Not just for happy snaps
 May 8th, 2003
Advantages:
Light, User Friendly
Disadvantages:
Dark Screen in Strong Light, Battery Hungry
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Picture Quality
Range & Quality of Features
Ease of Use
Durability
Overall Look & Design
Value for Money
more
  Warfire
About me:
Member since:05.05.2003
Reviews:1
Review rated by 13 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
Read Comment
I bought my Vivitar on a Valentines Day spending spree. I was in a pretty good mood and even managed to knock the man down a bit on the already good value price which really made my day, it has to be said! I was a bit paranoid about it working on my XP Home Laptop which as any XP Home user out there will know is possibly the worst operating system in the world to get cheap new hardware to work on. Of course, this camera isn't exactly cheap, setting me back a good £110, but not exactly top of the range either.
After getting the suprisingly small box over the counter the first thing I did, and would always advise anyone to do, was open it and get out the camera and enclosed batteries (a nice touch) and give it a try. It worked fine and for now I was happy enough to take it home. It comes with a pretty standard set of stuff, 2 cds, a decent strap that should take a bit of stress, the afformentioned strap, USB linkup cable, a tv linkup cable, a case and a standard sort of sized manual that I thought was more at home in a racing game box than a camera box but does suprisingly cover most questions, including those about the extra features not found on a 35mm camera.
Anyway, I headed off to my favourite place to unpack and play with new hardware.. the caf. I set my girlfriend loose on the manual and started to press buttons to see what they did. I found the interface pretty easy to use, the navigation buttons take a bit of jabbing to start with but soon settle down and the setup functions are nearly all self explanetary. Anyone who can program a video recorder should be able to take a picture without more than a glance at the manual. With a little more study though, a knowledge of "white balance" and "ev compensation" does pay off with much better pictures in bad light, whether it be bright or dark. I found that with a few seconds fiddling before a picture sessions I could effectivally double the number of pictures I would keep. Which leads me on the memory. With a decent capacity of 17 pictures at maximum size and detail (which is waaaay over the top for most uses) and 51 at the lower sized, but still maximum detail setting which I use nearly exclusively. There's even 129 pictures at the lowest settings! With 44 seconds of video too, you can take plenty of shots and still have enough for a video of the sun coming up the next morning.
The video feature is not as good as it sounds however, the quality is low, and I mean LOW, and gives very small pictures. Also, when uploaded to the PC it makes very large AVI files. With a little knowledge though, these can be compressed but unfortunately, nothing much can be done about the stuttery quality. Imagine if you will one of those £20 web cams from your local market being used at distance.. not good. As a web cam, however it does function well. Which leads me nicely on to battery life. If all you do is take pictures, look at the previews and then delete them your batteries will serve you well. Even the flash is not that power hungry. Uploading images to a computer however, or displaying on a tv and forget it. It'll eat two batteries for lunch if you have a full memory to transfer. There is the option of a 3v power pack however but this is another expense. But after you've gone into Boots and bought ANOTHER pack of batteries on the 4th day of your holiday with camera and laptop, you'll be begging for it.
The TV Link Up feature was something I was really looking forwards to but unfortunately my television and video don't have the right sockets so this still remains a mystery to me. But, I can't imagine it being bad at all. I guess the high detail pictures best suit the television mode. With support for a plug in memory card, it's a pretty nice camera.
Vivitar ViviCam 3315 IS: Good Value for Money
Good at Taking Snaps
Good for Holidays
Vivitar ViviCam 3315 IS NOT: For Indoors
Nice To Batteries
Easy To Use In The Dark
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26.11.2004 21:15
I was going to write a review on this camera until I read yours first. That was so much more detailed than I was planning on going and you got every point I was planning on mentioning and more. It sure does eat those batteries. It was a good camera to me until i had it in my pocket and it slipped out and fell into the bathtub full of bleach I was cleaning. The camera died, leaving me of only 6 months with that camera. Shame, I loved it.
09.05.2003 08:09
Excellent first op! Such a pleasure to see a new writer do such a good job. I'm going to save this op for when I have the money to get a digital camera.
08.05.2003 23:12
Good well written op, have fun with it.