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Under 2 Megapixels

Argus DC3500 2MP Digital Camera

Argus DC3500 2MP Digital Camera

List Price: $149.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Take a chance on me!
Review: OK, I bought this camera when it was an AMAZON "Hot Buy!" One of my techie co-workers came running up to me and yelled, "Don't come crying to me when the lens falls out!!" Ha ha ha... It has 2+ megapixels and is perfect for around the house, at award ceremonies, for newsletters, websites and of course, EBAY.

I broke the Nikon 775 - the... digital camera, I borrowed from work. Yes that camera had better software - but it stops THERE.

The ARGUS is very compact, has an LCD screen and once you buy an additional card and card reader... you are SET to run with the big dogs!

If you decide in a year or two you have gone PRO, then by all means, [get] a NIKON, but for your learning phase, this camera ROCKS!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Value For The Dollar
Review: Paid just over a $100.00 for this 2.1 megapixel camera and its terrific.Very easy to use,great features for this price range.
Like all digital cameras,make sure you purchase some rechargeable batteries.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This Camera Does the Job!
Review: The Argus DC3500 is my first digital camera, so I am not in a position to compare it to any others. However, I can say that I am very happy with it. Two days after I purchased it I was displaying the pics I took on the web. Using the USB cable connection (included) I was able to download the pics from the camera to my computer in just a few seconds. I was expecting it to take awhile -- it did not.

The pictures are sharp and clear using the 800x600 normal print setting (there are others: 1600x1200, fine, and super-fine). The camera is very small and light, but it has a decent-sized LCD display that enables you to "see" the pic as you hold the camera a few inches away. It also has the traditional viewfinder found on most cameras. After you take each pic, the camera displays it for 2-3 secs so you can decide if you are happy with it.

The 8MB internal memory holds many, many pics (the manual says that at the 800x600-normal setting I should be able to take as many as 99 pics, but the LCD display shows 69, but that would certainly be more than adequate. The number drops as you use greater resolution settings.

The correct time is displayed in the LCD; however, the date, while correct in the camera, does not display correctly when I look at the information panel for the pics stored in my computer (I do not know why that is the case).

The camera takes 4 "AAA" batteries. I found an enormous difference between the alkaline batteries I used first and the rechargeable NiMH batteries I am now using. Don't even bother with alkaline -- go right to the NiMH batteries and you will be able to take quite a few pics, store them in your computer, and still have plenty of battery life to spare. But be advised: digital cameras are a high-drain item, so keep a spare fully charged set of batts ready to be used!

You may experience a glitch as I did after I installed the camera driver and tried to connect the camera to the USB port. The install process said it needed the pathway for a particular file. Now the file will be on your hard drive -- simply find the location of the file, enter it into the dialog box, and you will be on your way. (This may not happen to you, but if it does, I have given you the solution.)

All in all, I don't think you can beat this camera for the price. And unless you plan to take zillions of pics, the 8MB internal memory seems quite sufficient to me.

Please note that the User Manual for the camera recommends only SanDisk and Hitachi memory cards (compact flash cards used to increase the number of pics you can take).

I am very pleased with this camera, and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for solid value at a very low price.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Good Digital Camera Value
Review: The Argus DC3500 is the second digital camera I have owned. My experience with it thus far has primarily been shooting outdoors in bright sunlight. Under these conditions, the Argus has produced excellent photos with true to life color, equal in quality or often superior to various entry level film cameras I have used in the past. However, achieving these results required some experimentation with the White Balance and EV settings. The camera has a very bright flash which seems to be as effective as one would expect at close indoor ranges. The Argus is a very compact camera, which makes it easy to carry with you wherever you go. Its controls are fairly well placed and thought out and also reasonably easy to use. The video output which allows the photos taken to be viewed on a TV is a very useful feature which I especially like. The USB, rather than serial, connectivity to your PC for downloading pictures, is also a plus. I rate the overall quality of the camera to be above average.

