Casio Cams Do Green-Screen Style Editing

The company's latest Exilim cameras can automatically strip the background out of short videos to key in custom backgrounds.

You don’t have to be a weatherman or a Hollywood actor to walk in front of a colored wall and show up on film with a dramatic background anymore. Casio has brought the chroma-key technology typically used in blue screens down to a consumer level with the Exilim EX-Z400, EX-Z270, and EX-S12, which can create composite images right inside the camera.

Casio demonstrated the technology this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, where people in front of a blank wall were superimposed onto various bizarre backgrounds for the sake of showing off the tech. After shooting a video of a person with a static background, taking a snapshot of the background without the person allows the camera to process it out completely, editing in whatever image the photographer wants.

Gimmicky? Absolutely, but it does showcase the brawny image processing capabilities of the cameras by pulling off a function that used to tax even desktop computer processors. There are some limitations, though. Right now the camera can only pull off the trick for up to 20 frames of video, making for choppy, almost stop-motion-like scenes.

Casio says the three new cameras will be available in March, with prices between $250 and $300.