Oregon Scientific Dshot III

On the whole this Oregon Scientific Dshot is a good camera - it's neat, small, very versatile and can be easily connected to the computer for use on the web.

I bought the Oregon Scientific Dshot III Digital Camera at Wal-mart as a $30 closeout.

I have been using it for all types of shots. The macro works very well. Tip: don't bother using the software, just get an inexpensive card reader for $10.00 or so and you will have no problems uploading at all. I dont miss an lcd screen after all your 35mm cameras don't have one. When I want to preview the shots I can plug right into my tv and see them large screen or go to any drugstore kiosk and browse them there.

This Oregon Scientific Dshot III digital camera is cheap and cheerful. Its simple and pretty good value. The photos are of viewable quality but look closer and its obvious where the money has been saved. If you want high quality snaps then best go for something like the excellent Fuji Finepix A202. My friend has one and it takes very good pictures.

I aquired my Oregon Scientific Dshot III digital camera from a friend as a form of barter. Wasn't the friends fault as they never used the camera, but this was the biggest waste of time trying to get the camera to view pictures on my computer using the USB cable. I don't know how much this camera costs new, but I would steer clear of it despite the small and cute character of the camera body.

I cannot seem to get many useable pictures even at the Fine quality setting 1280x1024. I have a Olympus 460Z camera that takes better quality pictures at a low quality setting 640x480. I guess this would be due to the very low quality of the Dshot III's lens.

Only way I was able to view pics was through the TV, or through a friends card reader. No way to view through the USB cable.

Conclusion is I will probably give this camera away but not to a friend as it will cause more frustration, and I could never give this to someone I want to maintain good relations with.

I bought this cam at Walmart for $50 and regret the purchase. I have been disappointed all the way starting from the manual, the camera functions to the picture quality.

Before loading the batteries, I have read the manual. Reading it has been very frustrating -- the information is poorly organized with many silly typos. I could not follow the instructions and only figured out how the camera works by trial and error. Then I have taken several shots in my yard and proceeded to install the drivers on my computer.

I inserted the disc and everything installed fine. I have then plugged in one end of the USB cable to the computer and the other to the camera. The computer asked for more drivers, so I directed it to the cdrom. Then I got a question with two options but could only select one, so I chose the first one (randomly, since there was no way to figure out what's going on from the mannual). I was asked to restart at this point.

After restarting, I turned the cam on and wow, I got the blue screen of death -- the XP self-terminated in front of my very eyes. I have a 1Ghz pentium laptop that has never crashed on me. Bravo! After the computer recovered and after informing me that a serious system error occured, I figured I'll give the cam another try. I turned the cam on, and this time it worked ok. So I chose the cam folder from My Computer, and was able to see the picture files. I dragged them from the folder across onto my desktop, and when I released the mouse button -- yes -- I got another blue screen and XP terminated. Unbelievable!

To make a long story short, I have received many more blue screens as I have been experimenting with different options and driver updates (downloaded from their website). The computer kept crashing randomly at various stages of picture viewing no matter what I tried. Finally, I bought a SmartMedia card and a reader, so the computer is never connected to the cam. The camera saves the pics on the SmartMedia, and then I take the card out of the cam and insert it to the reader that is connected to the USB port. Now I can view the picture peacefully without crashes.

The camera controls are horrible. The lense has a fixed focal length (f=10.3mm, F3.0) so you cannot choose to zoom in or out. There is a '2x digital zoom' available, but I have not understood what it does; obviously, you don't need this function since you can enlarge (or 'digitally zoom') into the picture with any photo software. There are two aperature settings: landscape and macro. On the landscape setting everything is in focus, the foreground as well as background, but on the macro setting (for pics of flowers and such), the focus becomes a lot of guesswork. You have to have your object exactly about 12in from the lens. If your object is too close or too far, it will be out of focus. Half of my 'macro' shots are out of focus, but I guess one can practice to get the object to lens distance right.

The image quality is horrendous. The exposure lattitude is very narrow: light areas in the pictures are overexposed and dark areas underexposed. Consequently, detail is lost in the highlights as well as in the shadows. There are not many colors available; the transition between colors is very sharp which gives the images a high-contrast look. The color balance is also wrong. Skin tones of people tend to come out reddish or with a yellow tint. The lens easily 'flares up' so if you catch a shiny object in your frame, expect your image to have an overly white, ghastly opalescent look. The flash is ok although only works up to 6ft range. In the movie mode, the cam makes a Quick-Time movie, but the resolution is so low that you cannot make out any details. There is also the TV function which I've never tried because you need an S-video input, which my old TV does not have. Who'd want to view the awful pics on a TV anyway?

The cam is well suited for children ages 7-15 as a learning toy -- at least you don't have to waste money on film. In my opinion though, when it comes to picture quality, any child will be far more satisfied with a disposable camera than this digital camera. Cheers.

In all...I probably should've spent more more on a better cam. :(

Superb 1.3 mp camera re low cost. Excellent start digital camera for photos. Inexpensive smartmedia card offers hundreds of photos, regardless of three quality levels. Best aspect - MAC friendly!

I bought this camera in the hopes that it would be a good one in which to take overseas. After trying some pictures at night and getting some grainy results I tried during very good conditions the following day. In high sunlight and no over cast with the sun at my back all I got was grain, out of focus shots. Tried shots inside but the results were even worse. Even tried putting the camera on a tripod in the thought that it was me moving that was causing the problem. Same result as before. So while very compact and lightweight with easy setup and documentation the overall impression was that this one camera was not even worth the price of a cheap webcam. The stated 1.3 megapixel resolution was not attained by even one of my photos. Have another digital camera that is of a higher resolution that i have been using for over 9 months now and even on its lowest setting (800x600) it takes better pictures than this camera does at its highest setting. I would not, no can not recommend this camera to anyone. Invest another 40 to 50 dollars and get a quality camera from a more reputable name.

I got this camera for 20 US dollars when I went to walmart to get the vivitar vivicam which was 50. I am SO glad I did that! This camera is so small it fits right in my pocket, making it very portable. The pictures (when everything is stationary) are GREAT - crisp and clear. Very simple to use right out of the box even!

The Oregon Scientic Dshot 111 takes exceptional outdoor pictures and has good battery life (takes over 1000 pics on 2 aa's).