Testing cheap digital camera

[patrickg]

Bought an RCA CDS1005 at Walmart for $50. Comes with a cable to review pix on a TV and two cables to get pix into computer, a serial cable for a com port and a USB cable. Just plug the camera, in my case using USB, into the computer (camera is powered parasitically by USB, serial would not and camera batts would supply power). On the desktop, click on My Computer then My RCA camera and voila there are all your pictures as jpeg files. You can click/drag them to anywhere, or print them or whatever. The down side of the camera is that it has no removable media. But downloading to a laptop, desktop or whatever is fast and dead simple and yu can then erase one or all of the pix in the camera with a couple menu choices and yoiu are ready to take another camera full of pix. Standard resolution is 640x480, there is a fine res too. Since I got it primarily for sharing pix on the net and having instant "developing" as in printing the pix on my color printer, I can deal with the less than state of the art resolution.

Has flash and runs on two AA cells. Internal mem holds 32 pix at 640x480. Fine res gives 16 pix capacity.

Works great.

Patrick

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Patrick,

What a buy... it does look great for $50! Especially with USB...Yow. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[patrickg]

Sorry, wrong pix, but delicious peaches. Hmmm I can see each camera full of pix has same names, image 1, 2, 3etc. some potential confusion/management issue. I intended to post this pix of Kubota unloading overhead fuel tank after returning from auction with it sitting high above trailer behind super modified Dodge.

Patrick

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Patrick,

I just called our local Wal-mart and they have the camera on clearance...............for $90. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[DFB]

Sounds like a good deal. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Nice pics too! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

DFB

 

[HR_Mutt]

patrickg
Great looking pics/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif.Wishing I had the cab model today, it was HOT out there!
regards
Mutt

 

[jinman]

Great pictures, Patrick, especially considering the price of the camera and its built-in USB. I'm sure you have already developed a file management technique for the files having the same names. I just make a separate subdirectory for each download set and give it a unique name related to the picture set. If I need additional sub-sub directories, I often use dates like 7082001 and I can quickly find the files by major subject and date. This is a pretty low tech method that's easily explanable to others who may not be as technically astute as you are.

JimI

 

[RobS]

Good pictures Patrick! I tried a cheapie from AOL and it wasn't nearly as clear as yours. Maybe I'll head to Wally-World soon /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[skent]

When I started digital photo last year, I set up a CAMERA directry, with sub directories of 2000, 2001, etc and then had JAN, FEB, MAR, etc, sub-subdirectory for each year subdirectory. Also included (within the year directory) events such as Graduation, Vacation, 4H fair, etc. Whenever I need a reprint, Its REAL easy to find the needed pic. When I get 500 or 600 Meg of photos on the hard drive, I burn em' into a CD rom so I got em' archived. It would be nice thou to step up to a faster computer. (now using a P100)

Steve

 

[patrickg]

Wow, thanks for the deferential bordering on reverential treatment. Ain't waranted. I uniquely ID each camera's worth of pix by naming the sub-folders Roll-001, Roll-002, etc. I figure unique and in ad seriatum order would be enough. Might just want to name the rolls something like the date "010709" (old computer types put slowest changing number first, like hundreds, tens, units. Seems consistent and makes math like "borrowing" to do subtraction real easy. Civilians (non geeks) would use 070901. B U T what about when you do multiple rolls per day, it just gets more and more complicated and I'm sooo laaaazy. Maybe if I wasn't soooooooooo laaaaaaaaaaazy I would include a little info file in each "roll" folder with any useful info about the shots.

Oh by the way,mine was on closeout at Walmart. Don't know why one would sell for $50 and another store ask $90. Maybe ask at different stores or approach the manager and tell them you would like to do business with them but their pricing policy scares you. Don't know if this model is being dropped so it might show up on sale somewhere else or if it was a pre=inventory thing. Store shelves around here are getting bare as preinventory manipulation, I think.

Patrick