Hi everyone! I'm 24 and I'm here as I find it a useful place to read reviews and make a little bit ...
Hi everyone! I'm 24 and I'm here as I find it a useful place to read reviews and make a little bit of extra 'pocket money'. I'm a singer/songwriter and musician from the Carlisle area, but I haven't taken off yet...there's still time though...
Member since:09.02.2005
Reviews:38
Video reviews:1
I bought this mini DV as an alternative to shooting videos on my phone, as I often found myself doing that. But I thought, why use a phone when I can buy a dedicated video camera for as little as this cost (£57 from Bonprix but usually costs around £80 which is still cheap). I wasn't expecting it to be that good at this price but I was actually surprised.
The camera looks good. I chose one in a red finish. It is also a case of just pressing the record button and away you go, shooting your first video. But it is best if you tweak a bit with the settings first. I chose to have mine in XVGA mode as it is faster than D1 but is still of a watchable quality. You can access these settings simply by pressing the Mode button. To take a picture you just press the button with a little camera on located at the top of the unit and providing you have the flash set to auto, you will see on the screen shows the strobe flash is charging. The first time you take a still it will take a while to flash but then taking a photo will be instant.
The quality is watchable and whilst it is not as good as a large camcorder, it is still better than a phone. It is just as handy what with it been as small, for those moments. The size of the video files is huge but they can easily be halved to upload the YouTube with the included media convertor software. You don't need to worry about the size of the files as included is a 1gb SD card which has enough room for a lot of video which you can always dump to computer should space ever become an issue.
For dull light, the video is fuzzy even though it appears less so on the small built in screen. The video light works to an extent but it usually just reflects off its subjects. Still photos however are of excellent quality for the price of the camera. They hold detail at their largest sizes even when printed out on A4. They are 11 mega pixels after all so tis could even just be used as a digital camera and at such as low price, I doubt you'll get as many mega pixels for the money! The video is 5 which is still fine for YouTube use as they get shrunk down anyways.
The menus are easy access, just use the arrow keys to move up and down and the OK the access. It is all straight forward with a pretty user interface appearing on the screen. To switch the thing on, just flip out and rotate the screen towards you and you will be greeted by a cheerful jingle and a startup animation.
Battery life is very poor indeed and the included ones will run out in minutes. You definitely need a set of rechargeables, the high powered ones which are advertised for use in digital cameras. I have found I got 45 minutes continuous use out of it then, and even if it is less, you can always re use them being rechargeable and all. Factors that limit battery life include the use of video light and having high quality video. You are better off taking small bouts of video rather than one long continuous shoot to conserve battery life.
Connecting it to a computer involved inserting the included CD and installing the list of programs. On Vista most of the programs don't work but you can get many freeware converters and video editors. The camera connects as USB storage after installing the driver on Vista so you can take the videos off, or better still just get a card reader from poundland and take the SD card out of the camera and into the computer! No extra drivers! Make sure you go to turn the camera on to make it go into USB mode if you are connecting it that way though.
Overall, this is great value but I am probably only saying that as I paid a very low price. Don't expect the best, just go for it been better than a phone and a handy pocket device. The poor battery is almost solved by the use of rechargeable batteries and the still camera facility is great. This is kind of like a toy camera but I reckon a teenager would love it. It will never replace a full sized camera but don't expect it to.
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Nov 14th, 2008
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