I have owned this camera for about a month, and on the whole I am delighted with it. It was an upgrade from my older Casio EX-Z40, which is still a very respectable ‘point and shoot’ super-compact. The P700 is substantially chunkier but does a whole lot more.
The best things about this camera are the inclusion of manual modes, and a large Canon lens. The screen is good, and the addition of a thumb-control allows mode-switching to be done with less annoying menu-navigation. This combination of features allows the P-700 to take the kind of strange images that delight me. For example, I bagged this on on holiday in Cape-Town, it’s a 1 minute exposure with a widest possible appeature.
This camera is too big to be called a super-compact. The lens projects forwards from the camera by about 1cm, and the screen sticks out by about 0.5cm at the back. The P700 is too big to fit into your trouser pockets, but is quite comfortable in a jacket pocket. I got mine with a faux-leather carry case that fits neatly in my camelback.
The only thing I dislike about this camera is the bulging optical viewfinder (the plastic bit above the lens). I dont see the point of an optical viewfinder on a digital compact camera. I am sure these things are very important on an SLR, but I have never needed or trusted the optical viewfinders on compact cameras. The plastic bit on the front really runis the camera’s looks, and in my opinion Casio should re-consider this feature.
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