| Product: |
Jenoptik Jendigital JD C 3.1 LCD |
| Date: |
20.02.04 (1038 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good photos, price, ease of use
Disadvantages: Manual
Before I start I ought to say that Iam a bit of a luddite and have been forced to adopt new technology, so apologies if my opinion is not technology orientated! Anyway I had decided to purchase a new computer, it came bundled with a number of items including a basic digital camera. I decided to upgrade this camera for another £30 to the Jenoptik 2.1 LCD digital camera. I'd never used a digital camera before and was still a little wary of them, believing that they could never match the picture quality of my pentax 35mm.
----Style and Design----
While this camera won't win any design awards its looks ok if a little uninspiring. The camera is made of a shiny silver plastic and is rectangular in shape. It looks and feels relatively robust and well constructed which is a little surprising considering this camera is aimed at the bargain basement end of the digital camera market.
Looking from the front the biotar lens , viewfinder and flash are located at the right while on the top are the power, mode and shutter buttons. The rear of the camera is taken up by an LCD screen, the microphone, and various controls. On the bottom of the camera is the battery compartment opened by sliding a panel and a screw hole for a tripod.
The camera's LCD screen is around 1.5" and gives a good picture, far better than many more expensive digital cameras. The camera feels relatively light though a little weighed down at one side due to the four AAA batteries it takes.
----Ease of Use----
Soon after buying the camera I had a great opportunity to use it, when I went on holiday to Austria. I was still rather dubious whether it would work ok and whether the picture quality would be any good. Having finally mastered the controls, no thanks to the poor manual, I was eager to start taking photos and try out the video function.
The camera comes with autofocus like most 35mm cameras. The only problem with th
e Jenoptik's autofocus is that it takes around 3 seconds to focus properly and if you take a photo before it has done this it will come out blurred. I've found that the best way to take photos with this camera is not to use the viewfinder but to use the LCD screen. The screen shows the camera focusing and if you wait until the colour on the screen has adjusted then the camera has focused. It takes a little getting used to at first but it doesn't bother me now and really its only a small fault when compared against what this camera does so well.
To turn the camera on hold down the power button for a few seconds and the rear LCD display will light up. To access the various modes turn the dial at the top of the camera and the rear LCD display will show the mode you are currently in.
The modes include:
Manual photo - This means you choose whether to put the flash on and the light and other settings
Automatic photo - The camera chooses the most appropriate modes and settings, all you do is press the button
Playback - To review any photos and videos on the rear LCD display
Video
Audio
PC-Cam - The camera acts as quite a decent webcam when in this mode
Moving away from the mode dial the majority of the cameras other functions are accessed through the menu button located on the right hand side of the LCD screen. These functions include white balance, image size, power saving, date and sound amongst others. It does take a bit of time to get used to scrolling through these various functions and could possibly have been made easier. One of the most useful of these functions I've found is the sound of a film winding on. While the sound is tinny and not particulary great its main advantage is that it marks the amount of time you need to hold the camera still to get a clear and sharp photo. I've used the camera without having this function on and have ended up with a lot of
blurred photos.
Located at the rear right are a circular set of buttons, these include the zoom in and out buttons and the timer. Unfortunately the camera only comes with a digital zoom up to 4x and the quality is not that great. If you want a decent zoom then I recommend that you opt for another camera with an optical zoom.
The camera can also take close up pictures through the macro button on the side. The quality of these pictures when using this mode are appalling and its very easy to forget to turn this mode off which means that if you take any further pictures they will come out blurred.
While the camera does come with a 8mb internal memory this will only take around 16 photos at the highest resolution and around 56 at normal resolution, its not worth bothering to take photos at the lowest resolution as the quality is so poor. I purchased a 128 MB SD memory card which is inserted next to the batteries at the bottom of the camera this means that you can take 155 photos at the highest resolution and a ridiculous 833 photos at the lowest resolution.
The video function even has sound which makes it perhaps the only sub £100 digital camera to include this function! The quality of the video is pretty good when viewed through the rear LCD display of the camera though if you view the video through your computer be prepared to lose quite a lot of the clarity. I've taken a number of videos now and have found it best not to move the camera while taking the video otherwise it turns out very jerky. The sound is rather tinny and is'nt that great but to include a microphone on a camera worth less than £60 is a great breakthrough, more manufacturers need to take note! I've managed to get around two minutes of video from the camera on the 8mb internal memory it comes with
----Conclusion----
I'd expected this camera to be useless, I was surprised! I've found it to be reliable and well built. It also tak
es very clear and sharpe photographs (virtually indistinguishable from a normal 35mm camera) once you have got the hand of its idiosyncracies.
It has its problems though, notably the flimsy USB cover and the time it takes for the camera to autofocus amongst other things, but if you take these faults into account its still a bargain and well worth buying
----Additional Information----
The camera comes with a USB cable to download photos onto your computer. It also comes with three pieces of bundled software, Cam in Suite III, MGI Photosuite 4 and MGI videosuite. Cam in Suite III I've found difficult to use and when I did finally manage to get the hang of it the results were not that great. MGI photosuite and videosuite, a photo editing package and video editing package perform ok but other programs do the tasks better, I would'nt recommend using them unless you have to.
The camera comes with a wrist strap and a small black fabric protective case
Cost wise you can pick up this camera for less than £70 now, a bargain!
The camera takes pictures at 2.1 megapixels and can take pictures at an interpolated 3.1 megapixels.
Summary:
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