More fun than a turnip shaped like a thingy!! (Digital Dream l'espion)

Member Name: Highwayman

Product:	Digital Dream l'espion
Date:	26/04/02 (207 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very small, cheap, does exactly what it says on the tin

Disadvantages: chews batteries

You know how it is........you see an ad in the paper, and you think 'there has to be a catch'.

This time however, there was no mistake - it does all it says on the box. For £40.

Thats right.

Im not going to go into technical detail - for £40 you can afford to suck it and see. It takes pictures (80 little ones or 20 not as little) it takes movie clips (80 frames @10 fps) and it's the size of a matchbox. It also doubles as a webcam.

OR.........even better.........

I Have an Apple i-Book with Adobe Premiere loaded. Plug the camera into the laptop with the USB cable, start Premiere....and start recording whatever the camera is pointed at. You will need plenty of Ram though, or you will get dropped frames galore (about 1 in 8 with 92Mb RAM). Huge fun for recording 30 minute train trips and then reducing to a 30 second clip. A word of caution though - if you leave the camera attched to your computer whilst the computer is turned off the battery in the camera will go flat. Quickly.

On a Mac, you have to adjust the saturation level when doing vids. About +3 usually does it. I'm not sure the reason for this, but I assume it has something to do with being configged mainly for PC's.

The supplied software was OK, but I don't use it. The CD supplied comes with a plugin for photoshop ( well, for the Mac it does) as well as Digital Dream's own software. Just drag the plugin into your Photoshop plugins folder, and you're away.

Problems?? Not many. As I said before, this sucker can really chew through AAA cells if you're not careful. It's a fixed focus camera, so everything always looks a little fuzzy except in perfect light, and you do get some darkening in the corners of your pics. For some reason, in bright sunlight the pics can look really harsh, but if youre at all useful with photshop that's no problem.

You will never see one of these cams being u
sed professionally, unless youre name is Bond, James Bond. Even then if its detail you're after, forget it.

If, however you're after a camera that will go anywhere with you, blast away thumbnail pics like there's no tomorrow, allow you to take pics and videos at concerts, amaze your friends AND leave you with a tenner change from £50, this is for you. I use mine most days, if only to amuse myself. For some reason some people object to receiving half a dozen 600k videos a day........so be careful. It's addictive.


Additional points:

- Digital Dreams actually replied to an email query I had within 24 hours of me making it. Don't remember what I asked....but the answer was right.

- You would have to be an real eejit to go wrong with this camera - something I did only once. As the Vikings had to remind themselves "Pillage THEN burn", I have had problems with download THEN delete. Still - It gave me an excuse to take more photos.

Summary: