One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2007 is to take more photos. I'm going to do this with the small point-and-shoot I own currently, but I'm very seriously considering an upgrade. This weekend, in fact, I was at Best Buy, checking out camera systems. One of the cameras I saw was Casio's EX-Z1000, a minuscule camera with a gigantic LCD screen. As I was handling the camera, two hippies came up to me and started looking, too. "It's small," I said. "It's gotten good reviews online," one of the hippies replied. If nothing else, Casio seems to be getting their name out there. Don't have much faith in hippies? Calvin Tang just posted a lengthy review of the EX-Z1000 used in conjunction with an EWC-80 housing. As with all of Calvin's reviews and how-to's, this one is well-written, thorough, and engaging.

According to Calvin, the EX-Z1000 offers long battery life, a shutter lag time of only .002 seconds, a simple interface, and excellent macro capabilities. Meanwhile, the EWC-80 housing is "simple and thoughtfully designed." Although he finds the housing's shutter button and button cluster a bit tricky, overall Calvin declares the rig to be "the best, most powerful compact camera/housing pair on the market right now." Since the entire rig is priced around $500, the EX-Z1000 sounds like an excellent entry-level camera. Alternatively, if you're a big dSLR shooter, this package might make a nice back-up to your pre-existing rig. Check out Calvin's review and see for yourself whether this camera'll suit your needs.