Meade LS 8-Inch ACF (f/10) Advanced Coma-Free Telescope

Someone finally made an easy to use telescope. My Meade etx-90ec got probably 4 hours use in the last 10 years. We used the etx-ls for 4 hours already in one night. The alignment process is very simple and takes about 8 min. You don't even need to be around for the process. Mine came with software version 1.6a, the very latest as of today, and I've had no issues. You can buy a cheaper scope and you can buy a better scope, but this will be the most used scope. Great job Meade. There are a lot of features I'd like for this scope, but overall it's just about perfect.

UPDATE (12/13/2010):

Telescope broke rather quickly. It was working great, then one day it just started giving a power error and the LCD stopped working. I tried to get it up and running again, but ended up having to send it into Meade (what a pain to ship it back!). Hopefully things work out, because the scope was awesome while it worked.

UPDATE (1/5/2011):

Got the telescope back. It's even more broken then before I sent it in. I was having power errors before, so I went to check that repair, but the scope can't even find GPS satellites now. I called the company I ordered it from (not amazon), and it's past their 30 day return window, so I'll have to deal with Meade more to get it fixed.

Meade's response was to ask me to reload the firmware onto the telescope and to try to realign the camera. I don't quite know why realigning the camera would have any affect whatsoever on acquiring GPS satellites, but their customer service agent said it's just the way it works. Which, translated in my head means, "please just figure this out on your own since this is my first day on the job." I don't understand how a telescope that is designed to just work out of the box and take care of itself now requires me to be realigning CCD cameras and putting the exact same firmware on it that it already has on it. I'd also like to point out that when the telescope was returned to me there was a checklist where their QA department tested everything. Either they aren't doing their job or the telescope got damaged being returned.

I have had my LS-8 for about 7 months at the time of this writing. Overall, I am giving it 5 stars. It is perhaps the best telescope I have ever owned (currently own 6 scopes).

When set up in a relatively open area, it does its magic very well. Simply turn it on, and in around 10 minutes it will be aligned and ready to go. GOTO's and tracking are excellent. The optics are exceptional, as I have come to expect from most Meade products. The appearance and workmanship is outstanding.

I should mention mine came with firmware update 1.6a which seems to have solved the problems reported by early purchasers.

Now, for some specifics. The GPS unit is very sensitive to where the scope is set up, and if there are any large objects nearby, you wont get a GPS fix. The way around this problem is to keep batteries installed in the LS. These will maintain the date, time and location. So in setup, you just tell the scope to NOT use GPS, and it will go through the alignment process just fine. And yes, use an external power source do not rely on the internal batteries because they will be used up too quickly.

The other thing to look at is stability. The scope shakes a bit more on its tripod than other scopes I have used of this size. This is a potential problem when focusing. I ended up purchasing a Meade electronic focuser attachment and this solves the problem nicely, albeit at a price of around $250.

The LS meets many needs. For the aging experienced amateur (me), the automatic alignment is a godsend, saving the pain of assuming contorted positions to center alignment stars. And the GOTO's and tracking are excellent so you simply sit in a chair and let the scope do all the work. And the optics are as good as I have seen in this design.

For outreach at star parties, the LS's talking feature is a great attraction for people.

For the newcomer, it is not a bad choice provided that you are comfortable using computer and electronic technology. Trying to learn your way around the night sky can be daunting the LS does the work for you, giving you time to simply observe. And in time, you will learn your way around the stars.

So, while not a perfect telescope. what it does do has earned it 5 stars.

Buy Meade LS 8-Inch ACF (f/10) Advanced Coma-Free Telescope Now

Just got this today. I was rather worried given the feedback on earlier versions. But the firmware version 1.6a does just what they promised. Well packaged, it arrived in great shape and did not need collimation. The set assembles easily and quickly and is not a heavy load I can carry the entire assembly in both arms without straining. The startup was a bit scary because it asked to reload firmware but after that the software runs fine. GPS was less sensitive than my car GPS and would not align in cloudy skies but did just fine when I tried it later in the evening. The Goto works like a dream and slews to objects just fine, though it will need centering once I figure that out. I bought the Meade 4000 eyepiece set and it got the kids and I up and running observing Jupiter immediately. Overall I am totally satisfied with this purchase and would highly recommend it. It is also a relief as I live in Singapore and would not be able to return it easily if it wasn't working. Well done Meade! (just need to sort out the firmware message)

Update 31/7/2011

Turns out the firmware message did mean a problem. The firmware did crash in the end. However I would say that the Meade telephone support is not half bad. This is important as I do not want to send the telescope back if I can avoid it. Basically needed to reload the firmware. I did this using a microSD card in a miniSD adaptor (2GB)downloaded the firmware through the Autostar software then transferred the card to the telescope miniSD slot and turned it on. Once the firmware reloads, the telescope is back to normal. Just a point to note, you may have to download the firmware more than once to get it properly set up on the miniSD card. I suggest keeping a dedicated miniSD card with the telescope so it can be ready for use if required not had to repeat the firmware reinstallation since I did it but you never know. The version is still 1.6a, which does the trick just fine. As it is an automated telescope, it helps to be somewhat computer literate just in case something happens.

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I enjoyed the ETX-LS 6 ACF so much I upgraded to its bigger brother, the LS 8 ACF. The increase in light gathering over the 6 is apparent, yet its still very portable. The GPS issues are a thing of the past, I have done test after test and it has worked 100% of the time. The GoTO accuracy is wonderful, I can consistently put objects in the field of view of a 14mm eyepiece. I love the ability to interface the telescope with a computer without the need for adapters or expensive programs, it worked without a hitch with free programs like Stellarium. The Meade optics continue to impress me, and the ACF optics are fantastic, so much so that I can honestly say that I'll never own a standard SCT again. I've been use to the Astronomer Inside feature from the earlier ETX-LS 6, and not much has changed with the LS 8 ACF, its still fun and downright informative, and a big hit when your sharing the view with family or the public during star-parties.

I recommend a few things. One, obtain a large PowerTank, the largest you can get to supply power to the LS 8 ACF, batteries just aren't going to cut it. Two, get an AC adapter, so you can plug it to power from home or a camp site. Three, purchase a miniSD card. I purchase a Kingston from Amazon. You will need this to upgrade your firmware if needed down the line. I used 1.6a, and its been very solid for me.

Some things I didn't like. The finder LED is too bright, and the tinted plastic makes centering challenging sometimes. The AutoStar Suite is outdated software, just use Stellarium like I do. There is some vibration noticeable when your focusing with this telescope. This has more to do with single-arm 8" scopes then anything else, the Celestron's have the same issue with their 8" models, this direct from some of their owners. Although this initially was irritating to me, I don't even notice it anymore.

All in all, the LS 8 ACF has great optics in a very portable package that has made stargazing downright easy and fun, from novices to experienced observers. If your a visual observer like me, I can't imagine you not enjoying the LS 8 ACF. Big Fun.

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I received my Meade LS 8" ACF two weeks ago fom another dealer, but I only took it out yesterday, 3-30-2010. Upon switch on, the handbox controller read:

"LS 1.4a

Flash error

Reload firmware".

In spite of this message, it proceeded to align, supposedly finished the alignment, but was way off. I shut it down, and repeated the procedure.

Same error appeared, but the alignment seemed better, so I did a "goto" Mars.

Mars was not in the field of view (FOV) of the supplied 26mm eyepiece. I managed to get Mars in the FOV after 7-8 manual movements at speed 5.

Next "goto" Saturn: nothing in view, could not get to Saturn although I could clearly see Saturn with naked eye.

I tried the Meade webside to see if I could reload the firmware LS 1.4a. It does not exist. Meade's customer service says they do not have the firmware either, and the only option is to send the scope back for a replacement!

Is this a joke or what?

If the new one works it promises to be fun.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro 4/3 Digital Camera & 14-42mm II Lens (Black/Black) with 40-150mm Lens +

This a light weight, smaller, highly functional, easy to use, weather resistent camera. I'm a adventure motorcycle rider and the camera meets all of my requirements. The package I bought included the camera several lenses, tripod, etc., etc. The extra lenses are probably not really necessary with this particular camera. I wished I had bought an 18 200 lens rather than the 14 42. I have to change lenses too much in the middle range.

I was looking to upgrade my camera, from the E-500, I purchased in 2006.

The E-M5 takes beautiful pictures! The two lens kit is a must have, just as with the E-500. The 14-42mm lens allows you to take pictures at a normal distance. The 40-150mm lens allows me to take close ups of the children's Christmas program, from the balcony!

The rest of the kit has everything to get you going, two nice Vivitar filters, to protect your lenses, a 32 GB SD card, camera case, and more. I am not impressed with the Zeikos brand accessories. They are very cheaply made. If you spend the money to purchase the E-M5, you need to invest in a Slik Pro tripod, and a Promaster cleaning kit. I haven't used my card reader, yet. The card wallet is a cheapy, but handy!

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Happy with my purchase.Service is excellent.great bundle.Had some problems cutting my screen protector to fit the screen.Should have come in a customized or right size.it does not fit and now has a lot of air bubbles under.

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This bundle just great for newbie like me. I got every basic things on hands at once. And I am learning how to shot :) . 32 GB SD card more than enough for me, and those lens I played with all time.

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Vivitek D940VX 4300 Lumen XGA DLP Projector

I did not personally use this projector. It was purchased as a replacement for one our recreation department was using. Same brand and they loved it.

I buy these for work and we have them running 24/7. They last for about 15 months with the original factory bulb, but when the bulb burns out, we've replaced it with a new bulb and the picture is very dim, pretty much not usable. Remember, we use it 24/7 so this may not affect your application and it lasted over a year...

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Sanyo Xacti HD1010 4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

For the last few weeks I have been searching for as many reviews as I could on the Sanyo HD 1010 to help me make a decision on which camcorder to purchase. Because I could only base my decision on the 4 reviews that I read here (which did help immensely), I thought I'd share my opinion of this camcorder to help other potential consumers make up their mind.

I should tell you that I am a professional wedding photographer (still images, 14 years) so that you have a reference point of who's telling you what. I received the Sanyo HD 1010 3 days ago, and had the entire weekend to play around with it.

The quick answer: For my purposes, I love this camcorder. However, this camcorder is not for everyone-you should determine what you plan on using the camera for before deciding to purchase (see below, two paragraphs down).

My wife and I love to travel. I was looking for a camcorder that tooks great video, was portable and took decent still images. The 1010 does just that. I've looked at the Canon HF 100 and the Samsung HMX20C and they are also small, but the 1010 just feels smaller to me and more portable. I own a Sony PC9 which was a great camcorder in its day, but it has stayed at home the last five years. (I like to have a camera that I can put on my belt clip or is light enough to dangle from my neck.) The video's that I've used have come from point and shoot cameras that took decent video clips. The image quality (from the point and shoot cameras) is certainly not as good as mini DV, which the PC9 is, but it was always there for the taking. I only recently became interested in shooting better quality video as the size of these new camcorders have come down recently. Understand that I am not replacing my still camera (the Canon G7 is my travel camera) and don't recommend anyone to replace their still camera with this all in one camcorder. However, the 1010 does take nice stills (a little oversaturated, but quite acceptable). You obviously can only use one camera at a time, so when you are using the 1010 and want to snap a quick photo while you're shooting video or you stop shooting video, it's nice to know you can get a decent photo with this camcorder.

The reason this camcorder is not for everyone is the poor image stabilization. If the 1010 had optical image stabilization, it would be hands down perfect! Does this ruin it for me? NO. Most people have a tendency to overuse the zoom lens and pan too quickly. Most of my videos are taken at wide or mid range (travel, scenic footage and family gatherings). When I do pan, I hold the camcorder as steady as possible and SLOWLY pan, almost exaggerated. I do this whether or not the camcorder has image stabilization. You shouldn't rely on the image stabilization as a crutch. If you use good techniques for average subjects your videos will be fine. I shot 12 minutes of a family birthday party using the techniques I described and my videos were fine, no "motion sickness videos". However, if plan on buying the 1010 to videotape your young children or children's sports, I don't recommend this camera. That's where a good optical image stabilizer will shine.

Ok, my observations:

* As I said, I love this product. It produces beautiful videos, better than any camcorder I've ever owned. I tried all the different quality settings and decided to stick with the 1080i 60fps as my permanent setting. On this setting, I didn't see any artifacts, or lagging, when panning with image stabilization (IS) off. I really need to do some more comparisons with IS on, but this is my initial impression. I looked at my brother in law's HI Def Sony with him. He's a computer/techie expert and we looked together and both agreed on the same things. The 60fps settings on both the 1080i and 720i were better than the 1080p 30fps and 720p 30fps settings. I know everyone makes a big deal about the 1080p setting, but 60fps LOOKS better. It's smoother. The 1080i and 720i at 60fps are very close in quality on the High Def set, but on my 36 inch Sony, the 720i when panned had some artifacts (don't know why; didn't happen on the Hi-def set. I'm sure you techies know). But the reason I'm going to leave it on the highest quality is two reasons: 1.) You should always record at the best setting. You can always down convert, but you can't upconvert. 2. ) With the software(Nero 8) that comes packaged with the product, I am able to burn a standard DVD taken from 1080i 60fps footage. As others have said, I cannot view the footage at normal speed (views jerky) on my PC(windows XP, laptop, dual core), but I can still burn it un-edited to a DVD which plays beautifully. I don't have time anyway to edit videos on a PC. What I CAN do, is splice the mpeg 4 clips together in the camera (very easy to do!) and/or edit them in camera, and then burn to the DVD. It's not Hi-def quality, but it's DVD quality and still better than any other home video that I have ever produced. I plan on getting a separate USB drive to keep my "albums" in Hi-def and play them back on Hi-def TV, and use the DVD's as a lower quality (but still good) back up and/or to share with family/friends. FYI, the 12 minutes of footage took roughly 50 minutes to burn. Not bad! I haven't researched recording on to a Blu-Ray in Hi-def, but even if it's not till next year, the hi-def footage will be there when I'm ready to.

* I love the size. Not really pocketable as some people claim (a jacket yes, pants, no), but small enough to put on your hip or dangle from your neck (I use a Canon neckstrap made for their Elph camera's).

* You can "pull" high quality jpegs from your video footage. I was really amazed at how good the images are when you do this! Very clean and smooth.

* The holster case from Sanyo is so-so. It's ok for a house party or short term use, but the clip is not tight on the belt and there is nothing to prevent the camera from falling out if you snag the case on something or have excessive movement. I bought a UV filter to protect the lens and the lens cap does not fit very snug on the filter. The filter falls off EVERY time I put the camera in the holster. I will look around for an aftermarket case to use instead. I would not use the holster outside of the house.

* The controls/menus, etc, are GREAT. I have never had a camera that navigates so easily and quickly when looking to change settings. This is a big plus and not to be overlooked.

* I use a Transcend 8gb class 6 card and it works fine. Did not seem to take a long time to write the file to the card, but my longest clip was only 3 minutes. Maybe if I shot longer footage, a faster card would make a difference.

* Low light footage is FINE. People have complained about the grain in the low light footage. I don't have an issue with this. In very, very low light you are going to get grain. Of course! Here's my experience. I took my family footage at night at a well lit house (lighting from the ceiling, high-caps) and there was no grain. When we went to the dining room for the birthday cake singing, the lights went off, and a single candle lit the room. I had the camera ISO set to AUTO, which appears to me to set the lowest ISO that will take an acceptable video. That's the way it should be. Anyway, when the lights went off, the video went black for a split second until the ISO adjusted to the candle, and the video had some grain but was fine. It's not a professional camera. This low light problem that reviewers are complaining about is a non-issue. When the lights went back on, everything shifted back to normal.

* I had no problem with focus hunting. There was very little of it and it was not noticeable. There was one time when the camcorder shifted completely out of focus but only for a split second. It seemed no different from any other camcorder that I've owned.

* I'm thinking of getting the wide angle converter (for the travel usage), but don't really have an issue with the widest angle of view. Yes, I would have loved a 28mm equivalent, but the 38mm is fine.

* Battery life seems fine, not an issue. Again, haven't used it too much, but I did get two equivalent batteries on Amazon for twenty bucks.

* I find the pistol grip to be quite comfortable and easier to hold than the more common "palmcorders". Also, I use two hands to hold the camera and keep it steady. I keep my left hand on the LCD screen. This helps steady the camera and keep down the jerkiness when zooming in tight and also panning.

* The flash is pretty good. I was very surprised. However, I found that when I used the flash, it seem to oversaturate the image vs. when I turned the flash off and used natural light.

Conclusion: Great camcorder, great video results. Don't let the image stabilization issue stop you from buying this product unless your primary purpose is taking video of your young children and sports action.

This camcorder exceeded even my highest expectations. I have only had it a little over 24 hours but so far it has been incredible. the interface is very intuitive, the movie quality is, as far as I have seen, unsurpassed in a camcorder this size and price, and is everything its advertised to be (and then some).

Pros:

light weight

intuitive menu system

REALLY good screen

4MP digital camera

full HD camcorder

can take still pictures while making a movie (I love this feature!!!)

the WOW factor, because every-time I pull it out to use everyone around me goes WOW, what kind of camera is that. no one believes me its a HD camcorder!

so light and small it can fit in your car/purse/back-pocket/pez dispenser.

cons:

price for me this wasnt a issue. I was able to replace my camera and add a HD camcorder for a reasonable amount.

grip I would like to have seen the grip area be a bit larger. I have found a way to make it ft nicely in my hand, but if the grip was either larger or came with, say, a plastic extender maybe that you could put on the bottom it would be great. I have put the camera in 6 different peoples hands and they all said it felt nice after holding it for a few minutes. You just have to find a way that it is comfy for your hand size.

screen rotation the one and only thing , if I were the designers of the HD1010 that I would change (and now you'll see how nitpicky I am being). If the viewing screen would rotate to the front I could hold the camera in front of me, look at the screen and know I'm in focus / in the shot, and make a quickie recording. Sort of a looking at the camera, blair witch kinda shot. It only rotates to the top and bottom, not to the front. just a wishlist thing. thats the absolute worst thing about the camera so far.

Comparing it to all of the complaints of the HD1000, I can say everything that was complained about in the HD1000 has been fixed. Sanyo even admitted that this is not supposed to be a whole new model, only a upgrade to the HD1000. By that I mean all of the autofocus issues I read about with the HD1000 have been resolved. as a matter of fact I couldnt MAKE it have a focusing problem. I've tried low light, bright light, moving subjects, even the fan in my living room. everything focused perfectly.

The camera takes great pictures also. They turned out better than any digital camera I have ever used, albeit I have always used more of the personal point and shoot olympus / nikon type. Dark rooms, outdoors, inside with fluorescent bulbs, you name it the pictures have been better than what I expected.

Like I said, I have had 6 other people try using it, from my girlfriend with really small hands to a guy I work with who is 6'7" and has Andre the giant hands and they have all loved it. I have not told anyone how to use it. Just handed it to them and said 'I just got a new camera, try it out and see what you think.' With no instructions everyone has taken both movies, pictures, and had smiles while doing it. Its rare to find something electronic that anyone can use with no instructions given and the HD1010 is something you can use straight out of the box. It really is fun to use.

bottom line, if you are looking at getting a camcorder, this one deserves a close look. I am very picky when it comes to electronics, and I am amazed at what they have done with this camcorder/camera. Everything I expected when I ordered it has been greatly exceeded. Great camera, ease of use, quality of the product overall, and in the end quality of the movies it makes... you cant go wrong.

