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Holiday gift guide: Digital cameras

From...


Nikon CoolPix 990

by John Gallant, Melissa Shaw, Jeremy Selwyn, Keith Shaw

(IDG)

(Ratings are on a scale of 1-10; 10 = best score)

Nikon CoolPix 990

Cost: $999

What it does: 35mm-equivalent digital camera with 3X-zoom and a nifty swivel-lens that lets you easily line up shots. Coolness factor: 9

Ease of use: 9

Business usage: The images this camera captures are so crisp and the color so good; could be used in many ways on a corporate intranet or extranet. It could provide clear shots for an employee face-book (helping you figure out exactly who that odd-looking guy in marketing is) or product shots for a catalog. It can also be used to capture shots from company events or executive photos to be used in the "Who we are" section of the Web site. Besides that, it would be handy to have around for capturing the goings-on in the office, which can be posted to the intranet or just sent around to capture the camaraderie.

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Gift guide: A holiday haul of high-tech ideas

Further details: I loved using this camera, as did my wife. But my 12-year-old son took to this thing like a bird to a suet ball. He quickly (and without using any of the manuals) began using all the functionality of the camera, which is quite rich, and it was difficult to get the device back from him. We used it to capture action shots on the soccer field and to post them to the Web site for team members to enjoy. My one complaint has to do with the battery life. If you leave the LCD on while using the camera - you don't have to - you'll be popping in AA batteries (four at a whack) as often as a chain smoker lights up.

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We asked Bob Mazaika to review the CoolPix 990 because he was square in the middle of shopping for a digital camera. The upshot: Nice camera, but pretty pricey. Here are his thoughts:

"I am not a camera expert, but I am a computer expert and am interested in the technology as it makes it really easy to get pictures onto the Web quickly, which is what I am interested in. I'm also interested in taking family pictures and e-mailing them to relatives or printing them out on high-quality photo paper. I've looked at cameras that had 1600 x 1200 minimum resolution, an 8M-byte minimum memory card, USB support for fast transfer to the PC (serial just doesn't cut it - many of the Olympus cameras lack this - a very bad thing), point-and-shoot operation and 3X optical zoom. The Nikon CoolPix 990 met all these requirements. The cost is coming down, but is a bit high vs. some other cameras that offer similar features - for example, the Olympus C3000 Zoom and Kodak DC 4800 Zoom.

Installation of drivers onto the PC was easy - however, with Windows [Millennium Edition] you need the latest ones off the Web. This took a while to figure out but once I did, the camera shows up as a hard drive on the PC making it really easy to transfer photos. That's great. The 8M-byte memory card, while getting small by today's standards was adequate, and at maximum resolution with basic quality, I could hold 45 photos. Not bad.

The menu system was easy to use and follow. I would suggest that ALL options be available via the menu system. I don't think that some are, and in getting started I had to read the manual to figure out that pressing the Qual button plus using the wheel changed one option - not exactly intuitive. In other words, shortcuts are great, but make sure that everything can be accessed via the menus. Battery life was really bad. The LCD sucks the juice out of the batteries.

I took some photos of kids on Halloween and transferred them over, e-mailed them off to the parents and printed them out on photo paper. Due to the high maximum resolution of the camera, I was able to get very high quality, roughly 5x7 photos out. This exceeded my expectations The camera worked great in point-and-shoot mode, and photos taken in low-light situations came out great - I was very impressed. Colors in the pictures came out nice as well. All in all a nice camera."

Kodak PalmPix Camera


Kodak PalmPix Camera

Cost: $150

What it does: Turns any Palm (Model III and higher - Palm Vs and Vxs need an adapter) into a digital camera. The camera weighs one-tenth of a pound and attaches to the bottom of a Palm via the COM port.

The packaging boasts: "A few seconds from shooting to sharing." It sounded like hyperbole, but the claim is pretty close. In 20 minutes I had installed the software, acquainted myself with the camera, read the directions, taken several test pictures, chosen a winner and e-mailed to a friend.

After turning on your Palm, launching the PalmPix software and pressing the Date Book button once, your Palm screen turns into the camera's viewfinder. Once you see an image you like on the screen, press the Date Book button again and you've taken the picture. You can take pictures in low resolution (320 x 240) or high resolution (640 x 480) mode, and they can be storied as BMPs or JPEGs. Pictures can be viewed on your Palm via the PalmPix software, and are indexed by their name and the date, and time they were taken. The number of pictures that can fit on a Palm depend on the unit's memory - it can store one picture for every 100K of memory available on a Palm. Pictures are uploaded to your PC once you HotSync your Palm. The camera has no flash, so judging your available light is critical to good-quality pictures. Yet test pictures taken in an office and in a home using available light came out very well. The few bells and whistles include a 10-second self-timer and a 2X zoom (activated by the Palm's scroll button). The lens is fixed-focus, so you don't have to worry about focusing.

