Experience freestyle photography with the Casio Exilim EX-FR10
We traveled to Japan to take a closer look at Casio's new Exilim EX-FR10, a surprisingly fun outdoors digital camera with a detachable modular body.
When we first heard of the Casio Exilim EX-FR10 (henceforth known simply as FR10), the initial thought that came to mind was “action camera”. And we weren’t the only ones too, with the exception of Casio themselves. In fact, they’re adamant that it’s not. The FR10 can be called many things, and we've been told it’s a freestyle camera, an outdoors camera; it’s for active people, for families, for fun picnics, for selfies, for all those hard to reach places…but it’s not an action camera. Not in the GoPro sense anyway.
You see, the GoPro and most action cams focus mostly on video. They’re meant to be strapped on and forgotten about as you go about accomplishing your death defying stunts. The Casio FR10 can be used the same way as a GoPro—it comes bundled with a range of straps and mounts—but it is supposed to be a camera first. Casio also points out that its versatility in shooting options open up many more possibilities. Here's how they envision the FR10 being used.
The FR10 in selfie mode. If you've taken a selfie with a smartphone before, you'll know what to do.
Here's something a little more interesting; using the FR10 as a live view mirror to make sure you've tucked in every stray strand.
If you're into sports, the FR10 comes with many accessories to let you strap, buckle and clip it into just about anywhere you want.
Such as the shoulder strap of your backpack.
Or on your bike.
Why take a boring group photo with your camera on the table when you can hang it on a tree and shoot from a really unique angle?
To prove their point, Casio invited us to Japan to try out the FR10 ourselves in a day filled with yukatas, oyakodon and a rickshaw ride around Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district. But before that, let’s take a closer look at the FR10 itself and how it feels in the hand.
At first glance, the FR10 may seem a little bulky, but it actually fits snugly in the hand. Notice that both the lens and LCD controller have physical power, shutter and record buttons. They are essentially separate devices and the lens unit can operate even without the LCD controller.
Snap the lens unit to the front, and you're ready for selfie time.
The main selling point of the FR10 is its detachable modular design, giving it better control and more flexibility than either the GoPro or Sony's similar QX10 lens camera.
The lens unit is connected to the LCD controller via this metal clip. When detached, it comes in handy to help place or position the lens. You can also attach it to a tripod via screw adapters if you so wish.
You can even detach the clip portion if you just want the bring the lens around or use your own harness the secure the lens.
We started the day at a kimono school experiencing the intricacies of putting on a yukata (or summer kimono, a more casual version of the formal kimono outfit). While waiting for the rest of the group to get suited up, I got the chance to tinker with the FR10 a little bit more. When used in its standard and selfie modes, the FR10 feels like a little toy camera with its 2-inch screen. What's immediately apparent is the quality of the resolution. It could be due to the fact that the units we got to play with were still pre-production, but the display felt fuzzy. You get a general idea of what you're shooting, but not for proper framing. It will also not be indicative of true image quality of your shots. Its great for close-ups and selfies, but not wide or landscape shooting. However, it wouldn't actually matter in those situations...more on that later.
Stepping into kimono school. Notice the shadows are rather noisy and focus is soft.
The camera's menu system is touch enabled and easy enough to navigate. Menu options appear as square icons that ring the screen; depending on the mode you're in - shooting or preview - different set of options will be presented. The experience was reminiscent of old Symbian 60 Nokia phones. As expected, shooting modes are rudimentary since the FR10 is designed to be an automatic point and shoot. You it has a fixed focus, fixed aperture lens; you can't even change ISO settings. Casio wants you to capture everyday candid moments, not busy messing around with settings. It can be a little disconcerting at first to have almost zero control. Even smartphone cameras these days offer some amount of manual input, but trust us, the feeling soon disappears.
Menu options ring the display and offer different buttons depending on the mode or sub-menu you're in.
What I found weird was the inclusion of filters, which were neither here nor there. The choices are very limited and was a hassle to change when on the move, more so since half the time you're not actually looking at the display when shooting with the FR10, so you wouldn't actually want to apply filters to your raw shots. It would have been better to leave the function out completely as you can easily transfer the images over to a smartphone via Wi-fi to edit or apply filters with your favorite app. Considering the FR10 is lumped into the same category as their TR series of selfie cameras, there is also a Beauty Mode.
You've got very basic filters like Toy mode, Sepia and Black & White, but we'd rather keep that portion for smartphone post-processing. Perhaps Casio can built-it into their Exilim Link tool instead of the camera itself.
After fiddling with the camera and some accessories, I decided to just wear it on a lanyard and set it to Interval Mode. Interval Mode is basically hands-free automatic shooting at set intervals. There are options to shoot only stills or stills and movies. When set to the later, the FR10 will periodically shoot short five second clips along with still photos. At present, the only intervals that can be chosen are: 15 seconds, 2 minutes and 5 minutes. A little restrictive yes, and we mentioned this to Casio too. Hopefully, the final version will have better interval spacing.
Once we donned our yukatas, we set out on foot to the famous Tamahide restaurant for their signature oyakodon (a chicken and egg rice dish) The FR10 uses a similar 21mm wide angle lens as Casio's popular TR series cameras, though its BSI CMOS sensor has a slight bump to 14-megapixels. Outdoor image quality is decent and not too overly saturated, but has a tendency for brighter areas to be overblown. We also noticed that indoor shots are grainy even though there's sufficient lighting. These characteristics could be due to aggressive ISO scaling.
The FR10 needs bright, evenly lit environments to work, and in its current form, doesn't do dim areas too well.