UPDATE

-------

thanks to everyone who mentioned you can rotate the lens to the front. I was wrong about that, you can! well, that pretty much zero's out the thing I wanted them to change so, my new complaint is that it doesnt come with Kevin Smith to make better movies with it :)

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Before HD camcorders became available I had a DV (tape based; standard definition) camcorder. The trouble with DV camcorders is that it is time-consuming to (1) import the movie into the computer and (2) encode it into a suitable format. Needless to say, because of the hassle I wasn't making very many home movies. Then I purchased an Xacti C4. This camera made a big difference. It was tiny, easily fit in the jeans pocket, the image quality was decent for an SD camera, and most importantly, no post-processing was needed! All you had to do was drag & drop files from the camera to the computer. No waiting for the tape to wind. No re-encoding needed either because the file format is already MP4. To watch the movie on TV all I had to do is drop the file into iTunes, then wirelessly stream the movie to AppleTV. It doesn't get any easier than this.

Then HD cameras became available. My first HD camera was Sony HDR-HC1. That's a pretty decent camera. But once again I wasn't making very many movies because HDR-HC1 is tape based, which means a time-consuming process is needed to transfer the movie and to encode to H.264 MP4 format. So I purchased an Xacti HD1010 hoping to repeat my success with the old Xacti C4 but in HD this time.

My first impression when I got the HD1010 was that it is larger and heavier than I expected. This is not a big camera by any means, but my expectations were set by the tiny Xacti C4, and compared to that camera the HD1010 seems big and heavy. It won't fit in my jeans pocket either (unlike the Sony HDR-TG1, the smallest HD camcorder available today.)

What about image quality? I shot a test footage in low light. I was not impressed with the image quality. Fine details seemed to be missing apparently due to heavy noise-reduction. I then decided to compare the HD1010 with my old Sony HDR-HC1. I held the Sony in one hand and the Sanyo in the other and simultaneously shot test footages using both cameras, in a semi-lowlight situation. Initially the Sony appeared to have much better image quality. But that was the raw uncompressed footage. I encoded the Sony footage into H.264 and adjusted the bitrate so that the resulting file is about the same size as the one from Sanyo. Now the Sony and Sanyo quality seemed comparable. In fact the Sanyo seemed to have more accurate color. But the big difference was in image stabilization. I didn't know how good Sony's image stabilization was until I compared it to the Sanyo. The Sanyo movie is very jittery. This is with Sanyo's image stabilization on, and with zoom set to 1x. For HD camcorders stabilization is important, and the HD1010 disappoints in this department.

Another disappointment was that although the MP4 files from the Sanyo are compatible with QuickTime they are not compatible with AppleTV. AppleTV expects 720p 24 fps (frames per second). Sanyo supports 720p but it uses 30 fps, not 24 fps. As a result the file has to be converted before being streamed to AppleTV. It is easy enough to convert using iTunes, but it takes a long time. The resulting file is 960x540 not 1280x720 because iTunes gives priority to preserving the fps and at 30 fps AppleTV only supports 960x540.

I like the fact that this camera comes with a soft case. For comparison Sony charges $50 extra for a soft case for their competing HDR-TG1.

Bottom line: I am a little disappointed because the camera is bigger and heavier than the Xacti C4, the files are not immediately compatible with AppleTV, and most importantly the image stabilization is poor, which means you have to use a tripod. For comparison the Canon HF10 has optical image stabilization and it has a 24 fps mode, both of which would have helped me. The Canon is more expensive but it has 16GB of internal memory which HD1010 doesn't.

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I've had the HD1010 for 2 weeks now, I have fiddled with most of the features and used it mainly for filming my kids. I am a Mac user so I can't tell you about the windows software that comes bundled with it.

This is a very good little camera, its small enough to carry in your pocket (I wear cargo shorts a lot) and it has great start up and ready to shoot times (the time it takes you flip open the screen when in sleep mode, a few seconds more when complete off.

First the bad.

To date (Aug 7, 2008) 1920 x 1080 /60 fps does not work with any software I have on my mac (imovie 08, VLC player, Visualhub video converter). Nothing, it shows a green screen or a static partial video fields with audio. I think this is a codec issue that will work it self out in later releases of the software. I emailed Sanyo tech support 2 days ago and still no reply. I am not impressed with them at all.

All other formats 1920x1080 /30, 1280x720 /60, 1280x720/30, 1280x720 /60, 640 x480 /60, 640x480 / 30, 448x336 /300

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Nikon COOLPIX P330 12.2 MP Digital Camera with 5x Zoom (Black)

Just a few thoughts after a week of limited use.

I wanted a point & shoot camera that would fit in my pocket to carry at all times. I am a pro photographer but don't want always to be hauling a bag of heavy DSLR's around. But the camera had to have the following:-

1. Small and well made.

2. 24mm equivalent lens at the short end. Didn't care much about the tele end so 120mm was more than enough for my needs.

3. Need WiFi connection so could fire and view what camera was seeing from my cell phone or tablet.

4. Needed RAW file format.

5. GPS nice addition but not the most important thing for me I could live without it.

Well the P330 has all the above and I can tell you that can be hard to find in a small point and shoot (I consider the Canon G15 too big and besides I have a G11).

Noise levels seem low at 400 ASA I have not tested at higher ISO's but hardly ever use them. In Photoshop CS6 the noise in a blue sky looked good and with noise reduction applied it then just about disappeared. I have the noise set to LOW in the camera as didn't want to softern the image although that may not happen with this camera. There is a LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH setting for noise.

I found setting the aperture hard to figure out as I kept mis-reading the book. In Apperture Priority or Manual the aperture is set by turning the 4 way controler on the back of the camera and I was pressing different sides of this wheel.

The ON/OFF button is flush with the top of the camera body so it is best to turn on or off the camera by using a finger nail tip rather than the pad of the finger. It is designed this way (I guess) to stop the camera being accidently turned on or off during use.

Images seem sharp and what you see on the view finder (no viewfind eyepeice) is what you get as far as exposure goes.

I put a 64GB SanDisk 45MB/sec card in it and that works fine. Thats about all I can contribute for now. I am sure more detailed reviews will appear shortly. But I'm happy with this well made and good looking camera.

