Review on Yashica EZ F521

I just brought this camera(Yashica EZ F521) for my GF, it's quite a nice camera to have in you pocket or bag. My GF totally love it, and it's acts as her birthday's present too, and it's cheap too!!!

With the price of S$99(brought in Mustafa(a shopping center which open 24hr in Singapore), comes with a 2GB memory card, 3X(AAA batteries, a AV/USB cable(able to connect a TV and PC using the same cable, a User Manual, a hand strap, a pouch(which i forgotten to add in the photo below) and a Software and User Manual CD.


When you get this camera the first thing you'll notice is that, it's very small(compared to the photo you see). Some People like to call this camera as a digital holga, it's not one but close to a holga.

Turning on the camera, there's a welcome message showing "Yashica", you can also change this welcome message to your image if you like it. The starting up of the camera took around 3sec which considered quite slow to me, but it's still ok if you intend to use this camera for fun shooting which you could waited.

ok let's see what is in the menu, there are:

Function of the camera
-Resolutions: Which default is set to 5MP, but you can also set it to 12MP, 5MP, 3MP, 1MP or VGA.
-Quality: Super Fine, Fine, and Normal
-Metering: Center, Multi, and Spot
-White balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, and Tungsten
-Exposure
-Driver Mode: Off, Self-timer 2Sec, Self-timer 10Sec, or Burst
-Effect: Normal, B&W, Sepia, Negative, Red, Green, or Blue
-Date Stamp: Off, Date, Date&Time.

In the Camera Setting:
-Auto Review: Off, 1Sec, or 3Sec
-Power frequency: 50HZ, or 60HZ
-Power Save: 1min, 3mins, or 5 mins
-Date & Time
-Language: English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, T.Chinese, or S.Chinese
-TV out: NTSC, or PAL
-Start-up Image: Off, System, or My image
-Format
-Reset All

See with just S$99 you can get all this, what amazed me is, this is a 5MP camera, and it could actually converted to a 12MP(By-interpolation) anytime you like.

The two photos show below are shoot in 5MP, and 12MP. they are further cropped to see the differences.

5MP Cropped:


12MP Cropped:


Compared both the photos, the 12MP proved to be better, but not that obvious. Still it's an add on function to me, cos I'll still be sticking with my 5MP.

I also see other people review, they say when you taking the picture while moving the camera will give you some funny result which is something like these:

This photo i shot while i was walking at a fast pace, and the photo show that the leg was some how distorted.


These 3 photos were shot while i move the camera, when the shutter is pressed.




These funny shots will turn out to be like these, were due to the Electronic Shutter. Because, this camera does have a real shutter like those you find in SLRs or other compact camera.

Now for the Marco shooting (Take close-up picture 20~50cm away from camera, When you do this the Macro light indicator will light up)


Looks very clear to me and the color were nice too. Maybe a little over exposed.


This also quite nice but maybe a little over exposed too.

So i tired a set the Exposure to -1EV, turn out the picture looks better(i think)


Now for the flash.

It turn out to be quite a powerful flash.

Now for the Landscape:


It turn out to be quite nice.

Shooting against the sun:
The building doesn't seem to be darken or black out.

And it produced quite a nice looking red flare, Due to it's red plastic lens.

Now to test indoor with little light source:

It doesn't seem to go well with low lighting.

For the Technical Specifications:

-Sensor: 5MP CMOS.
-Display:2.4" TFT Color LCD
-Focus Range: Landscape: 150cm~infinity, Macro: 20~40cm
-Lens roughly around 43mm
-Aperture: f3.0, Fixed Focus at f7.0
-Shutter: Electronic Shutter
-Resolution: Still Image: 4000x3000/ 2592x1944/ 2048x1536/ 1024x768/ 640x480
-Sensitivity(ISO): Auto
-White Balance: Auto/ Daylight/ Tungsten/ Fluoresce/ Cloudy
-Exposure Control: -2EV~+2EV in 0.3 step
-Burstsnap: Yes
-Flash Mode: Auto/ Force/ Off
-Self-Timer: 2Sec/10Sec
-Storage: 32MB internal memory/ External memory support SD/MMC up to 8GB
-TV system: NTSC/ PAL
-Power Supply: 3AAA(alkaline/ 1.5V) batteries
-Ambient temperature: Operating: 0~40 degree C/ Storage: -20~60 degree C
-Microphone: Built-in microphone
-Safety mark: CE Mark, FCC image
-Dimension: Camera Body: Approx. 110(w)x(66(H)x48(D)mm)
-Weight: Camera Body W/O Batteries: Approx. 125g

In summary, I like this camera so does my GF. i did not regret buying it. Although, the only problem in this camera i see is that the camera display had very low quality. What you see in the Display can be very different when you upload to your computer.

Overall, it's very cheap and nice. Digital Holga? Not one, but very close. I'll still buy it if you ask me again.