The Jenoptik JD-350 Digital Camera

If you are looking for a cheap reliable digital camera which does the job, then go no further, as the JD-350 digital camera is just the ticket!! The camera is the same width and length of a credit card, and is just under 1 inch deep!! That means it is light weight and fits into you pocket with ease. The camera is silver in colour, with blue rubber buttons.

At the time or purchase the JD-350 Digital camera was priced at £120. This was around 4 months ago, so the price will be around the same. There is a cheaper version of the JD-350 which is £100. The cheaper version is simply a digital camera, but for an extra cost of £20 you can have a digital camera / web cam all in one. I purchased the camera from the “INDEX” catalogue.

The Main Features Of The JD-350

The package contains the following

1 x JD-350 camera
1 x Camera clip
1 x Camera stand
1 x Camera strap
1 x Camera case
1 x Serial port lead
1 x USB lead
2 x AA batteries
1 x Floppy disk containing the Twain driver software
1 x CD – ROM containing photographic editing/ Web Cam software

The Functions Of The Camera

The camera can be run in two distinct modes. The first is to use the camera for taking photographs. The camera has a main power on rotary slide switch on the front face of the camera. By rotating the slide in an anticlockwise direction, the camera is switched on. The camera has an “auto off” facility in which, if the camera is left on for a one minute interval with no use, the camera will switch off to conserve power. This saves your batteries, as you will find that the camera will eat up batteries quickly. This is mainly due to the flash on the camera. The batteries are loaded into the bottom of the camera through a small flip cover that clips into place, flush with the bottom surface of the camera. I find using rechargeable batteries, you sav
e the cost of replacing batteries.

The camera has three main buttons to control the operation and set up of the camera, which are situated on the top of the camera, along with a small LCD screen, (Liquid Crystal Display) which is in the centre of the top surface of the camera. The main button is situated on the left hand side of the camera, and is used to actually take a photograph. This button is the largest of the three buttons. This button must be held down for a few seconds for the camera to take the shot. Once the camera has taken the photograph, it lets you know by making a small beep noise.

The remaining two buttons are situated on the right hand side of the LCD display. These buttons are smaller than the main button, and are of equal size. They are slightly recessed from the top surface of the camera. These buttons are labelled up as, “MODE” and “SELECT.” The mode button allows you to select the setting you wish to change by going through a menu loop. The select button allows you to change the setting within one of the menus. The menu is as follows,

Flash
Auto timer
Resolution
Files stored
Delete Picture
DC/PC mode

The flash mode can be set for, “Red Eye Reduction”, “Standard Flash On”, “Flash Off” and “Auto Flash.” These can be selected by pressing the select button once you are in the “Flash” menu. There is a small light that is situated on the rear panel of the camera. This light indicates when the flash is charged. At the same time the camera beeps to indicate that it is ready to take the photograph.

The auto timer mode allows you to take a picture without having to operate the camera manually. The timer has a 10 second delay before it will take the picture. This gives you time to press the main button and get in place for the photograph in time.
There is a small red light that indicates how much t
ime is left before the picture will be taken. It starts by remaining on all the time, then it starts to flash at a steady rate, and finally just before the picture the red light starts to flash very rapidly.

The resolution selection allows you to choose the required quality for the photograph. There are two settings, “Normal” and “Best.” The best resolution is set at 640 x 480 pixels which I use all the time. The camera has a built in memory of 8Mb. This allows you to store up to 50 photographs at the best resolution. If you were to take all your photographs at the normal resolution, you could store up to 199 photographs.

The picture function tells you how many photographs are stored on the camera, and allows you to select a picture number from the stored photographs on the camera. The delete function works in conjunction with this mode. The delete function allows you to delete unwanted photographs from the camera.

The DC/PC mode allows you to select whether you want to use the camera to download your photographs or to use the camera as a web cam.

Connecting The JD-350 To Your Computer

The JD-350 comes with two methods of connecting to your PC. The connection ports are situated on the left hand side of the camera, which are protected by a small rubber flap. You can either connect using an RS232 serial cable, (which connects to your computer via a com port) or using a USB cable, (which connects to your computer via a USB port.)

When the camera is connected by USB, it is powered by the USB port. Therefore, you do not require an external power source. However, when you connect your camera by RS232, you have to supply power to the camera by either the batteries or a low voltage adaptor. The adaptor does not come with the camera, but it is available from the manufacturers on request at a given charge. However, I find that batteries do the job, so I have not purchased the adaptor.
r> The Twain Driver comes on a standard floppy disk, which can be installed on a double click of the mouse. This tells you computer where to find your camera so that you can communicate between camera and PC. The software requires that you have Windows 95/98/2000 with RS232/USB and a Pentium or above processor, 32Mb of RAM, CD Rom drive, VGA Display or above, and at least 110Mb of free disk space on your hard drive.

To download the pictures from the camera, you simply connect the camera to your PC and open the installed software. The PC will look for the camera, detect it, and then show a small frame for each picture. You then have the option to save the pictures to your PC’s hard drive, or delete them. The pictures can be saved as a JPEG or BMP format. Once the download is complete, you can just disconnect the camera and take more pictures as and when you wish.

There is also a CD-Rom which has picture editing software and other useful bits and bats. It also contains some software to run the camera as a web cam. The camera comes with a small stand so that you can mount it on top of your monitor, or any convenient space. As a web cam, the camera has a video resolution of 160 x 120 pixels, and a video frame rate of 28 fps, (frames per second.)

You can use the software supplied with the camera, but you can use any software you wish to run the camera as a web cam. You are provided with the driver software for the camera which is all you really need. This is good as you have the freedom of choice to use whatever software you feel at ease with.

The JD-350 is a small, neat looking camera that you can take anywhere!