I bought a 128 MB SanDisk CompactFlash memory expansion card because I found the standard memory supplied with the camera only allows taking about 6 photos in 1600 X 1200 resolution and low compression. A small memory seems to be typical of the majority of digital cameras being sold, so I don't consider this a major shortcoming of the Argus. The optical viewfinder of this camera affords a good field of view, but seems to require some practice in learning to accurately frame your pictures in it. Digital cameras tend to drain alkaline batteries all too quickly and the Argus is no exception. However, switching over to Nickel Metal Hydride batteries and limiting the use of the color LCD and flash results in adequate battery life. I feel that rechargeable NiMH batteries are a must for this camera. The color LCD produces bright, sharp images indoors, but is too dim even on the brightest setting when used outdoors in sunlight, to be of use unless carefully shielded with the hand. The user's manual supplied with the camera is fair, leaving you to figure out some things on your own. Overall, I consider the Argus DC3500 with included accessories to be a good value for the money.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DISAPPOINTED
Review: The sale data says it requires 2 - AA batteries - THIS IS WRONG - it takes 4-AAA batteries - have you ever tried to find rechargeable AAA batteries and the Recharger for AAA batteries - the drain on regular AAA is immense - cannot locate attachments for alternate power sources, i.e., car lighter, outlet at home. THESE ARE BIG PROBLEMS - Directions are complicated - Price is great, size is great - otherwise misleading

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not even worth the CHEAP price...difficult!
Review: This camera has the potential to be a keeper. Other reviews will talk about the features, The only one that falsely appears as positive is its price. almost all the reviews describe its major drawbacks (BAD DESIGN, BATTERY LIFE, COMPACT FLASH INCOMPATIBILITY, LACK OF AC ADAPTER, USELESS VIEWFINDER< FAULTY OPWER ON BUTTON)

THEY ARE ALL TRUE!

I Believe Argus designed a loser, and dump it on the market at a discount to get rid of them. Stupid mistakes like mispelled words in the display "MOMERY FULL" instead of MEMORY, or "RAGE" instead of "RANGE", are symptomatic of a total lack of attention to detail in its design and manufacture, followed by totally non existant testing of their product.

Instead of recalling it, accepting their mistakes, and God forbid, fixing them, they turn to dumping it on the market.

This, to me, demonstrates a company with arrogance and contempt for their customers.

The Designers and Engineers at ARGUS probably can't show their faces in public for designing a device destined to be rated as crap.

ONLY THE EXTREME DISCOUNT SAVES THIS CAMERA FROM THE TRASH HEAP. IT OBVIOUSLY COULD NOT BE SOLD AT THE PRICE OF OTHER 2 MEGAPIXELS.

BATERRY HOG? An understatement. I went through 8 AAA Alkaline bateries in 20 minutes just setting the camera up.

RECHARGABLE BATTERIES HELP? Yes but not much, What kind of a bargain is this camera really, if you spend the money you're supposed to save, on expensive batteries, and a recharger. You'll need 12-16 rechartgable AAA to have any fun with this camera.

IS IT REALLY THAT SLOW? YES! You will spend 1/3 of your battery life waiting for the camera to turn itself on. Counterintuitively, you might think "set auto shutoff to lowest setting." NO! This just frutrates you in how much battery power you lose turning it back on.

DOES IT TAKE GOOD PICTURES? Yes, just proving that careless design can not destry everything.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU NEED ANOTHER BATTERY CHANGE? It drops dead.

IS THE COMPACT FLASH INCOMPATIBLE? YES! don't spent money on a memory unit without trying it in the camera first. You'll just be throwing even more money away.

HOW DO YO KNOE IF THE PICTURE IS CENTERED? Don't look in the viewfinder. Hell If I know how to get the picture centered.

You will probably spend $20-30 more than a comparably featured camera to compesate for all the drawbacks.

That my friend is no bargain.

PRICE ISN'T EVERYTHING. Value your sanity.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Design a bad Camera-Then Sell it
Review: This camera has the potential to be a keeper. Other reviews will talk about the features, The only one that falsely appears as positive is its price. almost all the reviews describe its major drawbacks (BAD DESIGN, BATTERY LIFE, COMPACT FLASH INCOMPATIBILITY, LACK OF AC ADAPTER, USELESS VIEWFINDER< FAULTY OPWER ON BUTTON)

THEY ARE ALL TRUE!

I Believe Argus designed a loser, and dump it on the market at a discount to get rid of them. Stupid mistakes like mispelled words in the display "MOMERY FULL" instead of MEMORY, or "RAGE" instead of "RANGE", are symptomatic of a total lack of attention to detail in its design and manufacture, followed by totally non existant testing of their product.

Instead of recalling it, accepting their mistakes, and God forbid, fixing them, they turn to dumping it on the market.

This, to me, demonstrates a company with arrogance and contempt for their customers.

The Designers and Engineers at ARGUS probably can't show their faces in public for designing a device destined to be rated as crap.

ONLY THE EXTREME DISCOUNT SAVES THIS CAMERA FROM THE TRASH HEAP. IT OBVIOUSLY COULD NOT BE SOLD AT THE PRICE OF OTHER 2 MEGAPIXELS.

BATERRY HOG? An understatement. I went through 8 AAA Alkaline bateries in 20 minutes just setting the camera up.