Oh, I do have one issue with Nikon. There appears to be only the limited VIEW NX2 software (that came on CD with the camera) to convert the cameras RAW files (NRW format, not NEF) into TIFF or JPEG. I think Nikon could have updated CAPTURE to co-inside with this camera launch. It does not even appear to be included in the next Adobe Camera RAW conversion update for Photoshop. Too many RAW formats nobody can keep up apparently even the camera manufactures. That's as of today April 2, 2013.

Correction: As of today April 4, 2013 Adobe have just released Camera RAW update 7.4 and included the NRW format used by the Nikon P330yea!!! It appears to see the camera as the Nikon P6000 but looks to be making the corrections OK. My earlier information was incorrect. Life just got a whole lot better for NRW shooters, which is the only way to go for serious picture takers. JPG's are fine for snapshots.

New Update June 14, 2013: Adobe just added the P330 to their ACR lens corrections a few days ago (around 6/7/2013). I took the camera to Thailand and used it daily where it replaced DLSR's and tripod some days unless I was planning something serious. I set the ISO to Auto, something I would not do for serious photography but liked the results better than flash, which is unpredictable for quick pickup and shoot pics. I know many would disagree and that's OK but as a pro I find I have to take several shots before the flash lights the subject just right, unless you get lucky. I have a very high regard for this little dude. Of couse it's not perfect what is?. It may not be your personal first choice but with its W/A lens (24mm on 35mm camera) and slips into pocket unnoticed, I'm just glad I laid my money down.

April 9, 2013 I will update this review as I continue to use this camera. Here are my initial reactions.

I debated the Canon S110 and Nikon P7700 but ultimately decided to choose the P330 due to its size and positive leaning initial reviews/previews. This camera is constructed well. Some don't like the finish or material feel, but I'd like to push back and say that the whole body of the camera is well designed and feels quite solidly built. My only gripe is the battery door, but I'm willing to bet that Nikon ensured that it would survive most situations thrown at it. I like that the camera is simply a box, it looks like a camera with no frills, no gimmicks. It functions like this as well.

Nikon menus are familiar to me and they are well appreciated when it comes to basic electronic usage/knowledge. The logic is good, and it just plain works. The display is bright and can be seen under sunny conditions when used. The buttons and dials deliver a satisfying click-feedback. The rubber grips on the front/back provide a lot of comfort and confidence for one handed shooting. This camera is a lot smaller than what I expected, and that's a great thing because that's why I bought it!

Auto-mode seems well acquainted for people and landscape shots in decent lighting. Go in close and try macro out, you'll need to help it by setting the auto-focus to close shooting. Immediately, the camera will become a macro master in this mode. The burst mode is fast and quite impressive. My overall impression of the speed is very good considering the size of the camera. I remember when point and shoots simply couldn't take decent pictures due to their shutter speed (or lack of). You can select a shutter speed that exceeds any allowance of light entrance, to me, that's impressive.

The flash is very intense and quick, mostly good for those situations where there is no alternative light source and you're taking a picture of a medium range subject. I actually found that in most cases, it wasn't needed at all. The camera lens takes up a lot of work for lower light situations. This makes me appreciate the fact that the flash is opened by a mechanical switch, because it helps me decided whether or not its needed, instead of the camera making a bad decision for me.

Video is impressive and the VR really improves any jellies that might come about. I'm impressed by the quality and autofocus. Really excellent stuff, Nikon.

Overall, this camera is really great for someone who appreciates DSLR quality but doesn't want to haul all their gear with them all the time. Would highly recommend so far.

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This is going to be a long review but before I start, I don't want to scare anyone.. this camera is not hard to use, anyone could use it.

However, I want to emphasize how this camera could satisfy a most hard core photographer among us, even those who shoot in manual and RAW modes.

This review is from a photography enthusiast. I am a hobbyist, not a pro, but I am serious about my hobby. I own cameras like the Nikon D600, D5100, Olympus m4/3 system and their excellent e-pm2. I've owned Canon DSLRs and SLRs, even their tiny ELPH 300, I've started with photography in early 90s, with a 35mm Nikon FM2 camera.

Let's start with the reason why anyone serious about photography would buy this camera. The word is: size. If you're looking for image quality, value, control, feel.. DSLRs, m4/3 cameras have that. But what they all lack is the ability for you to put the camera in a pocket and always have it on you. But would it be possible to still retain some of the control "big" cameras offer even in a tiny pocketable point and shoot camera?

I started my search for an advanced point and shoot few months back and everything led me to the Sony's excellent rx100. But something kept me from pulling the trigger and getting it. Maybe it was the $650 price tag. And it's not that I couldn't afford it, but I wanted something I wouldn't have to baby. If I dropped it, I wouldn't be too upset about it. Something in a small package that could give near enough decent pictures bigger cameras can produce and give me the control that I want.

I have not considered many Canon options, just because I am not a fan of the Canon UIs. I have owned multiple Canons in my life and they were all fine cameras, it's just not my preference. So keep that in mind, there may be a Canon camera out there that may suit you better, I just haven't considered it for personal (and subjective) reasons.

I have however considered cameras from the following manufacturers: Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Fujifilm and Ricoh. After a lot of deliberation I came down to the following choices.

Sony:

rx100, pound for pound champ, point and shoot. Huge image quality from a tiny camera. Not without its issues. Sony UI is not the most intuitive to me. Battery life may be of a concern, however ~300 shots is plenty for me. It is slightly bigger than the Coolpix P330 and like I explained slightly more than I wanted to spend.

Panasonic:

Lumix LX-7. Great camera. This was the closest contender. I handled one actually from a friend who owns one. Camera feels solid, I thought it felt better than Coolpix P330. It is bigger as well though. This was the main concern, as well as the issue of a lens cap. Although the latter has a solution in form of a foldable lens cap that can be obtained for ~$10. Fantastic Leica lens as well. There was even a recent sale of this camera at $300. Similar sensor size as the P330 and without any scientific tests I am assuming should be capable of similar if not better picture quality properties as the P330.

Since size was the main criteria for the pick, here is the reference comparaison tool that I used to drive my decision:

I have received the camera few days ago and have put it trough its paces. I mostly shoot in manual mode on my DSLRs but I do like Aperture Priority as well on my smaller cameras. I exclusively shoot RAW, as I enjoy post processing and the flexibility RAW files provide in post. I would have been happy with just the ability to disable noise reduction but having RAW is so much better. On the topic of Noise Reduction. I am not a fan of it, I don't like how it tends to turn images into mush. I would much rather have noise, and convert the image to black and white if the noise was an issue. I find it quite annoying that point and shoot cameras or smart phone cameras don't have a way to disable noise reduction.

Pros:

Size. This camera is not only tiny and easily fits in my pockets, it is also very light. (I've uploaded an image of the camera next to my D600 for size comparaison)

Relatively fast lens (good low light performance). f/1.8 at the wide end, similar to the rx100 in aperture.

RAW support. It is so nice having this. This means you can rescue badly exposed images and manage the tonal quality not possible with jpegs.

Manual Exposure: ISO, shutter speed, aperture size are all easy to adjust. If you want to get creative and do some light painting you can. The camera even has a Neutral Density filter option. Haven't had a chance to test it yet.

1/1.7" sensor and low megapixel count. Bigger than the 1/2.3" sensor size which ships in most point and shoot cameras, combined with lower than average megapixel count. Means, photo cells on the sensor can gather more light, resulting in better low light performance (less noise). I am getting relatively low levels of noise at ISO 800, and ISO 1600 is better than expected. I commend Nikon for electing to go with a low megapixel sensor despite the trend of "more megapixel the better" marketing nonsense!

The screen is nice and bright.

If you're a Nikon shooter, you'll feel right at home with the settings menus.

Flash. Nikon has long been known for great Flash implementations. I feel the Flash provided is great. And I have achieved great results with it.

All this combines and creates a sum of a very capable advanced point and shoot camera. The image quality I am getting has exceeded my expectation. The pros I have listed far outweigh the cons I am going to list. Most of the cons are not serious flaws, and should be considered there because of the tradeoff of creating such a small camera with these capabilities.

Cons:

Sluggish AF. There is a 4 second delay after you take a photo in RAW mode. During that time you can't shoot an image, but you can't even get a focus lock either. This is the most annoying of the flaws. Since there is no buffer, this means that if you miss the shot, you're done.

UI can appear sluggish at times as well.

The big unmarked dial to the right. I feel it's somewhat underutilized, it often doesn't do anything depending on which mode you're operating in. Yet it's a nice dial, with a decent tactile feel. I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity here as it could have been programmable. Since I only shoot in AP mode, I don't get to use either top dials much, and I like dials. I would much rather use it, than the dial on the back around the OK button.

On/Off button, probably the biggest flaw, and it's maybe just an issue with my copy of the camera. But there is a tactile disconnect between the click sound you get when you click it and the camera actually getting the signal to turn off or on. After you push the button you have to push even more for it to register your command. Since it's a pocket camera, I'd rather have it be little harder to turn on by accident though. The lens extending in your pocket could be awkward, so it's not that big of a deal I guess.

FN button operation was unintuitive to me. I am used to designating its function in the menu and then just using that function with it. But FN actually lets you pick a different option which I feel takes away from the usability of the function. Can't complain much though, I am glad to have this option at all on a point and shoot.

Lack of a stand alone battery charger. I think a camera in this category should have this. Even my ELPH 300 had this, and it's a category below the P330.

Build quality feels ok. But just ok. People complain about the battery/sd card door, but I don't have an issue with this. The battery door is spring loaded and metal. Not sure what the issue is. I appreciate how light the camera is.

Another missed opportunity I think is with the flash. I think it could have been bouncable. Like the rx100 has a small flash which can be tilted upwards to bounce the light off the ceiling, or a side in portrait holding position. This is nitpicking though. A business card does the trick.

In conclusion: Anyone looking for an advanced point and shoot camera cannot go wrong with the Nikon Coolpix P330 in my opinion. The camera punches above its weight in the current market.

edit: couldn't link to the actual camera size comparaisons since Amazon doesn't allow it. Google camerasize website if you want to compare for yourself.

edit: It looks like the free software that ships with the camera Nikon NX2 automatically corrects lens distortion when developing RAW files. I have removed the following item from the list of Cons to reflect this, but will keep it in the review in case anyone runs into this:

" Lens distortion. This is not really a con, since you can't really expect corrective lens elements in such a small zoom lens. When shooting jpeg, this is corrected by the camera. But when you shoot RAW you get the actual data sensor sees. And from this you can tell the vignetting and the lens distortion is quite pronounced. This is easily correctable in post processing software like Aperture or Lightroom. Currently Lightroom doesn't have a profile for the lens, but manual correction works ok for the time being. It's something to keep in mind for all of us RAW shooters. And hopefully Adobe will add the lens correction profile for this camera in the future."

EDIT UPDATE 2:

After taking the camera out for shooting over the weekend. I have realized it is not the most responsive of cameras. In fact Auto Focus can be quite stubborn about not locking focus and I have missed quite a few shots due to shutter lag and general sluggishness. I feel as an advanced compact the camera should be more responsive, because what good are all the features if you miss the shots? I am going to knock a star of my review for this reason.

Read Best Reviews of Nikon COOLPIX P330 12.2 MP Digital Camera with 5x Zoom (Black) Here

After my Sony RX100 went back for repairs (under warranty) for the second time, I bought this as a backup camera. For about half the price of the Sony it does an excellent job. Image quality is sharp. The litmus test is low light with no flash and it still excels. Both boot and focus times are very good. RAW capabilities exist but WiFi unfortunately is an option. I have always shot in Auto mode to date as well. Basically this is the same size as the Sony, half the price but definitely not half the image quality. Having both cameras now, I would not spend the extra cash for the RX100. If you're looking for a compact camera as your primary or DSLR backup in this price range I recommend the Nikon.

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If you had a P300 you were probably very happy with it. P300 always took very good low light photos, but there was a lot of noise processing, making pictures somewhat soft. P330 with a larger sensor and options to regulate noise reduction help make photos even better. I was not near US so I couldn't buy the camera from Amazon, I bought it in Hong Kong.... for about $20 more. I also considered Olympus XZ-10, as they had it available in Hong Kong. It is a nice camera, but I found some sample pics on the internet that raised concerns about quality of daytime pics in bright light. So I chose to stay loyal to Nikon and I don't regret it. I haven't had too much time to test it fully, but so far I am impressed with speed of focus, excellent macro, great low light capability. Only thing I would trade is GPS for a function ring on the front. Build quality is fantastic. Overall, especially for the price and compactness, a great pocket camera.

