Ezonics VistaCam Discovery LX

[Sefy]

A few months ago i've purchased a camera for myself which ended up going to my parents as I left to try my luck in Auckland. That is the "background" story of how I got into DC's, what I wanted in my camera are a few "basic" things which I wasn't willing to compormise on, which I am pretty sure those who know better then me will understand:

3x Optical
3.2 megapixel CCD and not CMOS
1.5 LCD screen
and most importantly for me, a Web Cam feature which can work with Video Conferencing.

Other features which I wanted were these:
4x Digital
16mb Internal Ram and SD/MMC upgradable

Of course I wasn't going to object to higher functions, but that depends on the price range as I don't plan on spending 200$ and up on a camera which will barely be used and I don't want a WebCam cause they are all CMOS and my room is dark at night. I wanted a sorta of an all in one camera.

The only one I found which as I mentioned bought at an introducery price of 99$ was that Ezonics VistaCam Discovery LX (EZ-889) camera which had all those features and more! but for some reason, I couldn't find a single reviews on it. So i'm hoping maybe some of you out there can help, maybe find an alternative which has those features or if you have used it and can tell me what you think.

Thanks to everyone who gives a reply!
PS: I've put a link to the camera and I hope to hear some comments on the specs of it.

Additional Details:
I've recently seen this camera being sold on Trade-Me in New-Zealand, and the seller gives these specs: Panasonic CCD / Ricoh Lens / Epson LCD

You can buy it for 130$ with free shipping in the US from ZipZoomFly from what I can find, all other places sell it for 154 to 300$ US.

[Sefy]

Here are a few sample photos Taken at lowest quality settings by an Ezonics VistaCam Discovery LX EZ-889. It was taken by my mom, so these are not exactly "professionaly" taken photos and no features were enabled and picture is set to Normal and not Fine at lowest quality.



I've posted the rest on the Galleries:
http://gallery.photographyreview.com...&ppuser=239655

What i'd like is an opinion of the quality of the Camera considering these are photos taken by someone using a Digital Cam for the first time and again it's st to lowest quality settings and no features enabled. Looking forward to get some replies ;-)

[Photo-John]

Sefy-
I saved a couple of the images from the gallery so I could open them up with software that shows me the camera settings. The first one I looked at looked really good. That was 0037 - the living room image that was taken with a flash. The second one I looked at, "Room with a view," I think you called it, had some obvious strange noise patterns. I'm not sure what the patterns were from, but they don't look good.

I can tell that you want to buy this camera. You need to ask yourself it fits your needs and if you'll remain satisfied with it. If you and your family are happy with the image quality and the price, then it's probably fine. The unknown is the camera reliability. You can be pretty confident when you buy Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, that they're using high quality components and they've done some quality assurance testing. Since I don't have any experience with Ezonics, I couldn't comfortably sign off on it. But for the same amount of money, I don't know what else to direct you to.

A couple of notes on your spec requirements.

1) Digital zoom is something that most of ignore. It generally results in very low quality images and you can accomplish the same thing by enlarging your digital images with Photoshop or another image editing program.

2) CMOS vs CCD - you aren't going to find any cameras using CMOS sensors unless you're looking at the very high-end or the lowest of the low. None of the major manufacturers use CMOS sensors for their compact digital cameras.

3) Web camera - You've got me on this one. It's not something I pay any attention to. That's not really a "photographer's" feature. I seem to recall that one of the newest Canon compacts has Web cam capabilities, but I'm pretty sure it will cost much more than the $150 range you're looking at right now.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry I can't just tell you what to do. Hopefully someone else will weigh in with another opinion and some more advice. Hope I helped a little.

[Sefy]

Hi John,

First i'd like to thank you for taking the time and replying back to me, as i've already bought the camera myself (one for my mom which took those specific pictures and one for me which will arrive around January) i've just wanted the opinion of more expert people in this scene, as I certainly am not.

As for the quality, i've mentioned my mom took it, you should see some of the more worse photos (my mom is old, shakey hands) but there were a lot better quality photos but unfortunatly had people faces in them and I didn't feel too comfortable uploading those. One of them was extremly good considering the dark room (wedding night) that it was taken on.

As for reliability, I think with every electronic device you get what you paid for and you gotta admit that this price is unbeatable for the features that you get with it. You also admited that quality was really good, which you'd also need to say for that kind of "cheap" camera. I believe if the person is taking care of the equipment, it should last pretty long.

Regarding the "Specs" i've mentioned I believe you misunderstood me. I am NOT looking for CMOS (I avoid it at every possible chance) and the Digital zoom is of no major importance to me. But the "Web Cam" feature was what I most required and wasn't willing to "let go" of, cause all the "cheap" web cams as you know use CMOS and have hurrible quality.

As for telling me what to do, that I believe is each person to his own. I am just hoping that since i've brought this camera to the attention of people it might get some more interest and tries and who knows, maybe it will be one of those "Good Bargain for Low Price" kind of cameras. You have to admit if you look even upto 300$ range you still won't find ALL the features in higher brand cameras.

PS: I Apologise for delayed reply, for some reason I didn't get email on it :-/

[Sefy]

My Personal Review for: Ezonics VistaCam Discovery LX (EZ-889)

Summary:
This camera packs a big punch for low cost, has most of the big features that the more expensive cameras have but at a fraction of the price and you even get an excellent WebCam feature as well. As this is my first camera, I was impressed with the ease of use. In fact it's so easy to use that even my mom learned quickly how to use it as I bought her one before
I got one for myself.

It's extremly easy to set up the camera, doesn't have flashy looking setup screen but simple and straight forward and very easy to understand. I've been using the camera for nearly 2 months now and even though some photos didn't come all that wonderful I still managed to take some very nice shots. As i'm not a professional photographer, I find this camera gives me
excellent photos for my uses.

