Tuesday, December 3, 2024 | TSTM
 

The Micro Camera

The MicroCamera is an interesting little camera for about ~$20 to $30 dollars. It looks like an automatic carlock and can fit on your keychain. The entire assembly is very light and contains two functional buttons and two fake buttons. The top of the camera has a small LED that tells you the current operation mode of the camera and on the front side oppsite the key ring attachment is the camera and microphone.

The camera lens is indented into the plastic so it will not be scratching up against anything. the Microphone is a pin sized hole right next to it. The left side contains a pin sized reset button, the USB Mini port and the insert for the Micro-SDHC card. The micro SDHC card must be purchased separately and can run from $25 to $50 dollars depending on the size, class and brand.

The camera is easy to use, the lower working buttong is the on button and once the camera is on the LED will light up. You can then take a picture just by clicking the top button. You can begin filming by holding the top button until the LED blinks then release the top button. The camera will begin filming but beware that the LED will be off while filming, so you will not have feedback it is on. If the camera is out of battery, the LED will come back on and blink and turn off. If you miss this occuring you will be unaware that the camera is off.

Charging the unit is easy you just connect it to your PC, click the "ON" button and leave it attached to your PC. The micro camera will charge however there is no indication that it is completed, the documents specify that it takes approximately 90 minutes. Also, the SD card should be inserted while doing this as I was told it does not always charge if it is not inserted. I also found that you need to make sure you clicked "ON" as it did not seem to charge for me one time without doing that even though the light was on. The specificaitons state that the unit will work for about an hour.

The camera can also be used as a web cam according to the documentation if you download and install a special driver. I have not used this feature and do not plan to as I already have a web camera. The camera by default will act as a USB Flash Drive and allow you to read the contents of the Micro SDHC card. This will allow you to copy and delete files without removing the MicroSD card from the camera.

The files recorded are in AVI format and are quite large. One minute worth of video is around 57MB, which means for an 8GB SD card you can record approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes provided the scaling is linear. The MicroSD card simply states it does 1 hour of recording so either way you should be able to get a solid hour.

The camera takes good quality video, specially for its size, however the camera does best outdoors than indoors unless its very well lit up. There is a video below which does show the camera in action both indoor and outdoors.

The microphone is a bit sensitive and perhaps something like putting tape over it may help. Getting used to where to point the camera also takes some time and you have no way of viewing the camera obviously until afterwards to know if you pointed it in the right direction. There is also a date and time marked on the video which will usually be incorrect. The method of Setting the date can be found on their website.

PROs
  • Inexpensive
  • Good quality picture
  • Easy to use

CONs
  • Very little user feedback
  • No ability to tell current charge status

The CONs are hard to knock the camera since its so small and inexpensive. The more bells and whistles that go on the until would also increase the cost. All in all, so far the camera is a great item, have not taken it on the trails yet though which is the reason I got it! The Micro Camera

 
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