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Kyocera SL400R 4MP Digital Camera with 3X Optical Zoom

Kyocera SL400R 4MP Digital Camera with 3X Optical Zoom

List Price: $349.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What do you really want the camera for?
Review: First off, I'm extremely pleased with this little camera. Does it have shortfalls? Yes, but not many. I bought this camera for specific reasons and it performs 100% of what I want it to do.
I'm in the military and on the go quite a bit so I needed something small and easy to use.
One of the biggest pluses (to me) is not needing a tripod. The swivel body is perfect for setting about anywhere and getting the shot (of myself) wherever I am. No more balancing my camera on a pile of rocks till I get the lens angle to where it doesn't cut my head off in the picture.
The instant on feature is awesome. Turn it on and it's ready to shoot a picture.
The fast shoot is the best thing ever. I can't tell you how many pictures I've missed with my other camera because it's focusing and processing whatever information. Push the button and it takes a picture, not "takes a picture 2 seconds from now."
WIth a high speed card you can take really great 640 x (whatever) movies. The movies are good quality and full motion. Not a camcorder replacement but fun for taking action movies at the drag races or whatever.
I haven't had problems with battery life. I think for the size and intended use it's fine. I turn the camera on, take a pic and turn it off. If you leave it on constantly, yeah, it's going to drain the battery. With the instant on and fast shooting, you can turn it on, take a pic and turn it off before most cameras can take a pic with it already on.
With the camera being so small, I don't mind taking my camera everywhere with me. It's nice because I'm taking pictures of a lot of things I never felt like lugging a camera around to take pictures of.
I've got Windows XP and there have been no problems (as stated earlier). Give your battery a full charge before you first start playing with it. I bought an extra battery but I don't think it's going to get much use. Don't forget to buy a high speed SD card. I got a 512m 32x speed and I think it will work for about anything I need. You could probably get away with a 256m no prob though.
Overall, I think it's an awesome little camera. If it had a little bit better zoom it would be perfect. It's an everyday camera. Fun to use.
It's not a replacement for my other camera though and I didn't buy it with those intentions. Keep that in mind and you will be extremely pleased.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Compact Camera!
Review: I just recieved this camera today, and right out of the box it impressed me. First of all this camera is tiny. It's about the same length and width as my Palm Tungsten E, and only a little bit thicker. The rotating lens is a very cool feature, and makes it easy to take self portraits. I also bought a Sandisk Ultra II 512 MB SD card, and it works greats, especially for the high speed mode. The zoom works well, and is relatively easy to operate while pressing down the shutter. The auto focus takes a little getting used to as you have to hold the shutter button down halfway. Connecting it to my Windows XP computer was easy and required no software installation. I highly recommend that you use the included Adobe Photoshop Album software. Image quality seemed good to my relatively untrained eye, and an 8 1/2 by 11 print from my printer came out very nicely. Overall this is an excellent camera with a small size, good pictures, and a great wow factor.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: what i wanted
Review: i like the camera. photos are good and its compact. i got what i paid for. the minuses are bad photos in low light and the lcd screen does not show you the true quality of the photo. i use sony software when i put on pc and hit autoadjust and the photos in low light look alot better. dont be afraid to buy this camera if its what you are after.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: No lens cover
Review: I liked a lot of things about this camera, but had to return it for the following reasons. First, it has no lens cover, so it is not a good idea to carry it around in a pocket unless you also carry around something to clean the lens. Second, for some reason my very modern and up-to-date home computer (Windows XP) would not recognize the camera as a USB removable drive as the manual said it should, so I was unable to retrieve the pictures I'd taken at home. Finally, once I was able to download the pictures to a work computer, I did not see a marked improvement in picture quality over the pictures my old Canon S230 takes. Another negative is that charging the battery requires hooking the camera up to a 2-piece AC adaptor-like cable. Compared to the kind of charger that the Canon digicams come with (a small plastic unit that holds the battery and plugs right into the wall), this seemed like a step backwards. On the plus side, this camera is small, has lots of functionality I hadn't seen in a digicam before ("Portrait," "Sports" modes, can take multiple continuous pictures, movie modes, etc.), is very easy to use, and also the manual was extremely useful and easy to read.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: No Battery life
Review: I read about the batteries have a low life but just buy an extra battery try 3 or 4 batteries more like it at $60 bucks a pop. You barley get 20 indoor flash pitches with a brand new freshly charge battery. The battery will only get worse over time I think.
This dos not work for my style of shooting if you only shoot one roll of film it might work for you, but why pay $300 $400 to only shoots 19-20 shots with a digital camera.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great snap=shot camera
Review: I'm not an expert photographer, I'm barely a photo enthusiast and I love this camera!

Even in it's carrying case, it's smaller than my wallet. I can take it anywhere, even places that don't allow cameras. Because the camera is so small, the controls are small. It takes some time to get used to, but well worth it (unless you're arthritic).

This camera is fast! There is almost no start-up time and very little processing time between shots. Just turn it on and you're ready to go, which is great for spare-of-the-moment pictures.

Because it takes less time to load, it doesn't eat the battery as much. I don't feel the need to keep it on for long periods of time, "just in case I miss something". Also, the battery is easily rechargable. Just plug the camera into a wall socket. I may invest in another battery in case I go hiking or camping, but for day to day use the battery seems just fine.