RECHARGABLE BATTERIES HELP? Yes but not much, What kind of a bargain is this camera really, if you spend the money you're supposed to save, on expensive batteries, and a recharger. You'll need 12-16 rechartgable AAA to have any fun with this camera.

IS IT REALLY THAT SLOW? YES! You will spend 1/3 of your battery life waiting for the camera to turn itself on. Counterintuitively, you might think "set auto shutoff to lowest setting." NO! This just frutrates you in how much battery power you lose turning it back on.

DOES IT TAKE GOOD PICTURES? Yes, just proving that careless design can not destry everything.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU NEED ANOTHER BATTERY CHANGE? It drops dead.

IS THE COMPACT FLASH INCOMPATIBLE? YES! don't spent money on a memory unit without trying it in the camera first. You'll just be throwing even more money away.

HOW DO YO KNOE IF THE PICTURE IS CENTERED? Don't look in the viewfinder. Hell If I know how to get the picture centered.

You will probably spend $20-30 more than a comparably featured camera to compesate for all the drawbacks.

That my friend is no bargain.

PRICE ISN'T EVERYTHING. Value your sanity.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent for the price
Review: This camera is the best digital camera you're going to find for the price. Yes, there are some draw backs to it but compared to the other sub one hundred dollar cameras, this one is awesome.

After reading the other reviews, I bought a charger and 8 AAA NiMH batteries. I'm glad I did. They weren't kidding, this thing ate up the alkaline batteries in less than 10 pictures. But, the NiMH batteries are great. I've taken over 30 pictures on my first set and it's still going. I was going to find an AC adapter but now I think that two sets of NiMH batteries make this a very useable camera (it just isn't useable with alkaline).

Another draw back is that both the optical view finder and the lcd screen don't reflect the true picture framing. I can understand the optical view finder being off but why would the lcd display be off? It's best to use the lcd since it errs on the small side and while the optical view finder makes you think you're getting everything in the picture when you're not.

Also, the small size and light weight of the camera make it a little hard to hold steady while shooting causing some blurred images. This is not too big of a deal, I'm already learning to make special effort to hold it steady.

The buttons on the back of the camera are really hard to push. Sometimes you can push them, feel the click, but it hasn't actually been pushed. This is kind of annoying but, once again, you get used to it.

Finally, an optical zoom would be nice but for the price you can't expect everything.

That's the bad side. The good side is that you get a 2 megapixel camera for half the price of any other one on the market. The pictures come out very well. There are a lot of nice adjustments like +/-EV and several different white balance settings. It also comes with a soft case which is a nice bonus.

Other things you'll need with this camera:
-8 AAA NiMH batteries and a charger
-digital imaging software - it comes with PhotoSuiteIIISE which is too stripped down to do anything but give you a taste of what a full blown program can do
-A compact flash card - the price of these is plummeting so grab 128Mb

Once again, for the price, you absolutely can't go wrong.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok Camera, but you will out grow very fast
Review: This digital camera is an adequate begging, if you don't have the cash to buy a canon PowerShot A200 which can cost you around 140 dollars and it's lot better DC.
The Argus DC-3500 takes good pictures, but most of the time the camera will add a reddish effect to your picture, and you could try any configuration in the camera to fix it
But it will not work; the only way to fix it is using photo editor software like Photoshop
One more thing is that the camera takes too long to be ready to use after you either turned it on or had just taken a picture, causing the waste of most of your battery charge. Another point is that Amazon neglect to correctly say the type of battery used by the camera, which 4 AAA, finally the camera only use compact memory from Hitachi o Sandisk.

A word about the manufacture; the web site does not gives adequate information about any of their camera, and the manual that they have up on the internet does not match the camera to detail.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good pics but ridiculous battery life
Review: This is a nice camera for the price, but definitely has some issues. The camera has produced some nice pictures, even at the low resolution setting, and in fairly dim conditions. But I agree with previous reviewer who said that it's hard to tell if the camera is on or off half the time. But the big problem with the camera is battery life, which is just plain awful. Granted, I've been using the flash and the LCD screen, but the camera has gone through TWO sets of Duracell batteries after about 20 high-res pictures and about 40 low-res pictures. Plan on buying rechargeable batteries and a recharger, and maybe an AC adapter, too.

Another problem: the camera would not format or use the Simple Tech Compact Flash card I ordered with it, but the person at the Argus tech support line (toll-free) was very helpful. I was told that this camera IS NOT COMPATIBLE with Simple Tech brand cards, so beware if you're buying a compact flash card, too.


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