Usually comparative tests of photo (and other) equipment are made in roughly equal categories. Nobody compares Ferrary with Caterpillar, and hi-end Canon with noname chineese soapbox. But why ? It is well known that any predetermined selection spoils statistics. Also what is the use of doing the same tests like many well-paid professionals are already doing. Instead we'll make our test. We'll test whatever we want, in the way we like it, and in conditions, carefully selected by us. You judge the results. The only thing we can guarantee is that no endangered animals will be killed during test.
Taking pictures of the night Moscow Casio - EX-Z750, Zenit-E, Fuji Finepix F10.
Let's take a closer look at cameras. The first camera is called Casio Exilim Z750. It is 7.2-megapixel digicam with 3x zoom. It has classical design and durable aluminium body. By its form ans size one could tell that it is a camera for beginner. But taking its manual or exploring the menu we'll find a lot of options for a serious photographer, rather than for a novice. The price also allows to suggest something more than a simple point-and shoot. In Moscow stores it has a price tag of $520 (2005 summer).
Camera body is well-made, and has many controls at the rear side.
Large and quality TFT screen has a nice feature - a composing frame that could be used to facilitate composing of a picture.
Advanced amateur will be happy with many manual settings. Almost all parameters could be altered. It is also possible to set a suitable predefined program and to fine tune desired parameters.
Optical viewfinder is too small, and it is not easy to see something through it. The camera has built-in flash, USB interface, has macro mode and accepts SD/MMC memory cards.
Next camera is Zenit-E made by KMZ. Manufactured in 1972, it also has classic design. The camera lens could be changed, so we took two different ones : Tair-11-2 2.8/133 and Pentacon 3.5/30. Thus the possible change in focal distance is slightly larger than that of a previous camera. Zenit has a lot of manual settings. It allows to change absolutely everything : exposure time, aperture, film sensitivity, lens etc. Truly speaking all settings are only manual. There is an exposure meter, but it does not work in our camera. Whether it worked some day or not remains unknown. The camera has long exposure settings, feature that is not implemented in other cameras being tested. There are three such settings (one undocumented). We paid $70 for this camera and two lenses in 2004 summer.
The camera has a high quality body. It is so strong that it could be used to hammer nails. No joke. But there are not so many controls.
The optical viewfinder is relatively large and clear, but it shows not the whole frame. There are no focusing aids in it. Even after long search we could not find any traces of USB, COM, LPT or other interfaces. Could it happen they are not there ? Anyway we are in doubt whether the absence of digital interfaces is an advantage or a drawback. The camera allows to use film sensitivity from 50 to 3200 which is the largest range in this test.
The third camera is called FujiFilm FinePix F10. There is a 6.3 megapixel matrix inside. The lens has 3x zoom - like Casio. For picture storage it uses an xD card - one of the smallest and most expensive. The camera price is $420 (2005, summer)
The main feature of F10 is its unusually high sensitivity : up to 1600 ISO with some special technology called RealPhoto. Theoretically it means that even in dark places it can take pictures without flash.
Again the camera has full-metal body, cool design and handy outline. Its large 2,5" TFT-display has a special coating, intended to protect it from scratches, and renders a bright and crisp picture. Another interesting feature is construction of interface and power sockets - there is only one universal socket where all external devices could be connected using adapter. There are only few exposure programs : daylight, sport and night shot.
Taking all three cameras and two tripods we started our journey to the center
of Moscow. The first stop was at Lubjanka where we photographed the building
of the "Detsky Mir" supermarket and Okhotny ryad street.
It was not dark enough so we had a good chance to test how cameras measure
exposure in twilight.
Obviously Zenit with Leningrad external meter performs fine. Fuji had serious
problems. Its famous night shot mode simply applied gain, turning night into
day. Hey, we can take daylight looking pictures in daylight, it's easier.
From that moment we turned all automatic modes off completely. All pictures
shown on this page were made in manual mode. On all cameras.
Like it or not, but our systems became less different.
Here is Okhotny ryad, the picture taken by Fuji F10 from the same spot.
We walked further to the Polytechnical museum to find out that photographing is forbidden there. Obviously the director of that museum thinks that the building is his private property. After removing the museum from the list of architectural heritage, we went to the Shipka memorial. Nobody cared to declare it private property yet, so we had no problems there.
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Here is the memorial. Now we tried Casio for the first time. After some tweaking and tuning we got very good result. Fuji keeps the worst place.
 Casio |
 Zenit |
 Fuji |
Then we went down to Moskva river and watched the building at Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Of course, we watched it through Casio and Zenit lenses. It is necessary to note that all Zenit photos already presented were taken using the Pentacon lens.
 Casio |
 Zenit |
Both cameras produced good results, but it is hardly possible to photograph headlights this way using digicam. There are some difference in color of pictures.
Then we went up to the bridge and found a great panorama including Kremlin, Samsung and Rossia hotel. We also changed Zenit lens to Tair.
 Casio |
 Zenit |
 Fuji |
After taking one last photo (guess camera yourself) we went to a metro station.
(The text on the billboard says "Big brother is watching you")
Conclusion.
After reviewing pictures we made the following conclusions :- Casio - EX-Z750 - small and quality camera. Makes great pictures, has reliable auto modes. White balance is shifted towards yellow-green slightly. In night shots makes a 2-4 step error that could be corrected manually.
- Zenit-E - large and quality camera, well suited for night shots. If used with the proper lens gives great results. There is no metering, but at night it is not a problem. Its presence could be the problem, however.
- Fuji Finepix F10 - our looser. Picture quality, ability to focus at low light, color balance - everything is inferior. Advertised night mode is nothing but a joke. There are many better cameras for less money.