Vivitar ViviCam 3615

Well what can I really say. This camera is crappy, and that's why I love it! It has none of the features I look for in higher end digi's. Even point and shoots for that matter. It is all auto, save 3 choices for wb, and exposure compensation. It is just a out and out dummy-cam, and that is what I like about it. Sometimes i get tired of thinking about images and I just wanna point this sucker and grab a quick shot. Not caring about exposure, or color, or resolution. All and all, this is a great digi P&S for somebody that just doesn't really care about the process. It makes great 4x6's, and even better 3 1/2x5's. What more do most people need?

seems well built. A total no brainer.

No choice of ISO. That is the only thing other than WB I would ever want to choose on this camera. Pics over 4x6 are just plan crappy, but so what it's just a snapper anyway.

Canon A60, A70. Some HP of one sort or another.

HAHA

This is a great camera, I have a friend who has the $500 Kodak Easyshare and it's print's aren't half the quality I get with my Vivicam. I love this camera! I am a member of a digital camera club, and all agree this camera is "a gem"!

Great pictures. great price. excellent quality.

Battery hog if you don't use NIMH rechargeables.

Have not needed it.

I just got the 3615 recently, but had no trouble with setup, battery charging or intitial picture taking. In response to some of the complaints I see here, that double flash is a fill-in to avoid red-eye. You can turn it off, but then will have to process your pix. If you want to take stealth photos, turn it off. Battery hog: turn off the LCD view between pix. That will use up batteries faster than anything els. I expect (and get) up to 400 pix on a charge with NIMH cells. I really like them. Since I use Windows ME, the camera is seen as a removable drive. File transfer is quick and easy. I do use an AC power supply for this, as it is a power sucker.

I was shopping for a good, cheap, first digital camera. As I am a full time student with a family, I was shopping based on price....and then quality. I found this on clearance at Sams, I knew if I did not like it I could return it, so I gave it a shot. Problem 1: Out of the box I was having a problem taking a picture......period. I would hit the shutter button (or whatever it's called) and a red light and then nothing. I finally figured out you have to press the button, wait for the little light to turn red near the viewfinder and then press it again. Poof a picture! That was a little irritating, especially the manual made no mention of this quirky caveat. Problem 2: I get my first set of pics on the camera and wanted to edit them on my PC. I am a staunch Win98se user, the software that came with the camera installed fine, but would not allow me to get them off the camera. I played around with it until I was blue in the face, twain errors, tried downloading updates from Vivtar..blah.. blah..blah, still would not work. Not sure if it was a bad cable, bad Twain drivers or what. Got around this by buying a USB mediacard reader for $10.00 (again returnable if need be...lol). That works like a charm, and I also use it for school projects now(cheaper per MB than a thumbdrive, reader and 256mb card for a $40.00 total investment). If you can handle it's quirks, you will take some really nice pictures with it. I am not sure about the other reviewers statement about JPEG artifacts, it certainly does not take "better" looking pictures to me at lower resolutions, I think it takes a nice 1600 x 1200 picture. It does tend to give too much flash in dark surroundings though, so I find my self adjusting them when needed. It is a battery hog, but that is a given with digital cameras, there is a battery saving option to not preview every picture (turns off the LCD). Rechargeable batteries have helped me considerably. Those are the problems I encountered with this camera. Overall, it is a pretty decent camera for the price. If you are budget minded, or just plain broke like me, you could do much worse. If you have $200.00 or more to spend look elsewhere, you can get a lot more functionality (optical zoom etc.) in that price range.

-It's cheap -Plays the pics on your TV (kids love that) -Easy to use after initial encounter

-Has an odd type/style of picture taking interface that you have to get used too (double click the shutter button..uugh) -Tends to whitewash dark subjects, fixable with the cameras white balance though

Kodak Cannon

None required yet

Note: I have the 3620 not the 3615, can't find any technical differences between the two. This camera works best for posting pictures on the web and e-mailing them. While it is a two megapixel camera, it often displays the resolution of a less than one megapixel camera. By this I mean I can set a Fuji M-1200, a megapixel camera I have used, to 640x480 mode and get better pictures out of that than I would with this Camera set to 2 megapixel capture. This is due primarily to a. severe JPEG artifacting and b. extremely high noise especially for a 125 ISO equivalent camera. Prints don't look too good. Recommend actually switching to its lower res mode because a. JPEG artifacting is much less severe and b. noise is lowered quite a bit too. And what was Vivitar thinking with the LCD. Too often does it display highlights with extreme color moire that isn't in the actual picture file. And about the little option for displaying a picture after it has been taken for confirmation, this camera actually seems to take two pictures, so what you see in the quick review isn't what you actually took, it is about 1/10 to even about 1/2-3/4 a second behind or ahead, still haven't figured out which one.

1. Stylish? 2. Fast and wide f2.8 lens with plenty of depth of field even at 2.8. 3. Plenty of useful features like fast USB connection and exposure compensation 4. Good shutter speed range from 1/5 to about 1/1200 of a second.

1. Noisy sensor 2. Way too much JPEG artifacting 3. Even when noise and artifacting aren't at their full amounts the resolution is much too low for printing. 4. Battery Hog!

I would say the Fuji Mx-1200, but that would be insulting that camera.

Not needed, yet.