Vivitar ViviCam 5188 5MP CMOS, 8x Digital Zoom, 2" LCD Digital Camera (Black)

I bought this to test for an upcoming trip to Hawai'i (want an underwater digicam for snorkeling). I was initially impressed by the housing but the camera was awfully light. A quick inspection showed why. The SD port cover is a rubber "plug" (similar to the covers for USB ports, etc on most digital cameras). No big deal, but I could see it coming off with rough use. The menu was extremely basic and didn't even have an option to turn off the barely audible "beep" that followed each button press. You also couldn't change the length of playback which was barely a second. Switching "modes" resulted in the display disappearing while the change was made then reappearing (the first time I set flash to 'always on" the display didn't come back up for 5-6 seconds). "No big deal," I thought, since it was a $60 u/w digicam (I own a Nikon D200 so certainly wasn't expecting to use this on land). I took a few shots then pulled them up on the computer. Aye, there's the rub...

The shots are really quite poor. The lens may be fixed focus, but it's a relatively narrow cone in front of the camera. Approximately 60% of the image was out of focus. There's a noticeable circle in the middle that was reasonably focused with increasing fall-off towards the edges. Furthermore, the shutter speed was iffy at best. A shot of my refrigerator with flash "on" resulted in a very blurry picture. These shortcomings might be mitigated underwater, but I doubt it. Judging by my brief experience, I would strongly suggest avoiding this for any "meaningful" photography (above or below the water).

I give it 2 stars because it's probably ideal for a child as a first camera. The waterproof case was pretty tough and seemed to be up to the task of protecting the camera from rough handling. The poor picture quality would not be a huge issue for a child. The latch to open the case required enough dexterity that a curious child would not be able to open it on accident.

All-in-all, I could see a 4-6 year-old having hours and hours of fun with this at the beach or pool. Mom and Dad, on the other hand, are likely to be sorely disappointed.

While the quality of the camera is not state of the art, it is pretty decent for the price. My 12 year old daughter is thrilled with it.

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Even at the top level of fidelity, called FINE, the pictures have a lot of blurry areas because of image compression. End result is that the pictures with this 5M camera look worse that a similar picture with my 2M Canon. If they really have the 5M pixels on the sensor, they should improve the software to take use of this.

The only saving grace on the camera is the waterproof case. It is nice to take it rafting without having to worry about getting it wet. As soon as you hit dry land, however, dump this thing for a real camera!

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I got this because it was the cheapest underwater camera I could find. It worked great when I went snorkeling in Mexico, but then the clasp on the case broke and I haven't been able to fix it. It's worth taking a chance on this I think, just be very careful with the case. The video quality is actually very good for the price.

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I bought this camera to take to the beach and on canoe trips. for this it is great. No worries about it ever being ruined by the water, and the fact that it will take video with sound, even with the case on it was a plus. However I would not reccomend this as your everyday camera because it is slow and alot of the pictures(not all) will come out blurry. So I just usually snap two shots of everything. If you want a cheap, take to the beach camera, than I can reccomend this for you.