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Product: Vivicam 3555 Made by: Vivitar Specs: 1 Mega Pixel resolution (1152 x 864 native resolution, 640 x 480 resolution and interpolated 1600 x 1200 resolution); 8Mb internal memory, expandable with Smart Media card; 2x digital zoom; optical viewfinder; internal flash, USB connectivity; 1.4" color STN display; 4.1(L) x 2.6(H) x 1.3(W); list price: $78.86 Review by: Joseph de Leon
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Overview
The ViviCam 3555 is a very economically priced digital camera and webcam from Vivitar. I needed a small camera, priced under $100, with USB connectivity. Upon opening the package I discovered a very small and lightweight camera, camera case, 2 AA batteries, manual and CD-ROM. I opted to purchase 4 Energizer rechargeable batteries and charger, to cut down on pollution and expense. The two disposable batteries included with the camera went into my alarm clock.Comparison
I have regularly been using an early model Sony Mavica FD5. The Mavica FD5 takes images at 640x480 resolution recorded to standard 3.5 diskettes, with 15-20 images fitting on a single diskette. This early model has a fixed focus lens, no zoom, and no movie mode unlike later models. The camera is several years old and takes about 8-12 seconds to record each image. This has been one of the biggest shortcomings of the Mavica FD5 resulting in frequently missed shots. Other minor problems are its bulky size (5" (L) x 4.5" (H) x 2" (W)), short battery life (up to 100 minutes or around 100 images) and need to carry around a bunch of diskettes. Transferring images from diskette to computer can be a daunting task.What I liked best about the Vivicam 3555 is that it records images in about 1-2 seconds. I was able to take a quick series of images with ease. Had I been using the Mavica 5FD, I would have missed most of them waiting for the image to record. The Vivicam 3555 will hold 109 640x480 images, 32 1152 x 864 images and about 16 1600 x 1200 images. The ability to use Smart Media cards greatly outdoes the Mavica's puny 3.5 diskette bottleneck. I'm not sure if the Vivicam 3555 is just energy efficient or if the Energizer rechargeable batteries are long-lived, but I have taken well over 200 images and previewed them at length with no visible dent in the Vivicam 3555 battery life display!
The first thing I did with the Vivicam 3555 is set up a comparison shot of my bike. I took a shot with each camera and compared them side by side in Adobe Photoshop. The Mavica FD5 takes rather pixilated images (fig 1), although the color balance seems to be good indoors and out. The Vivcam 3555 takes very clear images (fig 2) in its native resolution, but the images always come out a bit dark indoors, even after tweaking the white balance presets (indoor incandescent, indoor fluorescent, outdoor cloudy, outdoor sunny and auto). Pictures taken outdoors with the Vivicam 3555 have good color balance. The interpolated 1600 x 1200 resolution is very grainy, you'll get better results scaling the native 1152 x 864 resolution in an image-editing program.
Cool Stuff
The Vivcam 3555 is really small, small enough to fit in my pants pocket. Comes bundled with Ulead Cool 360, an image-stitching program that allows you to export 360 degree panoramas from any series of digital images.Annoying Stuff
User needs to reset each setting every time the power is turned on. The preview display on the Vivicam 3555 is low quality and difficult to see outdoors, not very useful for framing pictures… I got much better results by using the optical viewfinder. There is also a strange image distortion (fig 3 - shot out the window of a moving car, approx. 30 MPH) when taking pictures of moving objects. Webcam feature could not be installed on Windows 98 and does not come with video recording software, but I was able to use the Vivicam 3555 on Windows 2000 with Yahoo messenger.Recommendation
The Vivicam 3555 is a great first digital camera and is great for taking pictures on the go. Its low cost, small size and efficiency make it a fair value for the occasional amateur photographer and an ideal camera for children (my 5 year old niece loves it!).Author Information
Joseph de Leon is the Alamo PC Photoshop SIG leader. Joseph has worked in the graphics industry for over 5 years and has been teaching for the Alamo Community College District since 2000. He also develops workshops for Alamo PC. Joseph is currently a freelance graphics artist and web page designer. You can view his website at http://www.guerrillagrafx.com.
