PRAKTICA Dpix 5200

As I am sure most of the Ciao members will now know, I am a professional photographer but as well as taking pictures I also hold photography seminars at my local camera club and over the last few years I have become somewhat of a target for sales persons asking me to try out their latest digital cameras and give talks and written reviews on them.

I figured a couple of years back if I was going to be testing out all these cameras and doing reviews anyway then I may as well be posting them on Ciao and Dooyoo and making some money for charity which as a lot of you will know is what I do now.

With Christmas fast approaching I have been handed many cameras to test recently and have had little time to review them for Dooyoo and Ciao but I am slowly getting round to it and I will start with this one as a warning to people looking to grab a budget, starter camera for their loved ones this year.

The camera I wish to warn you against is the Praktica DPix 5200, now I will try not to be too unkind to this camera as it is a starter level digital camera and not the type of thing I am used to using but having tested many digital cameras of all levels this year alone, I can tell you this one is just better avoided.

The Praktica DPix 5200 is an entry level digital camera with a 5 megapixel sensor, the size of the sensor should not put people off as there are many very good 5 and 6 megapixel cameras out there but sadly this just isn't one of them.

The lens offers no optical zoom only digital zoom so effectively if you want sharp, clear images it offers no zoom at all because when used at only half of its 8X digital zoom the images are very pixilated and of poor quality, add to this the fact that it has very poor results when shooting in anything less than bright daylight and you have real problems for even the most very basic of camera usage.

The look of the camera is ok and as it is very neat and compact this might tempt people looking for just such a thing and the very low price tag might also reel some people in but believe me even at the small cost of around £35 this camera is poor value for money, the build quality is not great and I am sure one drop or hard knock might be enough for this unit and of course the poor image quality should already mean that you show this no interest but just in case you needed further bad points then here they come.

Although the screen on the rear is quite large at two and a half inches, it is a poor quality screen and it is very hard to see in sunlight and also hard to tell the quality of your image on as they do not appear clearly especially when zoomed in on.

Then you have the fact that this runs on the dreaded AA batteries rather than rechargeable lithium so you will find yourself replacing batteries every five minutes or charging AA rechargeable`s every ten.

There is also very little option for setting this camera up manually and when you consider that the pre-set settings do a pretty poor job then this is a big miss, there is also a lack of ISO settings on offer so you struggle to get decent images in poor light, the flash is so small and close to the lens that you get very bad red eye and hot spots every time it is used and although this camera like most compact digitals these days, offers so called video capabilities I can tell you now that the video shot with this is not even as good as ones shot with basic mobile phones.

People might still be tempted into buying this for kids as it so cheap and any will think "well it will be good enough for the kids", well trust me you will have some very angry kids on your hands when they cannot get one decent photo without blur and pixilation, if I as a pro struggle to get a decent image from this then what chance have the poor kids got?

I really do not like to write a review with only bad points as they seem unbalanced but believe me if there were any good points I would have listed them, they just weren't there. You only have to spend around a tenner more to get a decent Kodak camera so dig deep and get a unit that you or the kids will find easy to use and will get good images from rather than frustrate yourself with this camera.

THE RATHER POOR SPECIFICATIONS

lens / zoom 6.1 mm (real) (dig: 8x)
focus / macro fixed focus / 1.2m / 20 cm
metering mode center weighted
aperture auto / F3.2
white balance auto, 4 presets
shutter auto / 1/4s - 1/8000s
exposure +/- 2EV
flash / mode internal - 3 modes / 0.2m - 2.0m
viewfinder lcd screen
iso ratings 100, 200
image size 4032x3024 (i) / 2560x1920 / 2048x1536 / 640x480
image format jpeg (exif 2.2)
remote control self timer 2s, 10s
video options avi, with voice memo - 640x480, 320x240
connectivity usb 2.0 (speed?) / video (NTSC / PAL)
storage 16 MB internal, SD

MY SCORES

LOOKS - 7/10
BUILD QUALITY - 4/10
EASE OF USE - 7/10
IMAGE QUALITY - 2/10
FUNCTIONS AND FEATURES - 3/10
VALUE FOR MONEY - 4/10
OVERALL - 4/10

Thanks for reading.

© thebigc1690