Come spy with me, let's spy, let's spy away... (Digital Dream l'espion)

Member Name: missbrowneyedgirl

Product:	Digital Dream l'espion
Date:	28/03/02 (2195 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very tiny, very cheap, loads of features

Disadvantages: can't take good pictures in low light

It is no coincidence that the front of this camera bears the emblem 'digitaldream' as this minuscule little gadget truly is a dream come true.

Everyone has a digital camera nowadays don't they? That is, everyone except me. My friends have endless amounts of fun taking picture of themselves and each other and emailing them around the place. Now I would really like one but for two reasons...
1) I don't own a Mac or PC
2) I'm not very good with cameras so I tend to buy cheap / disposable ones in preparation for their imminent breakage.

So, imagine my delight when the firebox.com newsletter dropped into my Inbox this month, proudly displaying digital dream's l'espion camera at number one of the sales chart so to speak. Sorry, I missed a bit: digital dream's £39.95 l'espion camera. Yes £39.95! Surely at this price you can't go wrong! Two days later the parcel arrived!

The first thing I was astounded by was the size of the camera. When the blurb describes it as no bigger than a matchbox, it really isn't kidding! The camera's dimensions are 58mm x 40mm x 15mm and it weighs in at an impressive 40g, most of which belongs to the AAA battery it requires to run! Hence the name I suppose (l'espion is French for the spy). It comes attached to a silver keyring but this is easy to remove and reduces the camera weight by about half!

Investigating the parcel further I noticed a lot of other stuff had arrived with the camera. Firstly and most importantly it came with a Panasonic AAA battery which is what is required to operate. I think this is a fairly standard procedure now, but when you buy a bargain item you don't usually expect this level or service. I was impressed!

It also arrived with the tiniest carry pouch, a USB cable and a CD containing the drivers and Ulead PhotoExpress Software. You can download the camera drivers from firebox.com and they include a plug-in for A
dobe Photoshop. Effectively this means that you don't need too use the Ulead software, and as using Photoshop is a part of my job I haven't! The Photoshop plug-in allows you to use the Import function and is very straightforward.

Also in the box was a voucher to get 6 free glossy prints of your favourite digital photos and a sample print. You simply got to the digital dream website, enter the voucher code, upload your photos and they will arrive in the post! Finally there was a small bag of Swizzles Pig Head sweets although I suspect these may have more to do with firebox.com than the camera manufacturer!

The feature list of the camera is equally as impressive. Using it's 2MB internal memory it can allow you to take 20 photos in high quality mode (352x288 pixels), or an impressive 80 snaps in low-resolution mode (176x144). You can also mix an match between these taking some high and some low.

This is all controlled by a simple 2 button process. You use the mode button to select the resolution. This is displayed as Hr (High resolution) or Lr (Low resolution) on the LCD display. You then use the top button to select the mode and the number of remaining pictures is displayed on the LCD. The camera has a fixed focus lens and automatic exposure so you simply point it and click the top button again to take a picture. It makes a beep indicating it has taken one! Easy!

Other modes you can select are St, which is a 10 second self-timer. You know the sort. Where you can set up the picture then press the button, run and get yourself in it! L'espion beeps 10 times, once per second taking the picture on the 10th beep. You can also chose Ct (Continuous) which allows you to hold down the top button and take a set of pictures that can be converted into a short silent AVI movie by the Ulead software.

The final option is CL, which required you to double-click the top button. This will then delete all the images from the ca
mera. You can also delete the mages through the Photoshop plug-in on a Mac but this isn't available on the PC drivers.

Finally in it's impressive list of features the camera can be used in 16 framer per second (FPS) webcam mode. Also if you are a Mac user you can use it as USB video capture which will allow you to make movies of any number of frames! All you need is to download Apple Video Player for free from apple.com and use Quick Time Pro to convert the movies to MPEG or AVI. PC users can do this two but you will need a video capture card in your machine and probably some additional software.

My family and friends have been receiving small clips of me waving and smiling on a daily basis since I bought the camera. It was funny at first, I think it may be wearing thin but whilst I'm still enjoying myself they will continue to get clogged up email boxes...;)

Here are firebox.com's minimum system requirements for l'espion as stated on their website:
PC: 166MHz Pentium Processor or better; 32MB RAM; 10MB Minimum Hard disk Space; USB port; CD-ROM drive; Windows 98/ME/2000.
Mac: Apple Imac/G3/G4 with USB Port; 32MB RAM; CD Drive; 10MB Minimum Hard Disk Space; Mac OS8.6 or Above; Image application supporting Adobe Photoshop plug-ins; Apple Quick time for viewing video clips.

So down to the nitty gritty, what's the picture quality like? Well it isn't bad at all! You can see the pictures weren't taken by an £800 state of the art digital camera, because they weren't but at a fraction of the cost I think the quality of these is excellent. There are example pictures on Firebox.com if you want to have a look. The camera boasts 0.1 megapixel, 16.7 million colours, CMOS sensor (?), built-in retractable optical viewfinder and a range of 0.8m to infinity, and all bundles into that silver matchbox!

It suffers considerably in low light conditions, as it has no flash. If you are in Hr or Lr m
odes, the camera simply emits a lower sounding beep when you try to take a picture, indicating that the light it too poor. You can get round this by using Ct mode, which will allow you to take pictures in any light. However the resulting images are often very grainy and low quality.

My final gripe is that the camera deletes all of its pictures if you drop it. Having said all that, you really have to weight this up against the cost. My friend who owns a £800 digital camera says my movie clips are of no worse quality than his!

The best part about the camera is that it's so inconspicuous! It makes very little sound and as a result I have manage to take several unnoticed shots of my colleagues. Nothing I can blackmail them with as yet but I'll keep trying! They have all ordered one after being amazed by the price and capabilities of mine!

I'm also sure that because of its size, it will be easy to take it into places where cameras are not allowed (look out Space, Ibiza). I'm going back to Hull to try out the Deep at the weekend so I'll try and get some pictures in there.

For more information and sample images taken with l'espion, get yourself along to http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&acti on=product&id=666. You know you want one, there's no point in trying to resist... I just hope you have had as much fun with it as I have!

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