I bought this digital camera, in conjunction with my brother, as a Christmas present for my Dad last year to replace his almost-antique-held-together-with-black-tape Kodak effort. However, since my Dad is a complete technophobe (after the advent of the remote control he just sort of lost interest), it has fallen to me to really get to grips with the thing and show him how it's done.
I'm going to start off with the worst thing about this camera - the price. This camera retailed at time of purchase for a whopping £400 (I only just managed to stifle my gasp of amazement in the camera shop), however the salesman quickly pointed out that due to a couple of special offers on this particular model, it was now on offer for just £250! Result!! (This is why I put "potentially" prohibitive cost in the disadvantages - the good deals are out there!)
So on to the good points - and there are many. In fact it really is hard to find fault with this camera. Being made by Kyocera (owned by Yashica, more well known for their professional standard camera equipment) this model is packed with all the features you could expect from a camera (see list below) and is small, light and very stylish to boot. The great thing about the camera in my opinion, though, is that while it has lots of special features, it is very easy to use if you just want to "point and click" - user-friendliness is excellent.
The instruction manual is excellent also (features such as white balance, exposure compensation and aperture adjustment are clearly explained), and the camera comes with all the accesories you need to take and transfer pictures to your PC. I even got a free spare battery with it - don't be afraid to ask for extras when buying!
The Kyocera Finecam S4 is by far the best digital camera I have used (having used others by Olympus and Panasonic in the course of my work), and I would say that this model is faultless IF you can find a good deal.
Technical stuff: 4 megapixels (enough to produce detailed A4 sized photos!) 3.0x optical zoom ("traditional" zoom) 2.0x digital zoom (how close in to an image you can get without losing resolution) Size: 91(w)x57(h)x31.5(d)mm Weight: ~190g 1.5" colour viewfinder/LCD monitor 16MB SD memory card (41-60 pics at normal resolution) 15 second video only capture (MPEG format) 5 hour battery recharge for ~50 minutes use Comes with: carry case, AC adapter, video cable, USB cable, CD ROM with drivers and image processing software.
More details
Durability
Good
Reliability
Excellent
Size
Small
Weight
Light
Instruction Manual
Excellent
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