Creative NX Pro Purchased June 3, 2004, $49.99
Good camera, excellent quality, especially in bright light. Good quality image in dim light. This is probably the best camera within the $50 range. It's 640x480 image sensor gives good quality images in both full size and 320x240.
My chief complaint is lack of good white balance control. The only available settings are Auto, Fluorescent, Incandescent and Outdoor. There is no slider control for either white balance or hue. The camera has difficulty with incandescent color balance if there is a bright incandescent lamp directly in the camera view. This caused my room to look a bit purplish under certain conditions. Try to avoid having lamps behind you when using this camera at night. Daylight and mixed lighting white balance does very well.
All in all though this is a good camera and well worth the extra money over the NX. I would place this camera on a defiant list if you can't get the Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000.
Screen shots of camera configuration settings
Device
Advanced
 | Sample images showing how this camera performs under different lighting conditions |
640x480
Pluses
- Actual sensor resolution 640x480 CMOS
- Inexpensive
- Acceptable image quality and works fair in low light
- Mounts nicely on notebook screens
- Custom instillation option allows you to chose which parts of the software are installed. Drivers, applications, monitor
Minuses
- Very light weight, difficult to position, will tend to move from where you place it because of the pressure from the cord
- Camera not removable from mount so you can't mount it on a tripod or similar device
- Installation places links to AOL on desktop and in Internet Explorer favorites without asking
Specs (from Creative website)
- Color (640x480) CMOS image sensor
- Color format : I420 & RGB24
- Captures video in 24bit color AVI format
30 frames per second for resolutions up to 352x288 for Standard System
at least 25 frames per second for resolutions up to 352x288 for Minimum System
15 frames per second for resolutions up to 640x480 for Standard System
at least 12 frames per second for resolutions up to 640x480 for Minimum System
Captures stills At all resolutions up to 640x480
Interpolated still images at 800x600,1024x768 in BMP & JPG format
- Focus range of 6 inches to infinity
- Manual focus
- Field of view 52 degrees
- Physical Product Details
Pan/tilt angle : 360 degree / down 30 degree / up 15 degree
Dimension (desktop position) : 658mm(L) X 637mm(W) X 993 mm(H)
Weight : 145 grams (10 grams tolerance)
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