Middle-Of-The-Road: Vivitar Vivicam 3825
Written: Apr 10 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
| Photo Quality: |
|
|
| Shutter Lag |
|
|
|
Pros: Intuitive design, good LCD, mix of manual and auto options
Cons: Parallax distortion, no video, size
The Bottom Line: This camera is ideally suited for someone who has a little extra money to spend and is interested in dabbling in digital photography and maybe printing the occasional 8x10.
|
|
|
| davepaine's Full Review: Vivitar ViviCam 3825 Digital Camera |
I have to say that I’ve had fun with this camera. There’s not a lot of pressure about adjusting white balance and aperture and so on. You can mess with those things on this camera if you want, but the 3825 isn’t really designed with the technical photography enthusiast in mind. It’s for those folks who want easy, good-quality digital images. And with that end in mind, the Vivicam 3825 succeeds admirably. Vivitar portrays itself as the “point-and-shoot people.” That’s basically the size of it. The Vivitar Vivicam 3825 is, in my opinion, essentially a point-and-shoot 4 MP camera, which has some nice manual options and extra features typical of mid-range cameras.
Physical Appearance and Layout
The Vivitar Vivicam 3825 is about average in size, though definitely larger than the 4MP Canon cameras. I was impressed with the ergonomic mechanism to open the lens cover—very nice touch. Overall, the layout of the various controls are relatively intuitive. What I liked was that it wasn’t necessary for me to pull out the manual to try to figure out the basic controls—the buttons are where I would have put them had I designed it. The flash is centered on the body, and both the optical viewfinder and the lens are lined up on the left side of the camera’s body.
All of the controls are laid out in such a way that anyone with large hands (I’m 6ֵ”) shouldn’t have any problems using them. The 3825 is just a little too large to be a pocket camera, but it’s zoom doesn’t really warrant considering it any kind of prosumer camera: it just sort of falls in between the cracks. On the bright side though, Vivitar does provide a svelte pseudo-suede carrying case for it, which I liked very much.
Performance
Let’s come right to the heart of the matter. Now, I’m not a photography pro by any means (see http://www.epinions.com/user-howard_creech, Howard Creech’s photography reviews for that), but I have had a good amount of experience with both SLR 35 mm and basic and more serious digital cameras. As such, I had fun with the 3825, but I was occasionally frustrated by its performance and, in general, I did not come away impressed. In good and average lighting conditions, the Vivicam 3825 performed well. I was pleased with the photo outcomes in all four settings (see Specs for settings). In lower light conditions, when the flash wasn't usable, I also encountered some washout at all four settings.
When using the Fine setting, I noticed some graininess that I would not normally associate with a 4 MP camera. I also encountered some parallax distortion when using the optical viewfinder. This wasn’t noticeable at all on landscape shots, but on portraits, it was awful. Most people, I suppose, prefer to use the LCD, but in high sunlight it just isn’t practical, and it’s nice to be able to save the batteries from the energy-devouring display. Be forewarned about the 3825’s optical viewfinder: use it at your own risk.
Once I noticed the parallax problem, I was surprised to note that none of the pictures I had taken—some in snow, indoors, fluorescent lighting, sunlight, cloudy conditions, and nighttime—had any chromatic aberrations! Alright! I can’t compare the CCD to other manufacturer’s, but I found this achievement to be spectacularly impressive, in light of my opinion of the Vivicam thus far.
I didn’t have much luck with the burst mode. The 3825 has about a 1.5-2 second delay between pictures, so in a ten second burst, I got five pictures with the camera set to the VGA setting (the lowest setting).
Some more about the Features
The 3825 does allow the photographer some manual control over shots, as well as giving some automatic options. For focusing, Autofocus, Macro, and Infinity functions are controlled by an independent button, making quick switches easy. The camera automatically focuses on the object in the center of the field of vision, but by using the zoom, the user can focus on objects to either side. The white balance is also automatic, but can be changed either for the conditions (daylight, incandescent, or fluorescent) or in .25 increments from ם.5 to 1.5 at the whim of the photographer. However, changing this setting necessitates bringing up the menu, making quick adjustments more difficult.
The menu also controls the single/burst mode, the ISO setting , the quality setting, and the photometry. The LCD monitor displays, when the camera is in capture mode, everything possible about the settings at the time, and everything can be changed by either utilizing the menu button or simply using the scene, mode, flash, or timer buttons. There is also a display button that turns the display on and off or turns on and off the displayed functions.
No video. (and of course, no audio)
The flash is good for up to about 10 feet; I didn’t have much luck with it at less than five feet either. It does have red-eye reduction, but do everyone a favor and use software to get rid of red-eye. Using the flash button, one can select whether to set the flash on auto, always on, or always off. When using the landscape scene mode, the flash turns itself off. The flash did a decent job of adjusting to mixed light settings.
The Vivicam 3825 can be hooked up to the computer using the included USB 1.1 cable, but as this is a real battery consumer, and no AC adapter is included (it is an optional accessory though), I used a card reader to download pictures from the included 16 MB SD card.
I did like the LCD. It’s just a hair over 1 ½”, and surprisingly, it didn’t seem to drain the batteries too terribly much. Speaking of batteries, the 3825 takes a 3V lithium or two AA batteries. I shot over 100 pictures without having to change batteries.
Included Items
-Vivitar Vivicam 3825
-USB cable (mine was unfortunately not included by mistake and had to be sent from Vivitar)
-Video cable
-Software CD-Rom (comes with MGI Photosuite and Photovista)
-User Manual
-Wrist strap
-Camera Pouch
-16 MB SD Card
Specifications
Image Sensor: 4.0 Megapixels (1 1/8” CCD Sensor)
Image Quality: 2272 x 1704 pixels (Fine)
1600 x 960 pixels (Basic)
640 x 480 pixels (Economy)
File Format: Still & Burst Files: Exif 2.2 (JPEG Compression)
File System: DCF
Print File System: DPOF
Lens: 2.8x zoom lens F2.9-F4.8
Focal Length: f=7.25mm-20.3mm (equivalent to 24mm-97mm on a 35mm camera)
Focal Range: Standard: 70 cm – infinity
Macro: 10 cm – 70 cm (wide)
25 cm – 70 cm (tele)
Digital Zoom: Capture Mode: 2x
Playback Mode: 2x, 3x, 4x
Viewfinder Type: Real image viewfinder
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 – 2 seconds
Exposure Metering: Spot, Center Weighted
Exposure Control: Auto, AE Range: LV 6 – 16
Exposure Compensation: -1.5 EV to 1.5 EV (in 0.25 EV increments)
White Balance: Auto/Daylight/Incandenscence/Fluorescence
Sensitivity: Equivalent to ISO 100/200/400
Flash: Auto, Fill-in, Flash Off, Red-eye Reduction
Flash Range: 3.0 M at Wide (Guide #7.5)
Self-timer: 10 second delay
LCD monitor: 1.6” color TFT LCD
Connectors: AC power port (DC in 3.4 V), USB port, Vidoe Output (NTSC/PAL)
Weight: Approx. 210g (without battery)
Dimension: 106mm (W) x 40 mm (H) x 63 mm (D)
Final Thoughts
The Vivitar Vivicam 3825 lists for $399 and can be found on the street for $250-300. If I were looking for another 4 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom, I would probably go for something smaller, with video capabilities, like Canon’s S400. That said, the 3825 does seem to fare about average among the 4 megapixel examples, and you could certainly do far worse. But there are better buys out there.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 400
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
davepaine
|
|
Member: David Paine
Location: Boone, NC, USA
Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 11 members
About Me:
Outdoor enthusiast who gets sucked into his computer quite often.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.