zeiss it ain’t

fish sculpture

For no good reason, I bought a very cheap ($20) mini digital camera at the airport. Its limitations make it quite fun to use:

  • has the astonishingly high resolution of 352 x 288
  • fixed-focus lens chock-full of chromatic and spherical aberration
  • no display, except for a cryptic 2-digit LCD
  • takes 20 images, then it has to be downloaded
  • grossly inaccurate viewfinder, which shifts when you press the shutter button
  • images have pronounced scan lines
  • refuses to take images in low light
  • weird non-standard USB connector

It is very small, and can also work as a webcam. It also works as well as it could under OS X (use macam to download the pictures, or enable the webcam). Using the webcam does seem to delete the pictures, so make sure you download ’em first.

I’ve made a minicam gallery, which I’ll add to until the novelty wears off.

Comments

3 Responses to “zeiss it ain’t”

  1. […] ThreeEyeFish digital minicam — makes a Lomo look like a Leica. […]

  2. scruss Avatar

    Oh, and don’t forget to take the battery out, as it eats it while it sleeps.

  3. […] found the crapcam again, which first and last saw use in June 2006. It’s still as bad as it was. macam still […]

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