Little camera that needs a bit more power (Agfa ePhoto CL34)

Member Name: pipefish

Product:	Agfa ePhoto CL34
Date:	17/02/04 (917 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Compact, Large LCD screen, Easy to use

Disadvantages: Battery Life

Agfa AGF Easypix SX 1.3Mp

This is actually a review for the EasyPix SX digital camera, I've only put it here as I've given up waiting for it to be added as a new category on Dooyoo. Fortunately this means I can write with a months more knowledge of the camera and how it has performed.
Hopefully this review should also have the capitals sorted out by using the fixer on http://www.chuckleweb.co.uk/fixit.php

The Easypix SX is one of the newer ultra-compact digital cameras - it fits into the palm of your hand and measures about 7cm by 6cm with a 3 by 2cm LCD screen on the back. This means it can easily fit into a jeans pocket. It also means it is easy to lose, but also makes it easier to take with you anywhere as you can stick it in a pocket and forget about it rather than have to carry it about.
It sells for £50 - the main chains like Dixons, PC World and Currys stock it.
The camera is supplied with a built in 16Mb memory card. It also comes with a small bag for the camera and a USB lead to connnect to a PC plus CDRom with drivers. The software is compatible with Windows 98SE,Me,2000 and XP but not NT, 3.1, 95 or 98.

This is one of the most simple digital cameras I have seen. It has a total of 6 buttons plus a socket for USB connection. 2 of these are the shutter and the power button. There is another button to switch between taking photos or looking at your photos on the LCD screen, another to turn the backligh on and off or delete photos and two more buttons to move backwards and forwards through the photos or change resolution or take a photo with the 10 second self timer option.
This makes it very quick to learn to use and I prefer this to some of t
he modern digital cameras with huge amounts of options on them. Clear text and icons appear on the screen so you cna easily see what options are selected and you have to confirm if you want to delete a picture so there should be no way of accidently deleting something.

The resolution lets you take pictures at 3 resolutions: 1600x1200, 1280x960 or 40x480 jpg. It also lets you take an AVI movie although this is very jerky - about 2 frames a second. Even at top resolution it can hold 40 pictures. At low resolution this increases to about 240. Pictures are anything up to about 700Kb each and you can take pictures at any mixture of resolutions.

When switching on the camera the LCD screen acts as a video camera and shows what the camera is pointing at. It also has large icons on the top left to let you know what options are currently selected, what resolution the camera is set up at and so on.

The software you get with the camera is supplied on one CD containing
Ulead Photo Express SE - basic image editing software
Ulead Photo Explorer - thumbnail browser of pictures
Ulead Cool 360 - allows you to transform photos into panoramic shots
Acrobat Reader
Video Capture Driver
Camera Driver
The CD also contains the user manual in pdf format although this is supplied printed in the box.

I only bothered with the video and camera drivers for this as although Photo Explorer is useful with earlier Windows I preferred the thumbnail browser with XP and have image editing software already.
All the software installed fine with no problems. Usage of the camera on the PC is very easy with XP, you just plug into the USB port and the camera is automatically detected and it becomes a new drive on your
PC. You can then copy the files onto your PC from Explorer. Removal is just like a memory stick, you just click on the USB icon and select to stop it and get a prompt that it is safe to unplug from the computer.

The picture quality is.....well OK. I have seen better and worse pictures, but for a cheapish camera I wasn't expecting much but I am suprised at how sharp the pictures are at high resolution. The contrast on the pictures is fine and generally the colours are accurate. It tends to be better at focusing on nearer objects than anything more than 10 metres away.
As it does not have a flash unit indoor photos tend to come out with a reddish colour although I found the outdoor photos sharp although again slightly red. The camera has automatic exposure and white balance correction although this takes a second or two to kick in. Taking a few photos at the Millenium stadium it went white and paused when suddenly moving from the crowd to the pitch on the LCD screen before correcting the colour. You also need to hold the camera still for a second when taking a picture or it will blur the picture.


The part that annoys me most about this camera is the battery. Being a compact camera it only takes one AA battery, whereas many digital cameras hold up to 4 of these. The outcome is it doesn't last long. When using brand new alkaline batteries I found it lasted about 10 minutes per battery before the screen started switching off.
It was then suggested I try Ni-Mh as the output from these is less variable and less likely to cause the camera to keep switching off. This did improve the battery life a bit but it still only lasts enough for about 20 pictures and an hour or two when switched on. On several occasions I found that using only partially charged Ni-Mh batter
ies only gave the camera enough power to take a few pictures and already after that the LCD screen started turning off. This did mean on several trips I couldn't take photos because it had run out of power and I nearly ended up throwing it against a wall or in a river in fustration. I don't think it would have been too difficult to let it take 2 AA batteries instead of 1?

So if you want to use this camera I would say take plenty of spare fully charged batteries with you and stick to photos in daylight. It especially eats batteries when switching modes to view pictures already taken. However I found it pretty good for a tiny camera, and with the LCD screen the advantage as with all digital cameras is you can see what are taking a picture of straight away.

Summary: