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Kyocera sl400r
Paul wrote:
I am thinking of buying Kyocera's sl400r but thought I would ask the news community what they think of this camera first. I owned a Kyocera SL440R for 1½ month, before it developed a LCD fault. Luckily the seller (PixMania) gave me a refund, so I was free to choose a new camera. I went for a Sony DCS T1 instead, but it wasn't an easy choice. What I didn't like about the SL400R was the missing lens cover and the weak macro mode. I carried the camera in my pocket and I had to wipe dust from the lens several times daily. Kyocera includes a tiny cloth meant for a removing dust from the lens, so they're obviously aware of the issue. The movie mode was impressingly good for such a tiny camera, although I find that the DCS-T1 is a tad better: The SL400R shows a lot of compression artefacts in movies and the exposire adjustment means flashy changes to the brightness when the light changes. The burst-mode (3.3 images/second, live review, limited only by storage space) was great and I miss it on the T1. What I miss the most is the swivel lens. I used the camera for documenting everyday life (a nice way of saying that I take pictures of my kids) and most of the time I didn't swivel at all. I simpli held it to my stomach and looked down at it. That serves the double purpose of bringing the camera to the kid's height and to make the act of taking a picture more discreet. I had it in my pocket every day for the 1½ month and it did develop a slight bend. It didn't affect the swiveling though and the mechanism did feel as if it has small springs build in to it: It did allow for a certain amoung of bending and snapped back when the pressure was removed. As for other quirks, my camera was horrible at taking indoor photos when I used the indoor-photo-setting (I don't remember what it was called, the icon showed a lightbulb and the lightning was by ordinary lightbulbs). The auto setting worked just fine though, so I didn't mind. The camera did display a lot of noise with pictures that included part of a blue sky. Maybe that's just the kind of image that shows the noise present on all the images? I don't know, but I do know that the T1 doesn't display the same noise. The slim and (relative to the height) long form factor was great for pocket use. It meant that the camera didn't turn in my pocket and consequently that I always gripped it right, when I wanted to use it. The zoom was quiet and fast. No problems there. Autofocusing was a problem though. I guess the camera is average at that, but its about-a-second (no, I haven't measured it) focusing time was too long for me. Pressing the shutterbutton halfway down focuses and pressing th button fully takes the picture. No news there, but since the camera took the picture at full-press, regardless of focusing, it meant that I had to half-press, wait for the focus-light to show and then press fully. The focus-time was too slow for me, so it was an annoyance. Even worse was the low-light focusing. No AF assist lamp, som the camera tries as best as it can. Unfortunately that isn't all that good, so typically indoow evening photos included several tries for focusing. Manual focusing wasn't really practical as it includes several keypresses. The missing lens-cover, the weak autofocus and the lack of good macro was the primary reasons for my switch to the T1. Feel free to write me, if you want to see some everyday pictures taken by an amateur using the SL400R (and later the T1). |
#2
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Kyocera sl400r
Paul wrote:
I am thinking of buying Kyocera's sl400r but thought I would ask the news community what they think of this camera first. I owned a Kyocera SL440R for 1½ month, before it developed a LCD fault. Luckily the seller (PixMania) gave me a refund, so I was free to choose a new camera. I went for a Sony DCS T1 instead, but it wasn't an easy choice. What I didn't like about the SL400R was the missing lens cover and the weak macro mode. I carried the camera in my pocket and I had to wipe dust from the lens several times daily. Kyocera includes a tiny cloth meant for a removing dust from the lens, so they're obviously aware of the issue. The movie mode was impressingly good for such a tiny camera, although I find that the DCS-T1 is a tad better: The SL400R shows a lot of compression artefacts in movies and the exposire adjustment means flashy changes to the brightness when the light changes. The burst-mode (3.3 images/second, live review, limited only by storage space) was great and I miss it on the T1. What I miss the most is the swivel lens. I used the camera for documenting everyday life (a nice way of saying that I take pictures of my kids) and most of the time I didn't swivel at all. I simpli held it to my stomach and looked down at it. That serves the double purpose of bringing the camera to the kid's height and to make the act of taking a picture more discreet. I had it in my pocket every day for the 1½ month and it did develop a slight bend. It didn't affect the swiveling though and the mechanism did feel as if it has small springs build in to it: It did allow for a certain amoung of bending and snapped back when the pressure was removed. As for other quirks, my camera was horrible at taking indoor photos when I used the indoor-photo-setting (I don't remember what it was called, the icon showed a lightbulb and the lightning was by ordinary lightbulbs). The auto setting worked just fine though, so I didn't mind. The camera did display a lot of noise with pictures that included part of a blue sky. Maybe that's just the kind of image that shows the noise present on all the images? I don't know, but I do know that the T1 doesn't display the same noise. The slim and (relative to the height) long form factor was great for pocket use. It meant that the camera didn't turn in my pocket and consequently that I always gripped it right, when I wanted to use it. The zoom was quiet and fast. No problems there. Autofocusing was a problem though. I guess the camera is average at that, but its about-a-second (no, I haven't measured it) focusing time was too long for me. Pressing the shutterbutton halfway down focuses and pressing th button fully takes the picture. No news there, but since the camera took the picture at full-press, regardless of focusing, it meant that I had to half-press, wait for the focus-light to show and then press fully. The focus-time was too slow for me, so it was an annoyance. Even worse was the low-light focusing. No AF assist lamp, som the camera tries as best as it can. Unfortunately that isn't all that good, so typically indoow evening photos included several tries for focusing. Manual focusing wasn't really practical as it includes several keypresses. The missing lens-cover, the weak autofocus and the lack of good macro was the primary reasons for my switch to the T1. Feel free to write me, if you want to see some everyday pictures taken by an amateur using the SL400R (and later the T1). |
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