I have been giving less and less credibility to the so called digital camera reviewing websites lately as digital cameras get past the gee whiz gadget stage and become true instruments of photography. The review sites are ok when they talk about their interpretations of published specs but they leave me cold when it comes to how good a digital camera is at making a memorable photograph. Yes, things like start up time, internal memory capacity, and battery life are good to know because if a camera scores really badly on certain specs it can become a chore to use. But how well a digital camera helps create a photograph is still the most important thing that needs to be considered.

I have preached the mantra that "more megapixels doesn't mean a better picture" for years and I still believe it, but I also believe that some of the newer high megapixel cameras are also now giving us better lenses and processors, which are the two main things that make one digital camera better than another. And I've resisted getting suckered into the hype about some manufacturers putting exotic sounding names on their lenses. All that really means is that they paid to license the lens name, it doesn't mean each lens is hand made in the Black Forest by old bearded craftsmen.

The same review sites mentioned above seem to kiss the feet of anything with the name Canon on it to the point of putting their independent review status in severe jeopardy. Yes, Canon makes some good cameras but they really don't have any more real experience in the business than most other DIGITAL brands and in my estimation they consistently fall just slightly short of the mark. Yeah, most people buy them, but then again most people eat at McDonalds.

So what do I think is the very best all around consumer digital camera on the market regardless of price? To me it's the Nikon D70S priced right, near perfect design, and slightly more accurate at capturing images than the Canon counterpart. But I don't want to lug a huge camera and a bag of lenses around with me all the time, that's why I was so excited when high quality pocket size digital cameras were invented, so I could leave my old Nikon SLR on the shelf and be prepared to make good photographs wherever I happened to go.

Since I put the old film cameras into semi retirement, I have had digital cameras from Panasonic, Canon, Olympus and HP and they were all adequate but suffered from that "chore" syndrome mentioned above with their horrendous shutter lag, dismal startup time and wretched battery life. This time around I wanted a camera I could truly carry in my pants pocket, yet has a good (no make that great) lens, excellent battery life, as many manual features as I could get in a tiny package, and something that didn't feel like a plastic toy.

I considered Panasonic Lumix, Canon, Nikon and Sony. The other brands I looked at had some good stuff but didn't seem to fill my desire for a true photographer's quality instrument. Sony got booted off the list fairly fast. They are such a fine company, why can't they make a camera that actually takes a great picture?

I am intrigued by Lumix, the quality of the pictures seems first class, I love the image stabilizer, and they are very feature rich, but most of the pocket size models feel just a little cheesy. Canon makes pocket cameras that take good pictures, but I feel Canon is resting on their reputation instead of trying to build a product that's worth the asking price.

And Nikon would have come in a strong second, just missing first place because of weak ergonomics. I never seriously considered Casio, ok maybe for a watch or calculator, but I asked myself what they would know about photography. Turns out they know a lot. They've actually been making digital cameras longer than almost anyone, and when it comes to the right buttons in the right place they are geniuses. I'll go further than that, the whole concept of the Exilim EX Z750 is genius. It you total up all it offers I would have to give it the honor of being the only perfect pocket size digital camera on the market.

As soon as I touched on I was impressed by its quality. It feels like it's machined out of block of solid aluminum (its not). The controls give you nearly everything you will every want using buttons that make sense and don't require you to go many levels deep in the menu. I love the HUGE 2.5" LCD screen but no LCD screen is fully useful in direct sunlight no matter what anyone says, so Casio thoughtfully brought back the optical viewfinder.

It seems 9 out of 10 reviewers who mention the optical viewfinder say they hate it because it's so tiny. Who cares? It's there when you need it, and it's sharp and clear. If it makes the difference between getting a priceless picture or missing it, I'll take a tiny viewfinder instead of none anytime.

The EX Z750 starts up and is ready to shoot by the time I get my finger from the off/on switch to the shutter release. Can't be any faster than that. I have still not found any instance where shutter lag has caused me to miss what I wanted to capture, in other words there really isn't any shutter lag in real life.

Rather than go into every detail of the camera, I'll mention a few of the biggest high points that sets this camera apart from every other one in the category.

1. The EX Z750 remembers the zoom position when you turn it off and back on again. I have dreamt of a feature like this! There are so many times I have had the camera all set up and had to turn it off to wait for something to be ready, only to have to turn a camera back on and make several readjustments. With the EX Z750 I can turn it back on and EVERYTHING is set exactly the way I left it.

2. Some cameras have some limited function to remember other favorite settings, the EX Z750 seems to have the ability to remember nearly everything without having to commit it to a special "favorites" position on a switch or dial. So if I like 1 saturation (and this camera is slightly oversaturated in its default position) I can leave it at 1 forever.

3. You can turn the camera on and off with the on/off switch, or you can turn it on and off using the "record" "play" buttons to go directly to that mode. How cool is that?

4. The EX button makes it possible to very quickly adjust four of the most important shooting parameters without ever going into the menu mode.

5. The movie mode is incredible, and offers several unique features including a unique pre movie that's already recording before you push the record button ... kinda like the way TIVO works ... it's weird and insanely brilliant. After seeing the quality I wonder who in their right mind would lug along a camcorder no matter how small it is on those trips to Disneyland when the EX Z750 can take outstanding still pictures AND decent video in a camera you can hide in the palm of your hand.

6. Live RGB histogram? On a camera the size of a deck of cards (smaller actually)? WOW!

7. Battery life is one of the best in the industry.

8. 30 scene modes! Yeah I know I said I wanted something to take professional quality photographs and I wanted manual overrides, but sometimes you don't want to spend 10 minutes setting the camera like when the sun is setting in 30 seconds. I can't believe how versatile the scene modes are.

Last but not least, the picture quality is shocking. I compared two pictures taken at the same time of the same scene with the EX Z750 and the $1300 Nikon D70S. I showed them side by side to several people who should have been able to tell the difference. Nobody could.

The negative side? Slight oversaturation as it comes out of the box. For snapshots it may help most people make a blah picture look a little more exciting. For someone more critical, just set the new default to 1 and you've got yourself a low price, pocket size D70S. To the reviewers who can't figure that out, get over it and go get a job at McDonalds.

The other small negative is that I love panorama assist. I take a lot of panorama pictures and I can't figure out how Casio missed putting in this one obvious feature. Must be some fear they have of absolute total perfection ; ) I rate the Casio EX Z750 a 10 out of 10

Footnote: I've had the EX Z50 for a week now. I've taken it on a trip and taken a variety of photographs and even submitted a few to be judged. The sharpness of the lens on this little pocket camera is unbelievable. The realism of colors is uncanny. Overall I can say photographs taken with this camera are so far beyond my expectations I would call them thrilling. I'm still going to buy a digital SLR but I'm in less of a hurry now that I see what I can do with my pocketable Casio.