In summary
Small enough to slip in a shirt pocket, yet capable of recording both printable stills and high-quality movie clips with sound, the Vivitar <I>eek</I> has a rotating lens barrel and a lightweight aluminium and plastic shell. . . [more]
Full review
Small enough to slip in a shirt pocket, yet capable of recording both printable stills and high-quality movie clips with sound, the Vivitar eek has a rotating lens barrel and a lightweight aluminium and plastic shell. The eek‘s CMOS sensor has 2,000,000 photosites but enables 2304 x 1728-pixel files to be produced via interpolation, thereby achieving ‘4-megapixel performance’. The seven modes accessed via the mode key below the power button include: DV (video), DSC (stills), MP3 (music), VR (voice recording), play, set-up and light. Pressing the menu key on the back panel displays the settings for the selected recording mode. The DV and DSC menus contain ‘basic’ and ‘advanced’ settings. The basic DSC menu is surprisingly comprehensive, with eight selectable shutter speeds from 1/8 to 1/1000 second, three metering modes, four white balance pre-sets, six image size settings and three quality settings. The advanced menu adds five filter effects, three shooting modes (normal, sports and night shot) and ISO adjustments (100-400 for stills, 100-800 for video). The shutter release, which activates all recording functions, is at the end of the lens barrel. No other controls are provided. The test camera was quite power-hungry.
Strengths
- Includes MP3 player and voice recorder
- Above average colour reproduction for CMOS sensor
- Low price for a multitude of functions
Weaknesses
- Indifferent stills quality
- Poor edge-to-edge sharpness
- Relatively high power consumption [BG05]
Specifications
Image sensor: 6.4 x 4.8mm high speed CMOS sensor with 2,000,000 photosites
Lens: 8.6mm f3.5 fixed focus rotating lens
Zoom ratio: 4x digital zoom
Dimensions (wxhxd): 62 x 16 x 103mm
Weight: 87g (without battery)
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Australian retailer of Vapex rechargeable batteries offering factory direct prices and fast, free shipping Australia wide.
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Ted’s Cameras
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Big range of cameras and photographic products with stores in most states and online.
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