I did notice some comments regarding the power button. I have no fingernails to speak of, and I have zero problems turning the camera on. Yes, you have to give it a solid press... it is a mechanism to prevent the camera from turning on in you pocket by an accidental press (your finger will go on the power button when you pull it out of the pocket), possibly breaking the lens. There is a slight lag in the first set of menus, but once you get in the menu there is no lag, in any case that can be resolved by a firmware update. I think the quality is great. Camera turns on quickly, playback is instant. No issues. In the end, in this segment people are in it for the compactness & picture quality. I think this camera delivers great value for the price.

I just found this link so I wanted to add it It may help with the decision. I am glad I chose the P330.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-F7 2.1MP Digital Camera w/ Leica Lens and 2x Optical Zoom

This is my first digital camera I've had it for over a year and overall I have been happy with the purchase. I particularly like the metal case it is very sturdy (has survived a few falls already), nice and compact, easily fits in a front jeans pocket. Also nice is the rechargable battery: you plug a power supply straight into the camera so no need for an external charger. Now for the photo quality in general, the photos come out quite well, sometimes they are a little grainy, but they are good for computer use and printing onto standard photo size is usually comparable to a regular camera. I would consider buying another panasonic camera when it comes time to upgrade.

I have a Canon PowerShot s230, and bought the Lumix for my mother for Xmas hoping to save some money and get a camera of similar quality. Sadly, I'm disappointed with the Lumix despite the savings.

For those familiar with the Canon, you know that it's a very effective digital camera experience. It's solid, sturdy, has a great interface and takes excellent pictures. The Lumix is none of these things.

Holding the Lumix in your hand is disappointing compared to the Canon. It's flimsy at best. There's no weight to it, but that's not a good thing. It feels hollow, as if it would really sustain serious damage if dropped or otherwise banged up. The case is stainless steel, like my Canon, but my camera's solid construction and obvious design superiority makes it a more satisfying experience. As I said, the Lumix is too light to feel dependable.

The Lumix experience, overall, was disappointing. There's no intuitive buttons on the body of the camera. It actually took me about 20 minutes to find the 'on' button. (it's actually more if you count me trying to find it two separate times). Nothing is clearly marked. To make matters worse, there is not only no "getting started" mini-manual in the package, but the instructions are confusing with about 1 out of every 10 words spelled incorrectly.

Finally, the operation of the camera resembles something that was designed and engineered in a rush by a company that doesn't really know what they're doing. The display on the rear of the camera is grainy, the operation of the device is sketchy, and, as I mention above, the interface of the buttons and display screen icons is confusing where it's not completely impossible to understand.

Can you tell I'm disappointed with my purchase? If you're in the market for a camera, go with the Canon. This camera seems like it's either the last deliverable of the last generation cameras, or a rushed-to-market early adopter model of the current generation. I'm very satisfied with my Canon and will definitely never advice anyone on anything else.

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Sony DPF-D92 9-Inch LCD WVGA 15:9 Diagonal Digital Photo Frame (Black)

This frame is better than most, however, I cannot give it 5 stars because:

the 15:9 aspect ratio (which is almost 16:9, the widescreen movie format) is no good!!! Most digital pictures are 4:3 or 3:2, therefore you will have significant areas of the screen wasted as black bars all the time!

the resolution 800x480 is not good enough! The pixels are rather large when you hold the frame in your hands.

red color is too saturated, and there is no control to adjust it. Skin tones come out unnatural.

the black frame looks disproportionally wide this just looks ugly.

Looking at DPF-D92 and DPF-D80 side by side, the D80 looks way better.

What an incredible, clear frame. Loads of options for accepting various digital media or you can load up the internal storage. Very flexible for photo viewing as well. My first frame was defective (a line of vertical bad pixels) but Amazon's groovy return policy got me hooked up with a perfect one within a few days. This is the best frame I have seen for picture quality and flexibility.

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i like:

1. i put film scanned and dsc pictures into it, all displayed well.

2. the internal 1GB memory holds more than 1000 (probably 2000) pictures if you choose to transfer picture from USB to photo frame internal memory

3. 15:9 LCD won't be a problem because there's a "fit to screen" display mode in this frame, thus fills the full LCD. some cuts may apply though

4. remote control is of good build quality (SONY's remote is always good quality)

i don't like:

1. buzzer is noisy, i then turned it off

conclusion: great value

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This is our second Sony digital photo frame, both bought for parents. We love the simplicity, easy to use nature. The picture quality is wonderful. When the first gift was such a success, we planned on buying the second for my parents, they both love them. We have already sent new pictures to the first frame to keep it up to date. The newest frame holds considerably more pictures, I won't tell my siblings or else we will do all of the scanning and editing.

The second frame was bought at Amazon, it is larger, and better price.

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I recently bought this frame and a Kodak D830 8" frame. After comparing the two with the same pictures, I'm returning the Sony.

It's not all bad. Build quality is first-rate. It feels heavy, substantial, solid, and expensive. The look is chic and minimalist, and it has a simple remote. Color balance is above average. There's a slight green push in the highlights and the gamma curve clips the higher whites. The only user-adjustable setting is the LCD brightness. From a distance of more than three or four feet, though, most pictures look pretty decent.

To me, the purpose of an LCD frame is to have an easy way to browse pictures without a computer. The Sony falls down here for two reasons: usability and image quality. The interface is not user-friendly at all. I'm a computer geek and I found it frustrating. The remote helps simply by having buttons with labels, but there's no way I'd ask my Grandma to figure it out.

Glare is a problem with the glass over the LCD. If you're holding the frame like a printed picture in a typical room, you'll see yourself and the lights around you in the glass. Contrast doesn't appear to be improved relative to the D830, so the glass is just a stylistic affectation. The aspect ratio is wider than any conventional picture, so if you set the frame not to crop, you'll always have some unused LCD area on each side. If your pictures are tightly-framed, cropping will cut off people's heads. The D830's screen is slightly taller and about an inch thinner than the Sony. Actual area is very similar despite the 1" difference in specification.

Things don't improve with the LCD itself. This panel has lowest color depth of any I've seen. Most TN panels are 6-bit and use clever rendering tricks to approximate the other 2 bits for smooth gradients. Sony doesn't seem to bother here; gradients look very much like those in a 256-color GIF. It's not obvious from a distance, but you can see dithering patterns if you're holding the frame. An exacerbating factor is that the presentation software has an awful resampling algorithm. There's no subpixel blending or antialiasing for curves, so every picture will have jagged edges. On shots with low detail, you might just notice it around someone's ears or the like. On high-detail shots or those with hard edges, it's a mess. The jaggies on my fireworks pictures are visible from over five feet away. I've posted a sample picture.

