What's not to like about the Vivitar ViviCam 8690

[gunug]

You get what  you pay for and my attempts to shoot a good photo of a rose blossom just go to point this out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunug/5027106...in/photostream/

This one above is a little overexposed and to point this out I tried to adjust the gamma and such and got this image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunug/5027114...in/photostream/

This cybershot is exactly what it's taking once you get down to it.  I'm trying to deprogram the thing (get it to forget whatever sittings it has remembered) so that it works exactly as it did originally but it's not working well so far!  If anyone cares to laugh (my choice) or to help out please jump in!

[Highmac]

That second one could make a fortune as modern art....

[gunug]

It turned out that the AAA batteries I put in it last were not fresh and had only a little less than one volt apiece.  It does work better now but I still haven't gotten all the bugs out of using the thing.  I took the Vivitar and an old Pentax K1000 (bought two weeks ago for $25 at a garage sale) out for a photo outing last Sunday afternoon.  Other than a slight mishap with film on the Pentax (I learned on the same model back in the 1970's) and with dropping the Vivitar and popping the SD chip out I was good.  I'm waiting for developing on the Tri-X (or whatever it was) that I shot and hope to see some good pictures of a white water kayak practice down below the hydroelectric dam in Lawrence.  Will post a link if they're work looking at!

[kimmer]

I think the original has great Photoshop possibilities.

[Paddy]

QUOTE

You get what you pay for

Methinks that says it all, John (unfortunately). This is a camera/manufacturer that isn't listed at dpreview - a pretty good indication that it doesn't have much merit photographically speaking. Sorry...but I suspect that you'll find trying to do anything but general scenery snapshots endlessly frustrating. It has no controls allowing you to control shutter speed or aperture and appears not to have much else in the way of controls for scene selection etc. which might help. And it's got a 4X DIGITAL zoom according to the Vivitar website - which means it really doesn't zoom, but just makes the pixels bigger. A very similar model at Amazon gets a resounding 11 one-star reviews and only 3 reviews give it 4 or 5 stars. Most complain about poor image quality and particularly lack of sharpness.

There is, after all, a reason that camera only cost you $12.

I think you'll have far more luck with the Pentax, though it's going to be a whole lot more costly with film!

[gunug]

I've taken some other "interesting" photos with this thing  this weekend and one thing  that I noticed is that it takes better video than it does still pictures so it's something to do with the settings and not the thing  itself!


This is about as good as a rescue as I can do on some of the "washed" out pictures.  If I adjust "gamma" any more on this shot I'll get the reddish circle in the middle (the artifact in the rose picture) which can artistic but not representational.  I guess I want to find a good "digital" camera that will maybe use the SLR lens I have and not take my wallet hostage!


Down by the old hydroelectric dam!

Still Life with eMac, Caution Tape, Beer and Bananas!

[krissel]

I'd like to hear the story behind the last picture.  The caption would make a good movie or book title.

[gunug]

It was all stuff that came into my life on the day I took the picture.  The beer can had rolled under my car from the back of a pickup truck party across the cul-de-sac I live in; I collected it and intend to make beer bread with it!  The caution tape was gleaned in downtown Lawrence the same day.  There are two different types of bananas (uniculture Doles and Manzano bananas which aren't good to eat until the outside is entirely black) and the eMAC is the one I used day in and day out until 6 months ago when I started using the G4 Powerbook.  

The eMAC is decorated with an Intel moonman (it's a G4 processor so this is ironical) and rubber ducks.  We have a tradition of decorating computers in my house and my PC (not in the picture) has the California Raisins and bumper stickers on it!  The table itself was from my brides mother family and it sat in a old Kansas farmhouse for 75 years or so before we got it.  We have enough add on leaves for it to take it out to about 15 feet but would have to take it outside to do that.

[krissel]

You have the makings of a novel there....  

[gunug]

My wife, who was dismayed to learn that I had posted that last picture, wants everyone to know the mess was entirely "my" fault!  Noted!!!  

This is another picture that I took and shopped just a little:

I call this "Relative Discussions" because everyone in the picture is related to me and both of the outlaying men, for one reason or another, do "not" like to have their likenesses published.  So this would be the perfect "non-mugshot" of them both!