Colors are ok, bright and punchy without being overly saturated, but indoor shots still show a little more noise than expected.
Up till now, I've been using and comparing the FR10 to a standard camera, but the FR10 really came into its element when we went on the next stage of the tour, which was the rickshaw ride through town. Since I was practically immobile on the rickshaw, I started to fiddle with the camera again. Interval mode and its modular nature allowed me to easily detach the lens unit from the LCD controller and swing it all over the place for shots that wouldn't have been possible with any standard camera or even a smartphone in a similar situation. If you wanted control, you can easily switch it back to manual mode and have live view again through the LCD controller.
Out in the streets, the FR10 excels as a fun little camera. Leave it on interval and forget about it. Whenever you feel like it, you can quickly detach the lens for random shots at just about anything.
The beauty of using the FR10 is that you don't try to plan these shots. Just clip or strap the lens unit somewhere and you can still view the action from the LCD controller. Or just leave it to do its thing for a few minutes in interval mode.
Here are some parting performance observations:
- The lens and LCD controller talk to each other using Bluetooth 2.1 EDR not just for remote control, but it also has to pass images for the LCDs live view. If the connection quality is low, you will still be able to control the lens unit, but you will experience live view freezing on you. The good news is that you don't really need the LCD controller, as there are physical shutter and record buttons on the lens unit as well. As the SD card is stored on the lens unit, you can theoretically just take the lens out to shoot.
- Since both lens and LCD controller are separate devices, they each have their own batteries and must be charged separately. According to Casio, the LCD controller has a much larger battery capacity and unless you forgot to charge, it should always outlast the lens unit.
- You can actually use your smartphone to connect and control the lens unit. This is achieved using the free Exilim Link app on iOS and Android. Note that the connection with your smartphone is done via Wi-fi instead of Bluetooth as the app also doubles up as a file manager for your photos and videos. I did not get the chance to test out this function though because the app wasn't ready yet at the time of our tour.
- As an active camera, the FR10 does have some kind of image stabilization, though Casio wasn't explicit in explaining this. From the images retrieved, I was quite surprised that I got more usable shots than not. It isn't able to compensate sharp motions, such as the jerking from bouncing on the lanyard around my neck and chest as I walked around, but it held up well against the light swinging motion from when I dangled the camera to the side of the rickshaw.
- Interval mode is great, but I found that there were times I specifically wanted to shoot something and there was no way to do it without having to first disable Interval mode from the LCD controller menu. Perhaps a hardware button to start/stop Interval mode after you've made all your settings or the ability to manually override it and shoot between intervals would be great.
This shot was taken with the FR10 hanging on a lanyard from my neck.
Here, I left the FR10 hanging on a stick between the wheels. The sharpness of the resulting pictures were quite surprising.
Here's one of those times when I wished I could quickly get out of interval mode or at least override it to manually snap a shot without having to access the controller menu.
The FR10 features built-in gyro sensors that both help image stabilization and orientation. However, it seems that sometimes it can get confused if you're waving the lens unit around trying some achieve some weird angle kung fu.
All photos in this section were shot with the FR10. They have been resized to fit, but otherwise left untouched from the original quality.
Mr. Kazunori Yanagi, Manager, Product Planning Section, Product Development Dept, QV Digital Camera Division, Casio.
Casio doesn't seem interested in direct competition with rival camera makers, can you explain more about Casio's strategy to remain competitive with cameras?
Our continued strategy in the camera business is to continue to provide users with gadgets that enrich or provide joy to their lifestyles, in a way that is innovative and easy to use. Casio was the first manufacturer to introduce a built-in LCD display, in what would become a standard practice among digital cameras today. The Exilim EX-FR10 follows that same ideal of going from 0 to 1, creating something where there was previously nothing. We believe that this will set us apart from our competitors.
How important is Casio's digital camera business to the company?
The digital camera business is one of the core competencies of Casio, and represents approximately 20% of our total business. However, the scale of the business is not a representation of our commitment to the business, as we have always been pushing the envelope of the compact digital camera industry. As previously mentioned, we were the first to introduce the built-in LCD display, and our TR and EX-Series have enjoyed huge success in the Asia-Pacific region. These achievements are a testament to our continued efforts and dedication in producing the best products for our consumers, as well as pushing the industry forward.
Casio can be said to have had a runaway success with the TR series, is the new FR10 an attempt to recreate that success in another niche segment?
That's right. Proposing brand-new product just like Casio, we believe to be able to introduce the product gotten total support in niche market. Expanding such product to a lot of areas, we believe it is global niche.
How does Casio identify what to focus on when developing a new camera? Especially something unconventional like the FR10?
Our focus has always been to provide users with an enhanced photography experience. We actively seek feedback from our users, such as yourself, around the world, and then create products that help them capture and enjoy the sights and sounds around them.
What does Casio think of the mirror-less camera movement?
In our perspective, the mirror-less camera is fast-growing alternative to the compact digital camera segment. For Casio, we are still focused on bringing ease-of-use and incorporating new technologies and features to enrich the photography experience, and in turn creating new value for the users.
To add on, what does Casio think will be the future of the digital camera, especially with smartphone imaging becoming more powerful?
We believe in our strategy that both the compact digital camera and smartphones can co-exist and work together simultaneously to provide users with a better photography experience, and the ability to share their experiences on social media platforms with ease. Every day there are new users who are experiencing photography for the first time, and it is important that we do not neglect this important group of users, and instead continue to research and develop new products that allows them to enjoy taking photos and videos with ease.
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