Excellent Camera with few problems.
Written: Sep 02 '03
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Pros: Excellent Res for the price, Very Small and Easy to use.
Cons: Annoying Focus ring easily goofed resulting in blury pictures.
The Bottom Line: If you can get it for Under $50 GET IT and then add an SD card. you will be VERY please. the performance is surprisingly good considering the cost.
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| nerys71's Full Review: Aiptek PenCam SD Digital Camera |
I Have a Love Hate relationship with this camera. I got a GREAT deal on it. $30 at walmart (bought all 3)
it is true 1.3mp so the pics are VERY nice especially for the $30 pricetag.
First lets go over the problems. The Focus ring is a pain. you must constantly check it to insure clear pictures. since I do not plan to do close ups (it does do them well by the way) without an LCD I have decided to simply GLUE mine in place.
I HATE the internal memory. we just came back from vacation in myrtle beach. I take most of the pictures so FEW pictures include ME in them. Anyway I used this while on the Jetski's we rented figuring its only a $30 loss if I drown or lose it (better than risking my $1000 digital)
I come back to dock and hand off the camera since its full. Good thing as right after that I flip the danged ski over :-) SO she says how about I get some pics of you and I remember the internal memory (enough space for about 8 shots) so I tell her how to remove the SD card and use internal memory.
GREAT I get some pics of me. NO I do not. the internal memory is VOLATILE so if you OPEN the battery compartment you LOSE those images. I treated it like priceless china on the way home. I download the SD card but FORGET about the internal memory. later that night I go to reinsert the SD card to bring it with me and just as I open the battery compartment I remember that it contains the ONLY pictures of me on vacation. :-( not anymore.
BAD move aiptek. how hard could it have been to make that memory non volatile or at least have a capacitor to give you a few secods to reclose the battery door or something. I would have only needed 2 seconds since I realized my goof immediately. No joy pics were gone.
Now I have filled the internal memory with BLACK images and will never use it again. Only SD memory which is non volatile
One more con. focus (lens quality) is soft. so center is sharp but it tends to get a little soft on the outside edges. NOT bad at all just a nit.
As you know I am very blunt with my reviews so lots of bad sounding stuff does not mean its a bad camera. on the contrary.
Ok now for the good stuff and their is a LOT of good stuff.
First the SD card compatibility ROCKS. it can use upto 128meg which means you can take around 350-400+ pictures !!
I gave one each to the kids when they went to florida (mom's kids after remarrying)
Many of the pictures were goofy (blurry etc..) but I expected that as I had no time to train them on how to use them. but I got HUNDREDS of very nice very cool otherwise would have never had pictures !!
Matthew tooks some pics at seaworld of the dolphins that are simply STUNNING. I would have been impressed if these were my own images. they are that good and crystal clear too. Very impressed.
the cameras are VERY small and compact. Easily pant or shirt pocketable. but they also come with a VERY cool lanyard that has a CLIP soyou can unhook from lanyard without removing from your neck. I use one of these for my cell phone.
The battery life is also Very good. you can easily get a few hundred pics per set of AAA's (2) it only took them 2 sets to get through their 8 day trip taking over 500 pictures between the 2 of them. and that first set was the cheapies that came with the camera's.
Operation could not be simpler. Press and hold Mode and it turns on already in pic mode high res. (you have to change the mode each time but since pic is the prominent mode I like this feature)
That's it. Press shutter to take pictures. it beeps to signify success. takes about 2-4 seconds before you can shoot again.
it also has a nifty video mode (no audio) that can shoot 10fps in 640x480. Pretty cool actually. Sara accidentally shot video during the disney parade and it was pretty cool but short since she did not realize she was in video mode so she put her arm down :-) (I did not want them to FILL it on videos and run out of memory so I did not show them how to do that)
it also comes with a neat little tripod and the camera has a self timer mode.
The pictures they took of micky etc.. at the parade also came out wonderful clear and sharp.
The price was unbeatable. $30 for the camera $60 for a 128meg SD card (cheaper online maybe but that is pretty darned good) and you have a simple durable 1.3mp camera that will take many hundreds of pictures.
I LOVE IT. only thing is that damned focus ring GLUE it into far away position and forget it. (macro is only for 12inches of less which you won't be shooting much with such a camera.
Also ditch the internal memory its not worth it. I would rather NOT have the pictures than GET them and LOSE them later. It hurts less. :-)
I got it pretty darned wet on the jetski's and it did not seem to get grumpy about it. (do not advise dunking it :-)
Combined with a 128meg SD card this is a truly cool camera. I keep one in each car and one in my camera bag. so no matter what I can take pics lots of them and of a usable resolution. you can make an "ok" 8x10 from these uncropped and also an "ok" cropped 4x6 or 5x7 or an EXCELLENT uncropped 4x6 or 5x7 REALLY a nice camera.
another bonus. the Pics are jpg and the videos are AVI and they are RECORDED as such on the SD card. so you do NOT have to use the aiptek software and can download the SD card direct with PCMCIA adaptor or USB memory card reader.
VERY nice touch !! I just pop the SD card into my laptop and download. Thankyou aiptek for not using a proprietary format.
The first thing I plan to do with my third unit it to install it into a rocket and see how nice a picture it can take from 800 feet.
Shutter lag can be a problem. Sometimes I press the button and get the You got it beep withing a second othertimes it waits a few seconds before giving me a beep. Not sure why overall for snapshots the lag is ok but it is useless for action shots. Tried to catch my brother jumping into the river. yeah right :-) for these things use the High Res (640x480) video mode. you can always pull frames from it. in fact this is one area where i wish it did not make real avi's (the old ones downloaded individual images and then made the avi in software) since it would make frame grabbing really easy.
Overall an EXCELLENT simply toss around camear for spur of the moment or something to give thekids to get really nice shots without risking a lot. Just remember do not use internal memory and glue the focus ring in place and you will have no problems.
I definately give this camera a 5 out of 5 ESPECIALLY at $30
Goto http://www.nerys.com/stuff their are 3 pictures the kids took while in florida called sdcam01.jpg sdcam02.jpg and sdcam03.jpg
these are straight from the camera without retouching or resaving.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 29.88
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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Epinions.com ID:
nerys71
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Member: Chris Taylor Jr.
Location: Edgely, PA
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I Love Rockets, Airplanes, and off course Gadgets :-)
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