I consider myself to an amateur photographer, only using a camera for special occasions and holidays. When I do take photos, I take hundreds. (On my trip to New York I got through a roll of film a day!) This can be quite costly, so last Christmas I decided to hop on board the digital camera revolution. I did my research and decided to go for a camera with at least 4m pixels, optical zoom, that was under £100. I had considered the likes of Kodak and Cannon, however the less well known brand Vivitar had the same spec at a much lower cost. At this time, the Vivitar Vivicam 3826 was the camera that fitted my specification perfectly, so I popped along to my local Index and bought the camera (£89.00 December 04). I have not seen the camera anywhere else, however, the Vivitar website has a list of all stockists.

The packaging itself is enough to get anyone excited! The camera comes in a small, colourful, rectangular box highlighting the features and capabilities of the camera. I was so excited to play with my new toy, and couldn't wait to prise the box open, but it wouldn't budge! It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to open the thing! Once inside I wasn't disappointed. It had everything I could need including;

2) Lens Cap - this is stuck to the camera and I can't take it off

4) Hand Strap - To keep the camera safely attached to your
hand

6) 2 AA batteries - To get started on taking photos

8) CD ROM - The software you will need in order to upload pictures onto your PC.

One of the main reasons I opted for this camera was the fact that it looks stylish. I wanted a camera that looked like a camera….not a credit card sized piece of tin I could loose easily in my pocket. This camera is 105 * 55 * 41 mm in dimension and weighing a meagre 7.0 ounces with batteries installed. For me, that makes it robust, but light enough to carry around. It is aluminium coloured all over, and generally just looks more expensive than it actually is.

Although the camera comes with sufficient instructions, I never bothered to read them and was able to work out the use of the camera just fine. To start using the camera, the batteries need to be inserted, and then it will start beeping, followed by the Vivitar logo on the screen. You then have to select your language, the time and date, and then you are free to start clicking away! On the top of the camera, you have a rotatable dial to change the photo taking modes. The first, and most useful if you are an amateur like myself is Auto, which has everything set so you simply have to point and shoot. Manual is the next option, which lets you adjust the lighting, colour saturation and sharpness. This is great for experimenting with different looks, although I would only use this if you have experience with digital camera. Next is Macro mode, which is great for close up photos. I find this works well. However, getting the photo in the correct focus is extremely fiddly. I have never actually found a use for this. Then there is portrait mode, more of an artistic setting that makes people the background go out of focus. Next is the landscape mode, which intensifies long distance photography. Then there is night mode, which adds extra light when taking photos in the dark. And finally there is sports mode which stops you getting those squiggly lines when you take a picture of a moving object.

2) Zoom - 3X Optical Zoom and 4X digital zoom, which is quite sufficient, and easily controlled by the oval button the back of the camera. My only complaint, which is standard across all digital cameras, is that the more zoom is used, the quality of the picture is reduced. With this camera, I have also found that the more zoom is used, the more it eats away at the battery life. This can be annoying if the battery dies when using the zoom to take a photo, as it shuts down with the lens still extended. A nightmare if you are trying to fit it in its carrier case!

Obviously the higher the pixels, the less pictures the internal memory will hold.

6) Flash - This is fully automatic with red eye reduction, although it never works when pictures of me are taken! As with most digital cameras, there seems to be a delay when pressing the shutter button and the photograph actually being taken. With this camera it seems to be about 1 second, if that, depending on the durability of the batteries.

7) Timer - One of my favourite features! You can set the Self-timer to 5 or 10 seconds, in order to take pictures of yourself when no one is around!

9) Menu - This is very easy to use with the simple press of a button. It is here you can make the necessary adjustments regarding the pictures including time and date, manually adjusting the white balance, Protecting images or deleting images, and viewing pictures or film clips. You also have the option of changing the language to English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Chinese. You will also find that there are varying beeps and light flashes which indicate whether the battery is low or if there are other problems with the camera. These are highlighted in the instruction manual.

It couldn't be more simple…. unless you have Windows 98 and not XP! You will then need to install a driver to allow Windows to read the camera. This can be downloaded from Vivitar's website. You can then install the software packages which are PC only versions of Photosuite, Photvista, and Acrobat reader 5.05. Through these workshops you can edit and play around with the usual such as cropping the size, changing the quality/lighting etc. To upload the photos, you need to connect the USB cord to the camera and the computer and follow the instructions on the screen. It takes a couple of minutes maximum depending on how many photos you have to upload.

The only problem I have with this camera is the battery life. When using disposable batteries they will only last minutes, if that, unless using Duracel + or Ultra. Then when you remove the batteries for long periods, all settings are lost. So I bought rechargeable batteries which still does not last all that long, but it has saved me a fortune in buying new batteries.

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