Camera, DC3185 3.2 Mp Cmos, 1.1 Inch LCD

I purchased a camera for my 10 year old grandson. My family are camera buffs and at first they thought it wasn't good enough for him. However, after a bit of time, everyone agrees that this is a really good camera for my grandson. Nancy

This camera was only $49 at Walgreens (about 40% the cost of the cheapest decent cameras that you can get). I would not recommend this camera for an adult, but I do think it is great for a kid who wants to take pictures. Why, read on.

Most cameras made for kids are really terrible. They offer very low resolution (0.1 to 0.3 MP) and take awful pictures. The Argus camera is a 3 mega pixel camera.

Although the camera takes pictures that are much better quality than a kid's camera, don't expect the Argus to take high quality pictures. This is because the lens is cheap (probably plastic) and the electronics are not state of the art. The tiny lens isn't very sensitive to light so it does teach you kid good photography habits (if they are not steady, the photo will be blurry). There is also a several second lag when you push the shutter. The last time I encountered this was with my first digital which was purchased 12 years ago. Needless to say, the lag makes the camera useable only for still shots. It does have a viewfinder which is helpful, as you have to hold the camera to your face which steadies it.

The back of the camera has a bunch of buttons for various tasks (like previewing or deleting your pictures) and a postage stamp sized review screen. The screen is of low resolution, so it only gives you a gross estimation of your photo. The camera runs on 3 AAA batteries which are provided. In addition you get a software disk, a USB cable to connect to your computer, a little instruction booklet and a wrist strap. There is enough internal memory to allow for about 8-10 shots, but Argus recommends that you buy a SD card (up to 512 MB is supported). These cards are pretty cheap. We had an old 256 MB card that went into the camera which was more than enough for my kid's needs.

You can take short video clips, but there is no microphone on the camera, so they are silent movies. In addition you can use the camera as a web cam. I have not tried this function on the Argus but I have done so with other cheap cameras. In general, the results have been only so-so. If you need a web camera you are best off buying a dedicated one from a company like Logitech or Creative. They make great products, vastly superior to combo cameras.

Picture quality
When taken by a shaky person it the photos were not useable. However, with a steady hand they were not too bad. The focus was a bit soft but acceptable. Colors were also OK. Pictures tended to have a flat look common to low resolutions cameras (like a cell phone cameras). The Argus has 3 MP which should have been plenty for a more detailed picture. I am assuming that the flat quality has more to do with the poor lens and cheap electronics of the camera. Anyways, the pictures would be fine for email or small prints. In fact, we printed up some prints at 6x4 which looked pretty good.

Software
Software includes a driver allowing your computer to recognize the camera. This worked just fine and the SD card was recognized as a disk drive by the computer. Conversely, you could simply use a media reader for the CD card.

Also included is Arc Soft's Photo Impressions 4. This software seems to be bundled with many inexpensive cameras and web cams. Arc Soft sells many different versions of this software so really inexpensive cameras may have Photo Impressions 2 and better ones may have Photo Impressions 5. Arch Soft always allows you to upgrade to their latest version (now version 6) for a reasonable price. I have used this software before and it really is pretty good. It definitely has more functionality that you would get from the free software bundled with a lot of other cameras. Of course you get basic functions like red eye reduction, sharpening and color adjustment. In addition you get more advanced features like cloning, dodge and burn brushes and an auto button that automatically corrects several parameters at once. There are also a number of projects included, it is easy to add a picture frame, turn your photos into a calendar and put your face in a stock photo of (as an example) an astronaut. We had a lot of fun with these projects. For instance, we printed up a picture of our kids on a fake 100 dollar bill. The software is definitely worth using and perfect for most people getting started in digital photography. With that said it doesn't offer the controls of something like Photoshop Elements, but that program cost $100 and Photo Impression is free.

Summary
All in all, a decent, very inexpensive camera for a child to get used to digital photography. The simple construction of the camera makes it less likely to break with a small drop. The low price makes it less likely to hurt when it eventually gets lost and it takes good enough pictures to be used for email or small prints. As a bonus it comes with editing software (Photo Impressions) that is actually useful and offers a number of projects that a kid would find enjoyable. Is this a camera for adults?? Probably not, unless you couldn't afford more than $50. Otherwise double the money and buy a decent entry level camera with 5-7 MP, a real optical zoom and better electronics.

Pros: Price, Multiple resolution options, JPG files - no need to convert, USB cable included, SD slot, Rapid Fire mode - take 3 photos in succession, AVI movie capability, self-timer, viewfinder (you can turn off display to save battery life), flash: automatic/force/off

Cons: shutter delay, small display screen, confusing menu buttons, small 16MB SDRAM internal memory

Summary: for under $40 bucks, a nice little camera.

I got this camera for my 5 year old after trying two other cheapo/kids cam's. While it is restricted in features (fixed focus, and smaller LCD screen) it is a junior model of a reasonable full feature camera.

It is standards based i.e. has a mini usb connector (comes with cable) and is recognized by win XP as a USB drive right out of the box with no drivers, it takes SD cards (it claims to use up to a 512 MB but one of my extra 1 Gig cards seems to be working, SD cards are really cheap these days now that SDHC is out at 4gb) and you will need one.

The other two cameras I got had weird connectors, flaky software drivers and propriatary non standard software editors and were really difficult to use even for me.

It takes decent pictures, where the other cameras I got for my kid took really blurry pictures and I gave them away as I did not want her to get frustrated and give up on digital photography.

Note: This is nowhere near film cameras and it is not to be compared with the Nikon, Sony and Canon cameras I usually use.

It does have a bit of lag on the display and when shooting, but it does have a "burst mode" that takes 3 pictures that works well and an movie function that records 60 seconds that works well.

The function buttons are easy to understand, it has a flash and the price is right. It keeps my kid involved with usable pictures.

For the price this was a great choice for my kid.

Just what we needed, an inexpensive camera that is easy to use.
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