The only drawback to using the PalmPix with a grayscale Palm is that the images you see on the Palm screen/viewfinder are in pixilated black-and-white, which can make it difficult to judge image details, especially if you don't have enough light. However, that can also be viewed as a sign from the Palm that you need more light for your picture. Pictures taken using the PalmPix on a grayscale Palm are 24-bit VGA color pictures, viewable in full color once uploaded onto a PC. I suspect using the PalmPix with the color Palm IIIc renders a much better viewfinder. However, that's a relatively small problem given the ease-of-use, the price of the camera and the quality of its pictures.

Coolness factor: 8

Ease of use: 10

Business usage: The PalmPix Camera would be good if you have an HR director or department manager who's been bugging you for a digital camera. Considering that most good-quality digital cameras start at $600 and have more buttons than your average airplane console, you could buy four easy-to-use PalmPixes for the cost of a higher-end device and not have to worry about support. Hand them out to deserving departments, who in turn could take some much-needed art for the company intranet you're supporting. If your company is on a tight budget, $150 is not a hard-sell for a good-quality digital camera that could support several departments. The PalmPix could come in handy for you, too: Map out a complicated network diagram or project on a white board? Take a picture instead of copying it down, and e-mail it to everyone on the project. Need to document some new equipment? Take a picture.

- Melissa Shaw

Olympus D-490 Zoom


Olympus D-490 Zoom

Cost: $499

What it does: 2.11 megapixel digital camera; 3X optical zoom with 2X digital zoom; QuickTime movie capture; build-in SmartMedia card drive; color LCD display; self-timer; multiple resolutions and compression modes; built-in flash.

Coolness factor: 7

Ease of use: 3

usage: If you're looking for an inexpensive way to capture high-quality digital images for your corporate Web site, or to take quick photos for your corporate intranet, this may be just the ticket. I was impressed by the picture quality from this compact digital camera - whether using available light or the built-in flash, the images were quite good. The unit is small enough to haul around anywhere, and it's kind of nifty the way various hidden doors flip out of the case to let you use the flash, access the Smartmedia card or connect a download cable. Sliding open the protective lens cover turns the camera on. However, figuring out how to use all of the features wasn't so easy. The on-screen menus and icons are quite cryptic. I had to keep checking the manual to figure out some very basic functions, such as deleting images. And it was sufficiently nonintuitive that the next time I needed to do the same thing, I was checking the manual yet again.

- Jeremy Selwyn

UltraPort video camera from IBM

Cost: $99

What it does: Tiny video camera/Web camera that attaches to the top of the LCD for IBM ThinkPad notebooks (via the UltraPort) or via USB port for other notebooks.

Coolness factor: 7

Ease of use: 6 (installing camera is a bit difficult)

Business usage: Good for mobile warriors who want to have desktop videoconferencing while they're on the road, saves a lot of space instead of lugging around a PC Web camera.

- Keith Shaw

Olympus C-211 Zoom Camedia

Cost: $799

What it does: 2.1-megapixel digital camera that also uses Polaroid film to print instant photographs from your digital images. Coolness factor: 8 (pretty cool to see the instant photo coming out of the camera).

Ease of use: 6

Business usage: May be a bit pricey for some folks, but having the option to use it as a digital camera (intranet photos, other Web-type projects) or as an instant camera (at company events, etc.) may appeal to some companies.

- Keith Shaw

D-Link DSC-350 Dual-Mode Camera


D-Link DSC-350 Dual-Mode Camera

Cost: $129

What it does: Low-end digital camera, digital video camera and Web camera built into one.

Coolness factor: 6

Ease of use: 5

Business usage: Very inexpensive way to connect to remote workers for simple desktop videoconferencing (via NetMeeting, for example); mobility factors are nice if worker wants/needs a low-end digital camera. In reality, though, this may be too low-end for a business user.

- Keith Shaw

Xcam2 with XRay Vision software


X10's remote Xcam2

Cost: $79.99

What it does: Color video camera system with a wireless receiver so the camera doesn't have to be in the same room as the computer. Xray Vision Software lets you remotely monitor the camera over the Internet.

Coolness factor: 8

Ease of use: 6

Business usage: Might be useful for simple surveillance camera-type applications (To see who's been stealing your candy!); if you're really paranoid you can set it up to monitor your employees. Mostly, though, this is likely to be used as a consumer "nanny-cam" type system.

- Keith Shaw

RealPresenter

Cost: Free evaluation version, $99.95 for full version What it does: Allows you to add video content to PowerPoint presentations or conduct video "Web tours" on your Web site.

Coolness factor: 7

Ease of use: 6

Business usage: Instead of lame animation, have your company president appear on the screen during presentations; can be useful for giving navigation tours on your Web site.

- Keith Shaw

Eyeball Chat LE

Cost: Free

What it does: A Java-based person-to-person videoconferencing software product that works much like AOL's Instant Messenger. Users sign up for a user name, download the client (Windows 98, Millennium Edition or 2000 only) and chat with friends and colleagues via the 'Net using video and audio.

Coolness factor: 8

Ease of use: 9

Business usage: Not the quality picture you would get with a $5,000 room system from the big video conferencing players, but a decent product that can get the job done even in low-bandwidth situations (i.e. dial-up).

- Jason Meserve