a little less chunky? It's not big, but its not 'compact' small.

Top marks early 2003 to late 2006, Casio.

I spent a bit of time looking before I chose this camera. It seems that every camera you consider has at least one "must have" feature missing. In the end it's a compromise. I settled on the Casio because it was good value, but still took great pictures with full control of all the important settings. Another plus was the information panel on the top of the camera. It displays most of the basic things like shutter speed and aperture without having the main screen on, which saves power. The power coming from 4 AA NiMh batteries, another thing on the "must have" list.

I wasn't bothered about the "Bestshot" mode much at first, but having had the camera a year or so now, I must admit I used it quite a lot. It works from a setting on the shooting mode dial. Once selected you scroll through a no. of different scenes, you pick one and the camera sets the camera up to make the most of the scene your taking. I got some good results with sunset and portraits. I also got good results with the Panoramic mode, which locks the exposure and lets you line up the next shot with the last in the main LCD.

Things I didn't like were the lens cover which can get knocked off easily and the focus which searches in low light despite an assist lamp. A lot of cameras have this problem.

Bottom line is I took some really good photos in the year I had the camera. I say had, because I broke it. Totally my fault and I'm too embarrassed to go into details. I replaced it with a Canon S50 (now discontinued and a lot cheaper than it was a year ago), a good camera and a bit easier to fit in a jacket pocket, but I'd be just as happy to have the Casio. It produced the goods and was easy to use.