Santa brought our 8 year old daughter a camera for Christmas, and here is our review. Let me just preface this blog with 2 things:
For some reason, the camera I used to make this video, the Sony ZV-1, is playing up. The videos stutters, and its kept overheating whilst I was shooting in 4K (as I always do), despite me altering the settings. I don't really know what to make of all this at present, but I didn't want to re-shoot, so please bear with me when the video intermittently stutters.
This video is best viewed and considered from a kid's point of view. If you want a seamless experience with great image quality that you can use to print large pictures for example, a kid's camera is not something for you.
To that end, my daughter loves this thing. If you were to buy it in a store, it would cost about $70. It seems to be about 4 years old, and may in fact be hard to get. Apparently Santa did not realise that there is a newer version called the Kidizoom Duo 5.0. The difference is the sensor basically. The newer version has a 5MP sensor, and this one has a 2MP sensor.
This camera actually feels nice in the hand, and has all the features that a kid would want. And I mean a kid. Flash, digital zoom, games, filters, frames, a selfie camera, and the ability to shoot video. None of these are actually necessary or are of good quality, In the hands of a seasoned photographer, in good light, you can get an image which you could probably get to 4x6 size before it gets really pixellated. The shutter lag makes it nigh on impossible to take action shots. The selfie camera is only 0.3MP. A low-end iPad easily outdoes all of these, but costs at least 5x more.
Kids who are less fussy will love this camera because it's fun to use. And it looks cute. Adults will be happy because their kid loves this camera. And having to buy rechargeable AA batteries (rather than the camera having a built-in rechargeable battery) is a minor nuisance. Getting the images off this camera is straight forward, although I don't know what you'd actually do with them.
In our video, we include samples of images and video under different conditions, and you will probably agree that the image quality is average at best. And the video is pretty much unusable. But, let me repeat, the kids will love this thing. I am wondering whether the 5MP version is a significant upgrade? I'm thinking that this camera is a great way to introduce the kids to the world of photography, and that the next camera for ours will probably be something like a waterproof compact, which costs about $200-300, but has significantly improved specs and image quality.
Let me know what your thoughts are on this camera is someone in your family has one. Until next time,
D