As soon as I saw the prominent "YouTube Capture Mode" sticker on the front of the Casio Exilim EX-Z80 ($180 street), I knew this tiny 8.1-megapixel camera was meant for fun. I looked forward to taking it through its paces (as well as making my YouTube debut). This point-and-shooter was a joy to play with, especially its 30 scene modes. I only wish its photo and video quality were better.

The EX-Z80 is the size and shape of a credit card (though much thicker, at 0.8 inches), replete with rounded corners. It's a signature Casio ultracompact form, which the company was using back in 2004 when I reviewed the EX-S100, though the design's been nicely refreshed, along the lines of the EX-S880 and EX-Z9. The stylish, silver-blue steel frame—one of six color choices—felt substantial, yet at 4 ounces it's unobtrusive in a shirt pocket. I found it comfortable not only for one-handed shooting but for thumbing through the scene modes with one hand. Focal length ranges from 6.3mm to 18.9mm (the 35mm equivalent is 38mm to 114mm) along its 3X optical zoom. Maximum aperture ranges from f/3.1 to f/5.9.

The EX-Z80's controls are basic. At the top right is the shutter, with rotating zoom lever. Beside it is the On/Off button, a tiny (yet flush) nubbin that I'd often have to press more than once to get it to respond. A bright 2.6-inch LCD, which holds its own in sunlight, dominates the back. To its right is a four-way controller; it's mostly for scrolling within menus. Only the top and bottom stations of the "wheel" have other functions: Pressing the top accesses the display data, while the bottom reaches flash and delete settings.

Casio went out of its way to hide any functions that could confuse beginners. Those settings are tucked away in the Quality menu, reachable by a button to the controller's lower left. You can control focus, ISO (a 64 to 1,600 range), white balance, EV, dynamic range, sharpness, and more—a surprisingly large selection for a point-and-shooter. It lacks shutter or aperture priority, though.

The Record and Review buttons sit side by side above the controller, with the Movie button well above them. To the wheel's bottom right is the BS button—which is not what it sounds like. It actually stands for Best Shot and reveals the 30 scene modes, marked with color icons. Some are typical (portrait, night portrait, landscape, sepia, and more); others are more exotic. The Pastel mode re-rendered the world in an overblown wash of color. A Whiteboard mode corrects the orientation of text shot at an angle, but it didn't do well with small text. The red-filtered Sundown mode was effective. High Sensitivity caught scenes in low light, but at ISO 1600, images were noise-riddled. If you use Self-Portrait mode in low light, you'd best set the flash for anti-red-eye. You can also create custom modes, using your photos as icons. In Automatic mode, you can access manual controls, but Easy mode lets you adjust only image size, flash, and the self-timer.

As for YouTube video, the Capture Mode records 640-by-480 video at 30 frames per second, in the h.264 standard. It uses Apple's AAC codec, so you can drop clips into iTunes. (You can also record wider 848-by-480 video with the EX-Z80.) Files ran about 10 megabytes per minute. Video quality could have been sharper, but it's fine for the purposes of YouTube. To try out the special YouTube features, I opened an account with the video site, shot a scene, and downloaded it to my PC. Then I launched Casio's YouTube Uploader, to find that you can use it only to grab video directly from a camera or memory card, so I had to upload my clip the old-fashioned way. I shot some more video, and this time the Uploader pulled it off my card and into YouTube without a hitch. The Uploader is best for on-the-go situations, as long as you're not too picky about video editing, and don't mind the limitations of in-camera editing (which the EX-Z80 lets you do, as well as photo editing), but I prefer to edit videos on my PC and upload them manually.

Overall quality in still shots was mediocre. Color was slightly yellow-shifted. (This was apparent when I compared the EX-Z80's images with ones shot at the same time with my Canon PowerShot SD1000, an Editors' Choice.) Tree branches often showed aqua fringing. Macro shots were nice and sharp. Noise was apparent at ISO 200, but likely only problematic if you make large prints. Noise got worse at ISO 400 and above. Sometimes, shots in Automatic and Easy modes were at a higher ISO than seemed necessary under the lighting conditions. I tried setting the ISO at 100 or 64 when in Automatic, and results were less noisy. I sampled several of the facial-recognition modes, but noticed no real benefit from them. Likewise, I tried anti-shake in a series low-light shots, and saw only a marginal improvement over shots taken without it.

In lab tests, the EX-Z80 had an excellent boot-up time of 2.11 seconds. Recycle time (2.84) was good, and shutter lag (0.45 seconds) average. Both barrel distortion (in wide-angle shots) and pincushion distortion (at the telephoto end) were apparent. The EX-Z80 averaged 1,550 lines on our resolution test, which would have been unimpressive in a 7MP camera, so in an 8.1MP camera, its results were even more disappointing. Our simulated-daylight shots showed decent detail and color but were a bit dark. Our flash test shots were underexposed (much darker than those from the recent Casio Exilim EX-Z9), noisy, and fuzzy.

The EX-Z10's battery should get you 200+ images per charge. The low-battery warning screen didn't flash until the battery was fully drained, so I couldn't get the last few shots that most digicams allow you after the warning. (A three-bar battery meter is accessible in the display data.) Another nit is the micro-USB jack, which, while standard, is not the common type that most manufacturers offer. The cable may be difficult to replace if lost.

The Casio Exilim EX-Z80 is a snazzy yet affordable camera with a great set of scene modes for folks who aren't too picky about image quality. The camera is geared for beginners and wannabe YouTube stars, but it has a hidden arsenal of functions that only more experienced shooters are likely to appreciate (though that may not be enough to lure them into buying it). The Automatic and Easy modes, which should be reliable, made some questionable settings choices. You can coax better images out of the EX-Z80 by tweaking the settings, but beginners shouldn't have to do so, and, in fact, would be better off with the EX-Z9.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Casio Exilim EX-Z80's test scores.

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