Vivitar ViviCam 10 Digital Camera

Rating:
Summary: You get what you pay for....
Review: This is overall an "okay" camera. Yes, it has the auto shut off that gets annoying, yes, you really have to learn how to work it and how to do the settings right to get the quality of pictures you want. Yes, the menu is just way too long to go through to set up what you want. But the fact is, once you figure out how to do the settings correctly, you CAN get some very decent pictures from it. For the price of this camera, you cant ask for much more then that. I think its a good camera for those just getting in to digital cameras, and besides, if you can figure out how to work this camera properly, any other digital camera you ever get will be a breeze..lol. I used this camera for 2 years, I've gotten the pictures I've wanted out of it so it has made me happy. I've graduated now on to a much more expensive and way higher resolution camera from Kodak. Much more user friendly, and a much better camera all the way around. But I paid 4 times as much for it as I did the Vivicam. That leading to my point.. you get what you pay for. And for the price of the Vivicam.. you cant expect much better from it then what it gives.

Rating:
Summary: Not that bad though
Review: Well... here I read mixed oppinions on this little camera. Some likes it, some hates it.... but the camera is still the same and what is different is their expectation. OK.... I don't think this is the best sabby digital cam in the world. I have an Olimpus 2M, my brother and mom have Olimpus 3Ms, and my father has Canon EOS 1G. And all the starting point of these digital camera buying wave in my family was from this Vivitar cam. My family was a bit doubtful on the quality of digital cameras before I bought this cam a while ago. They were kind of thinking that digital camera technology was not fully stablized and they may need to wait a couple of more years to get a all set reliable digital cameras like old film cameras level. When I got this mini cam, their first reaction was "Oh... that's not that bad" It produces acceptable 640/480 pictures, batteries are not going flat that rapidly, can transfer pictures from the camera to computer via USB. You must know is this. This is the very bottom layer digital camera in digital camera assortment. 640/480 resolution means 0.3 mega pixel and that is the very basic level of your VGA monitor resolution. You may have at least 1280/1024 resolution level in most monitors and that is approximately 4 times finer than this camera's resolution. You got what I ment? The camera produces about 4 times worse quality picture than your monitor's view per se. Another word, when you display a picture from this camera in full screen or print it out with photo printer, you have really high odd to be disappointed. However, if you use this camera for pix for e-mailing to friends (not business custommers) or use for fun, I guess it fits very well with your needs. I agree on the complaint about flash lights. It doesn't make a good shot with flash in most cases. Pix are blurry and look like a paintings of impressionists. I recommend to use different modes without flash. In many pix, I found that the camera doesn't need that much light at all. We are kind of use to use film cameras and think that we need flash under this certain amount of lumination. The fact is that, digital cameras are often requiring less light than film cameras and we can make a better pix without flash light. A few more complements, the battery time is quite satisfactory. Since this camera has no LCD display that shows current taken pix, it consumes far less electricity than other models with LCDs. I know that so well because I now used bunch of digital cameras with LCDs. Finally it's easy to use. Just turn on and take picture. No zoom, no pulldown menues.... There are some sons also. First the flash light as I mentioned. USB connectivity software is a bit cumbursom. It doesn't automatically recognize the camera as a USB drive so hat you have manually load the software and suck up the pix from the camera to your computer. It's not that hard if you have any insight on your computers by the way.

Rating:
Summary: This camera is awful!
Review: Whatever you do, DO NOT BOTHER TO GET THIS CAMERA!! I have had 3, and they all work at first, but after a week or so, they have all messed up! At first, i thought it was the computer, but we got a new computer, and have had problems with the camera ever since. Just remember, "You get what you pay for!"

Rating:
Summary: Tantalizing Camera
Review: You should be "The Flash" to use this camera. After you use your fingers 6 or 8 times to set up the flash, it turns off in 30 seconds and you, like Tantalus,must do it again and again...Don't be mislead, we expected good things from Vivitar, but, sincerely. this camera is pure thrash.