I'm only taking snap shots, so I'm satisfied with the image quality. All the default settings have been working fine for me. If I was entering photo contests and actually understood compression, ISO and all that other stuff, then I would go for a bulkier, higher end camera.

There is no lens cover, but the hood and the included case (which fit's like a glove) does a great job avoiding dust and fingerprints. It also comes with a little lens cleaner in case someone sticks their digits in there.

The only downside (and I use that word lightly) I can think of is the included memory card. 16 Megs is really nothing more than a tease. Like all the other reviews say; get a high capacity, high speed SD card (makes sure it says "high-speed", "32X" or something like that) and you'll be ready to shoot plenty of continuous shots (great for sports) and movies.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money, Better Choices Available
Review: I've owned several digital cameras in the last few years, from a Kodak DC to a Canon Elph, to now, a Kyocera. While the Kyocera is certainly the fastest in terms of turning on and shooting, it lacks in the most important areas: battery life and picture quality. After reading the reviews here, you will see that everyone complains about the battery life. It is in one word, pitiful. I've owned my Kyocera now for 1 year and I'm lucky to get 15 total minutes out of a charged battery. That is down from the 30 min. total that I got out of the battery freshly charged out of the box. That is simply unacceptable. The picture quality is fair, but for the price, I expect better. I would not recommend this product and I advise looking elsewhere. Don't make the mistake of dropping $300 - $400 on this camera only to be dissatisfied and already shopping for a replacement within 1 year.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Swivel body, ultra-compact camera with very good image and v
Review: Image quality:
Daytime images: Excellent image quality, that fully meets expectations of a 4M pixel camera.
Flashimages: There is a built in flash, that allows taking pictures over reasonable distances (2 to 4 m). Unfortunately the autofocus works poorly under dim light conditions and there is no built in light assist autofocus. Fortunately the camera comes with a built in manual focus so that you can always use the camera.

A major adavantge of the camera over any other ultracompact is the swivel body. Thanks to the swivel body you will be able to put the camera on any flat surface or hold it onto a poll etc so that you can take night time images and self timer images without a tripod. I like this, because I seldom carry a tripod with me - in particular when I go out with a compact camera.

Another major advantage of the camera is the optional filter thread. This way you finally have a compact camera that permits you to add polarizer filters etc that used to be the privilege of larger cameras. (Polarizer filters are used to filter white glares from the sun that take away quite a bit of the colors).

Video quality: The quality of the videos you can take with this camera will suprise you (30 fps with 640x480 dots). You may take video clips of any length - of course this takes memory. The only thing I found is the somehow grainy video quality under dim light conditions. Yet, all of my other cameras have the same issue to some extent.

To refill the battery you only need to attach the power cord to the camera without extracting the battery or needing a cradle. The camera has the standard small USB connector, which makes directly downloading images without card reader very convenient. Kyocera provides the USB to small USB converter cable within the package.

All the features are easily accessible and conveniently located.

It is hard to say which of the two cameras, the Sony DSC-T1 or the Kyocera Finecam SL400R is any better without performing a in-depth test series.From what I have read and from what I see now from the Kyocera, I tend to believe that the Kyocera can keep up or exceed the image quality. However, the swivel body and the optional lens makes this camera way more versatile then the Sony.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A pleasure right out of the box
Review: In a rather negative review, an earlier entry indicated very poor battery life. I will admit that it would be good to have an extra battery or two, but let me share with you the very first (quite positive) experience we had.

The camera arrived on a Friday and after a few quick calculations I ran out and bought a 512Meg memory chip. Then the charger was hooked up and I handed the instruction guide to my wife and said - "go to it". We were having the annual show of our barbershop chorus the next day and she was going to take some pictures.

She brought the camera and took about 25 photos of the cast in preparation for the show, and then switched to movie mode (using the lowest resolution - to get as much as would fit on the chip) and took about 200Megs of a movie (about 20 minutes) before the battery ran out of gas.

I'm not sure what the prior reviewer's problem was, but that was a single battery and one full charge.

As to the quality, because the lighting was limited to the available stage lighting, the pictures were very grainy. VERY. But that is to be expected in low light. The sound was acceptable and we have an archive copy of what the start of the show looked like. Not bad for a first attempt.

A few more cautions - the multiple photo option is great but I have a tendency to move the camera while pressing the button. This "user error" causes the photos to be blurry. So when using that mode I'd recommend finding a place to rest the camera or something to lean against to avoid problems.

So with those caveats, I'd recommend this camera to anyone who wants to have a camera that can be slipped into a pocket or purse and used at a moments notice.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Little Camera!
Review: Quite an amazing camera for the size. This Kyocera is capable of producing some fine detail in photos and does all this with speed that is usually not found in smaller pocket units.
I normally use the large Sony 828 which is far removed from a pocket camera but Kyocera gives many of the features of a mid range camera in a compact size. The Kyocera SL400R fills the need for a smaller unit and at 4MP it can produce close to the same quality for routine use. Focus can sometimes present a challenge but overall, this is worth a look. For it's size and capabilites, this Kyocera is gives an easy five-star performance.


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