Just because they're kids doesn't mean they deserve crap

[chargirlgenius]

Henry has been using our old 2 megapixel camera for snapshots around the house for about the last year. He's finally dropped it one too many times, or rather, Eddie has gotten to it, and it's dead. All of the internals still work, but the lens won't pop out when you turn it on, meaning that it won't open to take pictures.

So, we decided to get him one of those little kid cameras that they can drop and throw all over the place. What a mistake.

Ok, I'm sure that what's most important is that he can play with taking pictures, but I see no reason on earth why the camera has to take such crappy pictures. I mean, for under $100 I can find a 10 megapixel camera, way less if I look at discount sites. Sure, it's not ruggedized, but why would it be so difficult to make a kids camera have 3, or even 2 megapixels?

He's shooting pictures, and he's having fun, but what happens if he manages to get a well-composed picture? It's still going to look like crap. For heaven's sake, he took the picture that is my default LJ user pic. It's conceivable that with a decent camera we could put together a silly album for his grandmother.

There's a flash on the thing, but every picture is too dark or way overexposed. Even a shot that should have been cake, five feet away or so, came out dark and blurry. Which is too bad, because it would have been an otherwise cute picture of Eddie. Ugh.

It's a nice idea, and one that I actually thought of about five years before they appeared on the market, but the execution is awful. I don't know if we can return it, but I'm thinking of looking for older, used point and shoot cameras on the cheap that he needs to try to be careful with, but I won't cry if he ruins.

Comments

[leofwynne.livejournal.com]

Check this one out....friends of ours have it, and it seems really neat. Takes decent pix from what I've seen, and is tough.
http://www.vtechkids.com/product.cfm?productID=520

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Good to know that there's *something* decent on the market!

[samiratou.livejournal.com]

I've heard lots of complaints about the Fisher Price cameras. Major fail on their part.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

We have one. Get an SD card for it and bump it into hi-res mode (I can't remember the key combo at the moment) and it's much better. My major complaint is the way it chews through batteries!

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

they all do if you use the screen viewfinder. I find I have better battery life if I use "Dura-ready" rather than rechargeables.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'll try that...

[verymelm.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking lately of upgrading my little point-n-shoot to something a little smaller. My existing camera works fine but it's a little too bulky for me to carry with me so I tend not to use it. I'd be fine sending you my existing one if you'd be interested in it for him. It's not "ruggedized" but it also pr'bly wouldn't matter if it died after being dropped a few too many times either.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Y'know, that would actually be really nice. I was looking around on ebay, but I trust you more than some random seller. Drop me a PM with an address, and a fair price to cover shipping and a bit for the camera, and I'll send you a check.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Do you freecycle? I see old digital cameras come up on freecycle around here with some regularity.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I hadn't checked there yet. I did check ebay and craigslist. There is stuff, I just have to go out looking.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

preach it!

And yes, you can still get 3 and 4 mpix cameras for cheap. Check ebay.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're there. I'm eventually hoping for a "buy it now" one so I don't have to suffer through the bidding process. ;-) I haven't looked much, yet, I know they're out there.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

nods. There are days that I wish everything was "buy it now!"

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I work in a camera store and just scored permission to bring our demo Olympus Tough 6000 (http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1446) to Pennsic as long as I can a) take some dramatic photos and b) not actually break it. So I've just spent a few hours coming up with things I can do that won't actually destroy a ruggedized camera. At Pennsic, I can think of a lot. *rubs hands together*

I was not truly aware of the concept of the for-kids camera. But I agree, icky-poo. You're better off getting disposable film cameras. (The rule of thumb for those is not to stand too close to the subject. They take terrible pictures. But they're sort of designed to take terrible pictures. Would you believe how much people still use them? I printed four today.)

If you have a little local camera store like mine around, they usually have cheap used digitals on the shelf, taken as cheapo trade-ins towards nicer cameras, and sellable for a song, or useful for demos or to ornament store displays. You could probably scare something up on ebay or craigslist or whatever too.

And yeah, the 5-year-old cameras we're selling for $20 (or, like, free with purchase of memory card...) are at least 4 megapixels at this point.

(edit, duh, copied but didn't paste link.)