The question is if it is a digital Holga or a digital Lomo. Because that's the difference between the shutter button working vs breaking after a couple of hundred shots.
The package came early today. Fun, lightweight camera. Shutter speed is a bit slow so need to hold steady. Shutter button lag isn't a big deal. LED flash is weak, but readies fast.
I use the Standard filter and edit to taste. Some color noise as expected, but simple to fix using an editor. Pics are fine regardless when resized for social media. USB-C for both charging and transfer, very easy.
genjy wrote:
The package came early today. Fun, lightweight camera. Shutter speed is a bit slow so need to hold steady. Shutter button lag isn't a big deal. LED flash is weak, but readies fast.
I use the Standard filter and edit to taste. Some color noise as expected, but simple to fix using an editor. Pics are fine regardless when resized for social media. USB-C for both charging and transfer, very easy.
Nice review here explaining the differences between the old and new versions. New version is easy to spot as it has camera ‘lugs’ - the old one did not - has an lcd panel on the back vs leds, you can set date/time for metadata, can customize the sounds, and it has a different much better sensor.
Ok, so my two for the price of one (almost thanks to that 40% off sale thank you @genjy ) showed up today.
The green one fired up but would not take a pic. I even stuck a pin into the reset button - nothing. So I unscrewed the cover, popped out the memory card, then put it back in. That worked, even though the card seemed to be correctly seated before.
I set the date/time etc on both - easy peasy. These are the latest versions that now have strap eyelets. Of course they did not pack a strap with the cameras.. When you turn them on the first thing you see on the LCD is the battery charge remaining, then the shutter count.
As for the delay when you take a pic? That is unavoidable due to the design choice of using the shutter button to take a pic, as well as turn the camera on or off. To do the latter you have to hold down the shutter button for two seconds. So the reason there is a delay in the pic taking is because the camera has to be able to tell the difference between taking a pic and trying to turn off the camera.
If there was no delay, the camera would take a pic everytime you tried to turn off the camera before actually turning off. With the slight delay, the camera can tell that just one touch on the shutter button means take a pic, while a steady press means turn off.
I find that you get used to it super quick, but it makes taking a photo of RiRi very challenging as he constantly turns his head.
Also, if the metadata in LR is correct, the exposure range goes down to at least 1/20 sec and ISO max of at least 4012:
For this pic:
Before I post the rest of the pics I need to mention the obvious - they all were taken at night w low light so this is about as bad as the camera will look. In daylight the images should look a lot better, and that is more its intended use. But the cameras showed up in the evening and I wanted to see what they could handle in a worst case type scenario.
First most obvious thing is it completely blows the highlights with no hope of recovery. Le sigh...
With flash:
No flash for these ones:
And same pic as above but hitting 'Auto' in LR for it to edit the image:
And finally... a selfie demonstration with and without the flash:
The green one fired up but would not take a pic. I even stuck a pin into the reset button - nothing. So I unscrewed the cover, popped out the memory card, then put it back in. That worked, even though the card seemed to be correctly seated before.
I set the date/time etc on both - easy peasy. These are the latest versions that now have strap eyelets. Of course they did not pack a strap with the cameras.. When you turn them on the first thing you see on the LCD is the battery charge remaining, then the shutter count.
As for the delay when you take a pic? That is unavoidable due to the design choice of using the shutter button to take a pic, as well as turn the camera on or off. To do the latter you have to hold down the shutter button for two seconds. So the reason there is a delay in the pic taking is because the camera has to be able to tell the difference between taking a pic and trying to turn off the camera.
If there was no delay, the camera would take a pic everytime you tried to turn off the camera before actually turning off. With the slight delay, the camera can tell that just one touch on the shutter button means take a pic, while a steady press means turn off.
I find that you get used to it super quick, but it makes taking a photo of RiRi very challenging as he constantly turns his head.
Before I post the rest of the pics I need to mention the obvious - they all were taken at night w low light so this is about as bad as the camera will look. In daylight the images should look a lot better, and that is more its intended use. But the cameras showed up in the evening and I wanted to see what they could handle in a worst case type scenario.
First most obvious thing is it completely blows the highlights with no hope of recovery. Le sigh...
Super fun to see your Camp Snap journey Huss! I'm sure this thread will grow exponentially now! haha
I haven't shot at night, and it's disappointing to see the blown highlights in your photos! Too bad we can't meter and re-compose with the CS cam!
In bright daylight, highlights are surprisingly well preserved. In fact, exposure is surprisingly well controlled overall. I guess night time exposure is more difficult to meter.
And yeah - I said in the first couple of posts that the VF is like looking through the bottom of a water glass! All part of the "fun"!
You save and delete images directly from the SD card when it's mounted on the computer. The only down side is that images are numbered from 000 every time you delete and pop it back into the camera. You could probably leave just the last image in the folder so the camera counts from there. Haven't tried it though.
There doesn't seem to be a way to initialize or re-format the SD card in camera. Since you can supposedly use any SD cards, I imagine there must be a built-in routine the camera goes through with a blank SD card. Same way it "erases" the .BIN file when you change simulations. Some behind the scenes computer trickery...
panos.v wrote:
The question is if it is a digital Holga or a digital Lomo. Because that's the difference between the shutter button working vs breaking after a couple of hundred shots.
It's a lot closer to a digital version of the Harman EZ35. The images have that semi-sharp center moving to the smeary edges.
Ok, so took some snaps w the Camp Snap - green one - this morning under heavily overcast sky.
Results are understandably way better as now the ISO ranged from 100 to 181 according to the LR data, and shutter speeds from 1/50 to 1/100. Aperture seems to be set at 2.8.
No blown highlights - mainly because there are no highlights! But I'm sure lower ISO helps.
The lens on this thing is stoopid sharp - very surprising given the cost/design etc.
Also I did not have any of the sharpness/focus issues that some 'reviewers' have complained about. I guess they did not get the memo that you are meant to hold a camera steady when you take a pic.
Some of these pics have obviously been cropped to taste. More on that in a bit. Edits limited to moving sliders in LR as I would with any camera/image I'd process.
Now about that viewfinder. Not only is it like looking through a fishbowl, but the actual image coverage is much greater than what you see.
The van in this image completely filled the VF edge to edge. But the actual image - shown uncropped - shows how much more is actually captured:
Sure you can crop in to get what you wanted, but the problem is when you have only 8mp to start with, you want to crop as little as possible. So be aware that the actual image will show about 50% more (at least) than what you thought.
Cool car(s)! Hopefully you didn’t let Daisy pee on the tires!
Funny. I feel like the VF on my copy is pretty accurate. I’m generally precise with shot framing, and my images have been closer to 95% the way I remember framing them. I guess there may be some variation in the build qualiy?
Activatedfx wrote:
Cool car(s)! Hopefully you didn’t let Daisy pee on the tires!
Funny. I feel like the VF on my copy is pretty accurate. I’m generally precise with shot framing, and my images have been closer to 95% the way I remember framing them. I guess there may be some variation in the build qualiy?
I'll check it again shortly but i know that VW filled the frame...
Edit - checked. It seems more accurate than I thought i.e. still shows a little more, but not grossly so.
But I'm sure lower ISO helps.
