Oregon Scientific DS6889 D Shot II Plus

Oregon Scientific are known by most people for their range of electronic weather stations (as featured in the Innovations catalogue, among other places) and their projection and radio-controlled alarm clocks. However, something else at which they excel is the successful repackaging of electronic components manufactured by other companies. In this case, they're competing with Fuji (model @xia-100) in selling this little sexy box of bits to the public, ...
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The camera (this model seems to be known as both the DShot II plus and the DShot III) is smaller and lighter than my old compact (an Olympus mju-II) but has a totally different role in my life. I'll take the digicam when I'm going for a big day or night out and want to take a lot of pictures; some of which might be terrible, some of which might turn out to be absolute gems. In daylight, the pictures are clear and vibrant and I'm surprised ... more

Oregon Scientific are known by most people for their range of electronic weather stations (as featured in the Innovations catalogue, among other places) and their projection and radio-controlled alarm clocks. However, something else at which they excel is the successful repackaging of electronic components manufactured by other companies. In this case, they're competing with Fuji (model @xia-100) in selling this little sexy box of bits to the public, and to be honest, they've done it very well.

The camera (this model seems to be known as both the DShot II plus and the DShot III) is smaller and lighter than my old compact (an Olympus mju-II) but has a totally different role in my life. I'll take the digicam when I'm going for a big day or night out and want to take a lot of pictures; some of which might be terrible, some of which might turn out to be absolute gems. In daylight, the pictures are clear and vibrant and I'm surprised by the colour definition. In low light, the camera struggles a bit, and multicoloured lines appear across really dark pictures as the camera attempts to white-balance the images. In lower light the CCD seems to take longer to acquire the image, and blurring is often evident if you move the camera while taking the picture or your subject moves. However, this said, I've taken almost 2000 pictures with the camera since buying it, and even excluding the pictures that came out badly it has paid for itself several times over in developing costs. It's also important to remember the "moments" I've managed to capture that I might not have "wasted" a picture on before too.

The unit is small and quite sexy looking (better design than its higher-priced Fuji sister!) with a soft case which slides easily into your pocket. A three-colour LED indicates when the camera is storing to Smartmedia, when the flash is charging and when the DShot's connected to the PC, and a clear display tells you the current picture quality (top res, high compresion; top res, low compression; low res; high compression with which you can take over 700 pics on a very affordable 64Mb Smartmedia card!) and other settings such as the timer and flash mode. The macro mode is as difficult to use as it is on any other fixed-focus camera, but once you get the hang of it you can take some very clear and detailed images.

PC connection is simple, with the camera mapping itself like an extra drive when the software is installed, and the simple but fun software pack seems to work perfectly on Win2k. The TWAIN plugin is also quite interesting as it shows you a preview of the shots before you even think about downloading from the camera; useful. TV connection with the provided cable is a little slow in displaying images but very valuable if you don't have access to a PC at that moment... and though I might moan about not having a preview LCD... the battery-life benefits of not having one far outweight the benefits of having one.

Basically, if you're on a bit of a budget and you're prepared to practice a bit to get the hang of using the equipment, I'd recommend the DShot III as it is far superior to other sub-£100 units I've seen. Highly recommended!

For a better idea of how easy the unit is to use, I recommend you look at the Fujifilm website, where you can download the @xia-100 manual in pdf format; very useful! 

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