Camera is very light weight in comparison to regular cameras i've held, i'd say most weight is the battery you put in it. The design is very appealing and the only weird thing (for me) is the viewfinder is located on the left and i'm used to it being on the right, but then again I rarely use it since the LCD screen is clear and pretty big (1.5" sized made by Epson) and high quality and gives all the information you may need. It also has a nice feature I found that by doing a half-click on the button, the camera "checks" the light settings and abjusts to the environment and then you can do the full-click to take the shot for best quality and also saves on battery life.

The Camera has a 3x Optical Zoom (made by Ricoh) and 4x Digital (does anyone even use it?) which is excellent and works great for taking shots in the zoo for example. My main use of the camera is it's excellent WebCam feature which works with all Video Conferencing software on the PC and has great image and speed quality even in dark rooms. Taking photos from the
camera is also easy, you simply connect it using the USB cable and copy the photos over. Lastly, with it's 16mb Internal RAM I managed to take upto 36 photos using the lowest Fine settings which is comparable to a regular film roll.

I Bought the camera for an extremly cheap price and mainly for having a Digital Camera with WebCam feature which none of the other models had. I got some surprisingly excellent photos from it even though I wasn't expecting much from a 115$ camera, it's small but not small enough but very light weight. Installation was fast and easy and i'd highly recommand this camera for an average person who just wants a good camera with good features for a low price.

Strengths:
- Good Picture Quality,
- 3x Optical Zoom
- 16mb Internal Memory
- Ease Of Use,
- Friendly Interface,
- Clear Large LCD,
- 10 Sec Timer
- WebCam Feature
- A/C adaptor option
- Several Pre-Set Modes

These are all Excellent Features which you don't always find in the higher end more expensive cameras, I found them to always be lacking in one feature or another. Comes with loads of software and very easy installation instruction and a good manual which explains the features and how to use them.

Weaknesses:
- Menu a bit slow at time
- Photo Quality is Good +/-
- Digital Zoom is useless feature
- Kills the Batteries (don't they all?)
- A/C adaptor doesn't come with camera!
- Slow to saving photos at higher quality on the Internal Memory

When taking Photos using the 2.8 and 3.0 mb modes, it took atleast 5 to 10 sec for the camera to save the photo and bring me back the menu. I've also had about 3 occasions where the battery was not full and the menu simply frooze up and I barely managed to shut down the camera properly. The Camera can use a 3.3v AC adapter which does NOT come with the camera, also if there is not much light in the room (like Disco) it's impossible to see anything. But on the good side, the flash works great in the dark and you can take great photos if you just know where to aim the camera to!

This is my first and only experience with a Digital Camera and so far i'm loving it, was worth every cent and no intention of replacing it.

Note: All the photos I took with the camera were re-saved using PaintShop Pro at a reduced quality and resolution as I found the camera saves the photos at a very large size and even to just re-save reduces the file size drasticly but depending on the JPG settings, also the quality.

[trog100]

camera names are marketing ploys.. an awfull lot of stuff isnt made by the the folks the name on it suggests..

okay the folks who let something carry their name will tend to govern the quality.. so if a lense says canon.. one can assume that it comes up to a certain quality.. the same with Leica.. but it is likely to be made by some huge Taiwanese OEM company..

i have a little 10 x zoom camera that first appeared as a toshiba mr700 with the name canon emblazened on the lense.. it also appears under the name of Rollei with the name rollei emblazened on the lense.. it is also called a vivitar with no name on its lense.. premier... traveller.. maginon.. plus a few others.. he he

they are all made by a very large Taiwanese campany called premier imaging technologies.. there are several such companies all churning out products for the known name companies..

my little "premier" camera thinks its a toshiba when it fires up cos i have loaded it up with the latest toshiba firmware upgrade.. this gives it full manual focus and a few other tweaks the original cameras dont have..

Rollei is the latest example of marketing a "name" by the way.. they dont actually make anything..

on the other side of the scale there are some quality products out there with lesser known names.. even vivitar are selling (not making) same very nice cameras..

dont be fooled by a name.. he he

trog100

[Sefy]

Although it is true that you will find the same camera under a different name, in this case I was unable to find ANY similiar product, not in the design or the cost efficency and it also seems Ezonics makes a lot of other products and it is not their first one.

If you can find this identical camera, with those exact features and around the same price level. Just give me a link as I have a friend who wants to buy it too but the Ezonics runs out of stuck pretty quickly and the next price up is higher, I bought the first one for 99$ and the second for 115$ and now the only price I can find it is for 150$ and you can find prices for it upto 300$ too.

camera names are marketing ploys.. an awfull lot of stuff isnt made by the the folks the name on it suggests..

[trog100]

Ezonics Technology, Ltd Taiwan
7F-1, No 412, Sec 5
Chung-Hsiao East Road, Taipei, Taiwan

Ezonics China
Room 309, Huaxin Tech Building
477 Wensan Road
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310013 China

they claim to be among the top three webcam makers.. its not surprizing they make a digicam thats also a webcam.. now these are people that probably do make the products they sell.. EZ 1-2-3.. they seem to be chinese in the first place thow which does help.. he he

trog100

[Sefy]

they claim to be among the top three webcam makers.. its not surprizing they make a digicam thats also a webcam.. now these are people that probably do make the products they sell...

Then that also proves why it's such a high quality cam, but i'm really am very surprised at the low cost compared to other top brands. What shocks me is the fact that making a Digital Camera into WebCam shouldn't be so difficult yet you don't see that feature on the top brands! go figure!