I?m one of those people who love a bargain, so when my old camera packed up, I decided to hunt around for the best bargain I could find.

After a long trawl through the internet sites, I found the Konica Digital Revio KD410Z for £247 at QED with free delivery. While surfing the net the other week though, I noticed the price had come down to under the £200 mark, so now it?s even more of a bargain.

The camera itself has 4 Megapixels, with a maximum resolution of 2300x1700, which I deem to be pretty good by anybodies standards. As the Photo Shop at Asda were having a summer offer of 50 prints for £5, I had some pictures printed there, and you wouldn?t have known they were digital pictures, which can sometimes be a little grainy.

I use a 256MB card in my camera, which will give me 140 pictures on the highest resolution, so I never have the need to turn the resolution down, which means that my pictures are of a consistent high quality. Even on my old 64MB card, I was getting 40 shots at highest resolution. Even on a lower setting though, snapshots still come out well.

So long as you have good light, the picture quality is brilliant. I do find that when inside dark buildings, the pictures do seem rather grainy. If you are quite technically minded (or follow the instructions in the manual) the exposure and flash settings can be changed, and this does make a difference. Being a bit of a technophobe myself, I just can?t seem to get the hang of this. At this point, I had it over to my husband, who just loves to play with anything technical.

The camera has both optical viewfinder and a 1.5? colour LCD screen. This is really useful in string light as the screen can be difficult to see. With automatic focus and exposure control it is a doddle to use. It has a 3x optical zoom, and a 2x digital zoom. I tend not to use the digital zoom as the picture quality definitely deteriorates. It also has a built in automatic flash, so how much eas
ier does it get?

My best experience yet with this camera has to be at my cousins wedding during the summer. I took some beautiful photos of the bride and groom stood posing by the car in black and white and sepia. They are so pleased with the photos as the professional photographer they used didn?t get anything like these as his were all colour. They came out really well.

I even took some small movie clips with sound which last about 30 seconds. I don?t think I will use this very often though as 30 sec clips are not really much use.

Downloading onto the PC is really simple [well, it has to be where I?m concerned]. Just plug into the USB port with the USB cable provided, and my PC picked it up straight away. It asked if I wanted to copy the pictures, and then I selected where I wanted them copied to, and the rest was done for me!

*Some boring bits*

? Supports Memory Stick, Secure Digita, MultiMedia Card (16MB SD card included.)
? It has 2MB of internal memory but I?d recommend at least 128MB extra
? Adobe Photoshop Elements imaging application for Windows and Mac provided
? USB cable for connection to a computer. Driver software is included if your computer doesn?t pick up the device automatically.
? Weighs 200 grams, so it?s not the lightest camera in town, but it is small, and fits handily into my pocket (dimensions 57x94x29.5 mm)
? Comes with neck strap, 16MB SD/MMC card, Lithium battery, Battery charger, USB cable, Two software CD-ROMs, and a quick start manual and registration card.

I really love this camera, and the metal body looks sleek and trendy, and is very sturdy. The quick start manual is really easy to follow, but if you want more detail, an Adobe version of the full manual is available on the net. It also has a sliding lens cap, which is an absolute godsend if you are like me, and have a tendency to lose anything that isn?t permanenetly attached.

You can also see the p
ictures and video clips on the screen, so you can delete what you don?t want to make more space on your memory card.

Downsides?

Poor red eye control. Yes, I have no end of problems with the flash causing red eye, and the little blue light at the bottom of the camera is supposed to stop this, but really, it might as well not be there. Thank goodness for photoshop is all I can say.

There is also no camera case with it. I suggest you get one as the metal body does have a tendency to scratch after a while.

I love this camera, and am glad I chose it.