Casio Exilim EX-H50: 600mm Zoom, and Its Battery Catch

The Casio Exilim EX-H50 answers one question very well: how much zoom can you fit in a slim pocket camera? Casio's answer, shown at Photokina in September 2012, was 24x — a lens running from 25mm to 600mm equivalent. The price of that answer is battery life, and it is worth understanding before you buy one.

Buy the EX-H50 if maximum reach in a small body is what you want, and you are prepared to carry spare batteries. Skip it if you want one charge to last a long day, or if most of your photos are taken indoors.

The Reach

At 25mm the lens is wide enough for landscapes and buildings. At 600mm it brings a face across a square, a bird on a roof or a detail on a distant building into the frame. Few pocket cameras of its time reached further.

To make that reach usable, Casio fitted sensor-shift stabilisation, which moves the sensor to counter hand shake. At 600mm you will still need to hold the camera carefully, but without it telephoto shots would be almost impossible handheld.

The Sensor and Screen

The sensor is a 16.1-megapixel 1/2.3-inch CCD, which gives the EX-H50 the dense colour and grain-like noise of the CCD era. The rear screen is 3 inches with about 460,000 dots — clear enough to frame and review comfortably, with no viewfinder.

The Battery Catch

Under the CIPA test standard, the EX-H50 is rated for only about 145 shots on its NP-80 battery. For comparison, Casio's own EX-H30 from a year earlier was rated for 1,000.

That difference changes how you use the camera. A day of travel photography, especially with plenty of zooming, can empty a battery by lunchtime. The fix is simple and cheap: carry two or three spare NP-80 batteries, and charge them every night. Once you do that, the short battery life stops mattering.

With a used camera there is a second consideration. If 145 shots is the figure for a new battery, an old one may give you very few. Assume you will need fresh batteries.

The Other Limits

This is a small CCD sensor on a very long lens. In daylight the files are good; indoors, noise rises quickly, and at 600mm in poor light even the stabiliser cannot save a shot. Keep it for outdoor use and flash.

A 24x lens in a thin body also means a long, tightly packed zoom mechanism. That makes the lens the part to inspect most carefully.

Before You Pay for One

Run the zoom from 25mm to 600mm and back six or seven times. Listen for grinding, watch for hesitation, and walk away from any lens error message. A zoom this long in a body this slim leaves no room for grit.

At 600mm, frame something distant and half-press the shutter. The picture should visibly settle as the stabiliser works.

Charge the battery and leave the camera on while you test it. If the level drops sharply within a handful of shots, the battery is worn — plan to replace it rather than judging the camera by it.

Check the 3-inch screen for scratches and pressure marks, fire the flash several times in a row, and shoot a white wall at 25mm to look for dust on the sensor.

Bring a memory card and confirm the camera writes to it.

Stock changes often at Silver Cam, so check the shop for whether an EX-H50 is available right now. Every travel zoom we list has its zoom, stabiliser, screen and battery checked before it goes on the site, and we repair stuck zoom lenses on compacts like this one. We also buy Exilim cameras you no longer use.