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New Ceramic Lensed Exilim Ex-S100
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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I don't understand this either:
"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.
Yeah, ceremics can be transperent. It's harder for cermics to be, however, seeing as it's just a bunch of (transparent?) granules smushed together under high heat.
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.
I don't see how they were the first, when Steve's Digicam's has a review for this exact model dated two weeks ago. It's a much better and more thorough review as well, IMHO.
There's a much better review at Steves Digicams
Might want to check that one out too.
Do not anger the worm.
Save yourself some time and jump to the full review, the verdict, or the reader reviews--doesn't look like readers agree with the 9/10 rating.
might be nice to actually link to the review?
0 0.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/ex-s1
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.
See what I've been reading.
dpreview had a press release from Casio a few weeks ago..
... higher refractive index than glass. [snip]... thinner and stronger than conventional glass. ..[snip] reduction in the profile of a lens system by approximately 20%.
Highlights:
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.
There are soom cool pictures of the lenses as well as some text and graphics that explain what is going on pretty well.
http://www.busyweather.com/
Just would like to point out how silly all of this ceramic vs. glass business is, since glass is considered a ceramic! And, "ceramics" encompasses quite a lot of materials. You really have to take announcements like this with a grain of salt, and realize that while it may be better, it is also a gimmick when they say something like new "ceramic" lens! Oh yeah, and I'm a ceramic engineer...
Oddly enough, Steel with 6.67% bw Carbon is Iron Carbide, a ceramic. According to my material science book, Ceramics are compounds of metallic and nonmetallic elelments. Ionic or Covalent bonds form which are stronger than metallic bonds.
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)
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