Epson PhotoPC 850Z

Epson is a not very popular make of digital cameras and I still don't understand why.

So join me for a lesson in buying unpopular (and that means more cheap) products. ;-)

I bought this 2.1 Megapixels camera in June of 2000 for about 450 Pounds, already knowing 3 Megapixel cameras are coming out right now, and so I won't get newest technology, but a well-designed and well-engineered digital camera.

Getting ...
...see ANY differences at all, Epson says it should be about 1900x1400 pixels) resolutions the camera offers: 1600x1200 pixels in high quality, 1600x1200 with "medium compression" and 640x480 pixels (VGA) in a high compression mode. Using the default 8 MB compact flash card this means about 15 pictures high quality, 30 medium quality and 150 in VGA. But I highly recommend the usage of a 64 MB compact flash card, as it's not very expensive ... more

Epson is a not very popular make of digital cameras and I still don't understand why.

So join me for a lesson in buying unpopular (and that means more cheap) products. ;-)

I bought this 2.1 Megapixels camera in June of 2000 for about 450 Pounds, already knowing 3 Megapixel cameras are coming out right now, and so I won't get newest technology, but a well-designed and well-engineered digital camera.

Getting started with this one was quite simple for me, coming from the old fashioned Canon EOS System. :-)

So it's really no problem to shot a shot in one of the three (4- the forth is not worth talking about, it's a software enhancement, and, besides taking longer to save the file I don't see ANY differences at all, Epson says it should be about 1900x1400 pixels) resolutions the camera offers: 1600x1200 pixels in high quality, 1600x1200 with "medium compression" and 640x480 pixels (VGA) in a high compression mode. Using the default 8 MB compact flash card this means about 15 pictures high quality, 30 medium quality and 150 in VGA. But I highly recommend the usage of a 64 MB compact flash card, as it's not very expensive no more and it will enhance the usability of the camera very much. Epson supports compact flash type I and type II cards for this camera, but if you will use cards with more than 96 MB of memory, saving pictures to the card will take a long time (about 6 seconds) before you can use the camera again. If you keep that 96 MB limit you will have to wait one about 1 second to shoot again. ;-)

The camera offers a three times optical and a two times digital zoom (I won't recommend usage of this, ANY picture publishing program can do this job much better at all).

If you like to use any of the additional features of the Epson Photo PC850z, you will have to click through a not very intuitive menu structure. Every time I want to change the setting of the standard ISO or choose record sound (16kbps, mono, 8 bit for 3, 5 or 10 seconds) I first get into the wrong menu tree.
In these de facto hidden menus you also can choose between time automatic, aperture automatic or full program or even complete manual exposure.

The camera came with a set of 4 NiMh accumulators type AA, 1500mAh and a standard battery charger with no refresh function built into (so better go for an extra charger). These accumulators make my camera work for about 100 pictures, depending on how often I use the good internal flash (it works around 5 meters to flash the picture sufficient) and the TFT-LCD display, that has an additional very nice feature, as you can turn off the backlight and use sunlight instead by day. Epson has stopped this feature with the 850z and I don't know why, because it's great for saving battery power without abstaining usability. Quite the contrary, by day, the sunlight often is much brighter than the standard backlight.

For more professional use, you may disable the internal flash and use an external flash, as the camera has a standard connector for flashes on top as you also can see in the picture Ciao put here (thanks :-) ). But there's no TTL support for this flash, so you exactly will have to know what you do, when using the external flash.

And as you can see there, too, the camera is not one of the smaller ones, so it's nothing to put into your trouser pockets, but therefor it comes with a small bag with a strong belt grip. Another advantage for people like me is the size, as I can hold it in my hand without any knots in my fingers ;-). So maybe it's not a ladies camera :-)))

The automatic white balance is working well, but not if you take pictures in a snowy landscape. In this case you have to use your picture publishing program before using it. Although, I also was lucky to find an online print studio, that does this job very well for me. :-) And much cheaper than any inkjet printer at home (but you have to use this one, too, for you *** pictures, of course *lol* ). Using artificial light will also leave the colours look natural, that's one of the big differences to the Canon cameras, I compared this one to as I bought it.

The depth of field is very good. And so is the complete optical system of this camera. The luminosity is very well and you get the feeling of owning a better product than these 40 Pound no-name cameras you get everywhere right now (at least in Germany it's so).

Data transfer to your PC is done by an extra software, as Epson did not use standard twain for this camera. Don't ask me why, but that's the fact and you have to accept it, or to buy another make. You can download pictures to your PC by serial link (up to 115200 bps) or USB 1.1. I highly recommend the USB connection, as a download of a 64MB compact flash card will take about 80 minutes and using USB it is about 4 Minutes, got my point? ;-)

For Notebooks you also may use a compact flash to PCMCIA adaptor, as pictures are saved in standard JPG-format. In the header of each file you can get information about date, time, resolution and exposure data, when opening these with Epsons software, even if you did not use the Epson file downloader. One disadvantage of the camera is, you don't have a chance to choose any non lossy file format like TIF is. But really, I don't need that.

As an extra you may upload programs to the compact flash card into the camera, but I never found any sense in doing so.

And another extra: you may connect this camera directly to your Epson Photo inkjet printer or Epson Stylus colour 740 and print directly without any PC right from the camera menu.

The manual comes as a 'getting started' print, and all other information may be downloaded from the Epson website or can be found on the software CD.

My conclusion:
I never regretted a cent I spent for it. I have taken about 2500 Pictures until today and I still don't see any need to "upgrade" my camera to a newer one.

And the 2.1 MPixel are good enough for prints at a size of 10x15cm, so it's my choice for standard use, even if I still take the mirror reflex Canon EOS for my 'real photography' :-).

So if you can get one at EBay, don't wait and go for it.

©burk for ciao UK September 2002

 

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