Perhaps as a result of the above, detail suffers. The Kodak frame only has 120 pixels of vertical resolution over this Sony, but you'd never know it on a comparison. The difference in detail is at least a factor of two, and the Sony's presentation is obviously pixelated. This is a deal-killer.

This Sony frame was about $30 more than the Kodak at Best Buy. Given that and the Sony name, the LCD's performance is inexcusable. I've given it three stars for the sake of build quality, color balance, and appearance from a distance. I can't think of any reason to buy it over the Kodak, which looks just as chic in white when the frame is removed, has a vastly superior user interface, and a screen that's as close to a photograph as any I've seen save for the one in HP's 12" frame.

Zacuto Z-Finder EVF Pro 3.2 inch High Resolution Monitor

After trying out various options including external monitors, I found this to be the all in one solution. Works great on my 5D mark ll as well as my XF100. Solid construction and an incredibly useful tool for all situations. Whether trying to achieve accurate focus, attain proper exposure, or ensure framing is spot on, the Zacuto EVF will exceed your expectations. The peaking and zebra functions are great and I am especially happy with the fact that Zacuto added a USB port for firmware updates which is something not regularly offered in products like this. Another bonus in using the Zacuto EVF is it can provide an extra point of contact when shooting with my DSLR. An all around great investment

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D-Link DCS-900 10/100TX Home Security Internet Camera

I bought this camera as a means to check my house while I am gone on vacation. I never heard of internet cameras before until recently while looking at PC catalogs. I ended up buying the DCS-900 because of the price and the good reviews I read here in Amazon.com. Let me tell what my experience has been so far.

Getting the camera setup on your local LAN is fairly straightforward. As long as you know the IP address of your router and how to do simple network configuration for the camera, you should be up and running in 10 minutes.

On the otherhand, configuring the camera for access from the web took me 2 days of searching for info on the Internet, emails to D-Link technical support, firmware upgrade for my router and constant rereading of the manuals and the D-Link Knowledge Base. Listen carefully because here's what they don't tell you about the product beforehand if you want access your camera from the web.

1) Camera's default port is 80. If you have Cable or DSL broadband, most ISPs do not allow access to port 80 to discourage their customers from setting up webservers on their network. You have to set the camera to some other port like 800 or so.

2) You must be comfortable with setting up your router and understand how port forwarding and virtual server table works. If you have a firewall, then you must make more configuration changes. Make sure you access to your broadband router and you feel comfortable making these changes. D-Link documentation only reference their own routers as examples.

3) If your broadband connection has Dynamic IP addressing which most cable and DSL subscribers do, you have to set up a Dynamic DNS account with services like DynDNS.org or TZO.com. There, you create a DNS address (i.e. ) that will map to the dynamic address of your broadband connection. The software on camera will perform updates to the Dynamic DNS for you if your IP address changes.

4) You will also need a static web service account for the ActiveX Xplug Control software to be located when accessing the camera. Essentially this is a place where you can host webpages onto for access from the Internet. My geocities.com account prevents me from uploading the xplug.ocx file onto the server w/o an upgrade to a premium account at this time.

5) Make sure your router has the latest firmware to support virtual servers. This was the last step that prevented me from making the camera visible on the net.

Soooo....after all these steps, I was very successful in getting my camera up and running just the way I want it. I think this is a great product and I highly recommend it. You do have to have a little bit of network experience to comfortably configure everything.

I can not give it the full five stars because I think the documentation was fairly lacking when it comes to describing what you need to do to set the camera up for Internet access. As a matter of fact, even the description for the camera setup itself was somewhat vague and very terse. However, once you get pass all that, I am happy to say that it all works well!!

Pros

Built in webserver

Reliable

Good Value

Good quality in good lighting

Cons

Hard to configure for novice users (was easy for me)

Heavy on system resources when recording video to hard drive

Picture quality is every grainy in low light

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first off, when I received the unit I thought it was rather big compared to the images on the websites. I wanted to share this advice for those people that does not know how to get this thing started. The original ip address of the unit is 192.168.0.20, which means if you have a home network set at 192.168.1.xxx or 192.168.2.xxx, etc. It will not be able to recognize the camera because it is in a different subnet. So you will have to set your laptop/desktop's ip address to that range between 192.168.0.1 through 192.168.0.254 except 192.168.0.20 (since that belongs to the dcs-900). once you launch the crappy wizard software it will recognize the camera's ip address so you can configure it to your home network address.

I hope this helped a lot of you. :) It only took me 2 minutes to configure this thing.

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I wanted to monitor a construction project in my apartment courtyard, but could not take time off from work. I decided to hook up a Internet camera to my cable modem so I could watch the progress from my desk. After some research I wound up buying the D-Link DCS-900. It was by far the least expensive camera, but it suited my purpose.

I set it up in a window overlooking the project and I was able to watch the workers rebuild the flagstone courtyard. On several occasions, I saw mistakes and was able to call the contractor on his cell phone. I know the project would not have turned out as well as it did if I didn't have this camera.

As others have pointed out, the photo quality is grainy and it will only work in well-lit areas, but if you don't want to empty your wallet, this is a great camera for the price.

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I have three D-Link cameras two DCS-900W and one DCS-950. All three required firmware updates, all three came with obsolete viewing software, two have had to go back for repairs (one 900W and one 950) --and they're giving me problems again. Unfortunately, they're 200 miles from here, and I can't easily get to them, so reliability is an issue with me.

Then there's the documentation issue. There's no hint of the fact that the latest version of their multi-view software (which lets you look at up to four cameras at the same time) doesn't work with anything under Windows XP, or that the only browser that works with the 950 is Internet Explorer. Local setup on a network is fairly easy, but going through a firewall creates problems, the least of which is that it is difficult to test from inside the network. The documentation mentions three ports that need changing, but doesn't explain much about what they do (and the 950 has a fourth port that the documentation doesn't even mention).

The DCS-900 descriptions mention motion sensing, but they don't tell you that this function has to be implemented remotely that is, the camera is set up to stream continuous video to a remote computer, and it is the computer that then monitors for motion and records it when detected.

As to video quality the 950 is fairly decent, but the 900 is much worse. The 950 has a mike for audio, and it works fairly well from inside the firewall, but I still haven't figured out how to access it from outside. And the FAQ on DLink's web site contradicts their manual.

I like the fact that D-Link supplies a program to view multiple cameras at the same time, but not all D-Link cameras work with the same program version, so you can't mix other models or brands. (The D-Link web site has a later version that supports both the 900 and 950 models, but this one has some installation problems and run-time errors.)

My overall impression D-Link rushed this out the door and it shows.