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. "

Comments

This is bad?

[stilist]

Since when is a 3.2 megapixel size bad, especially for a small digital camera? Guess I'm just behind the times...

Re:This is bad?

[inflex]

My other hobby other than listening to trash on /. is model aircraft - specifically electric powered ones.

Li-Ion batteries have the lowest discharge rate around, superior to NiMH and definately NiCd. Better yet would be Li-Poly but they're still a tad risky for some people's likings (I have videos of model planes bursting into flames due to a bad lipo).

The trouble with Li-Ion/Poly is that they have a comparitavely low draw capacity on demand, especially if they're cold. This is where a lot of people pick up the feeling that Li-based batteries are a poor choice relative to NiMh/Cd. Typically if the battery cannot supply the required current the apparent voltage drops and it seems like the battery is 'flat'. The trick is to keep them warm - not always an option I know.

Incidently, I've had lipo cells have nearly full charge (over 80%) despite having been left after a charge for more than 2 weeks.

Oh, one other last problem with Li based batteries is that if they drop below a specific voltage then technically you're not supposed to try revive them (else things can go boom!). A lot of laptops with Li based batteries suffer to this, people throw out 'dead' packs which actually just were left too long without a charge.

PLD.

image noise

[spacerodent]

they mention image noise several times in the article and act like it's isn't a big deal. If you can see image noise on a normal 3 megapixel image (assuming its somehwere around 1024x768 or greater) then its probally pretty bad. They mention it twice too. I wonder if it has anything to do with the ceramic lens which seems to be the only interesting thing about the camera. Otherwise it seems pretty average in about every category.

Ceramic vs. Glass

[HotshotXV]

You know, the review did a good job of letting you know that ceramic lenses allow you to make the camera smaller... but is the image quality the same through ceramic? Wouldn't it be more translucent, and thus more susceptable to light refractions? Someone help me out here.

Re:ceramic

[uberdave]

So, they are using a cheaper, lower quality lens and expecting people to pay 350 pounds for it? That's about US$630! Am I missing something? Is the ceramic lens harder/more scratch resistant? You could buy a 7 or 8 megapixel camera for that kind of money.

What is a ceramic

[LS]

Stupid question #1: Why isn't glass considered a ceramic? I've googled around for information on what a ceramic is, and I haven't found anything that precludes glass...

LS

Refractive index

[LS]

Here's a picture of the lense. Apparently the cool thing about this lense is that it has a higher index of refraction, allowing it to be thinner and take less space, hence the slim profile of the casio.

LS