I knew they were working on a prototype but when I saw that title on the announcement of this new camera, I stll thought I had read it wrong. I don’t normally do product announcements on here, but this is no ordinary spec list.

Basically, the story starts when Sony recently announced the development of a 6MP 1/1.8" CMOS sensor capable of high speed photography. The 1/1.8" sensor size is the larger of the compact camera variants (good – means potentially lower noise), and coupled with a "sensible" pixel count and even more interesting, a CMOS type sensor, all these things bode well for image quality. Those who remember Fuji’s Super CCD (similar in both size and megapixels), will recall it had the best high iso / low noise ratio of any compact camera. All these things point to good image quality. However, the most interesting thing about the sensor was its high speed capabilities (see below). Well, it now seems that this sensor may have made it into Casio’s new EXILIM Pro EX-F1. Get this for a spec sheet:

- 1/1.8" high speed CMOS type CCD offering 6M pixels (already described above, points to good high ISO performance / image quality – in fact it’s the type of sensor spec I wish the Canon G9 had)
- 60fps continuous shooting speed. Yes, you read that right. The EX-F1 has an image buffer depth of 60 images and is capable of filling that buffer in 1 second. To put that in perspective, my previously world leading 1D Mark III (fastest DSLR) can do 10 fps. This is more than an order of magnitude leap over the next fastest compact camera.
- 12x zoom (36mm to 432mm equivalent). F/2.7 to F/4.6 aperture. Both specs are decent.
- Movie clips in full HD (1920 x 1080) at 60 fps. V impressive
- High speed movie clips at 512 × 384 (300 fps), 432 × 192 (600 fps), 336 × 96 (1200 fps). Insane and opens up a new world of high speed photography for consumers.
- Shutter speed up to 1/40,000 second. Another incredible feature.
- Flash sync @ up to 7 frames per second. Almost as if Casio thought they’d try to break the world record for most world record’s in one release.
- Image stabilisation through sensor shift. Glad they squeezed that in there
- 2.8" LCD. Again, decent
- ISO from 100 to 1600
- 670g in weight. Bigger than a normal compact, smaller than a DLSR by the looks of things.
- A bunch of other compact camera like spec’s.

The list price? $999 USD.

Well, this is going to be very interesting. It’s pretty rare that a piece of technology gets launched which breaks new ground (in some cases by an order of magnitude) in not just one but several key areas. It’s even more rare when that technology comes in at a lower price than the very competitors its trouncing (if you consider its frame rate to DLSR’s).

Of course, there are many unanswered questions… What will the Image Quality be like, how good is the glass, will the UI be user friendly enough to cope with the selection (and deletion) of so many images, what about battery life… and of course, with all that speed & power, what do you actually use it for?

Well it’s so potentially interesting that my mind is already wandering about the potential uses of this. I can already think of a number of specific areas which could be extremely applicable and quite honestly, I’m salivating about the potential it offers when I imagine it in the right hands. By the time it rolls around and hits the market, no doubt I’ll be trying to get one.

Anyway, geek rant over. Back to actually taking pictures.