New Toy - Ricoh Caplio 500SE
Monday, 1. June 2009, 13:28:58
I have a new toy! 
It's a Ricoh Caplio 500SE and replaces my older Casio QV-3000, which while still in a usable state, was showing its age. Every now and again the lens would stick when extending or retracting. Not that often, but boy did it get annoying!
The features I was looking for when I bought the older Casio were:
The new Ricoh is very similar:
SD does seem to be the new standard. My laptop has a built-in SD slot. My phone has one too. An SD slot seemed the right thing to have. The truth is - try finding a digital camera without an SD slot! It seems only high-end very high-res DSLRs have CF slots these days.
I'd found being able to beam photos from the Casio to my Treo to be very handy. I could MMS photos while on holiday and even update my blog with photos, all without a PC or even needing an Internet café. My phone gives me Internet access; all I need to do is get my photos to the phone. Since IR is being replaced with Bluetooth, my new camera needed Bluetooth support. Very few cameras have Bluetooth support, which really narrowed the choices.
AA battery support was still important to me, just for the sheer flexibility of powering the camera. Having your fancy L-Ion battery go empty far from the nearest charger would be a disaster. You can find AAs just about anywhere! Better still, my Ricoh also takes L-Ion - so I get the best of both worlds. The long life of L-Ions with the ready availability of AAs. It gets even better - the Ricoh and my Bluetooth GPS use the same L-Ion battery!
Speaking of my Bluetooth GPS - since the camera has Bluetooth, the camera can geo-tag photos with the latitude and longitude from the GPS! I've been on several trips to remote areas where I wished I had kept better track of my location, as I have several photos where I can't remember exactly where I was when I took them.
The Ricoh can also send photos directly via Bluetooth to my HP Photosmart A320, just like my Treo can. Unlike my Treo, the Ricoh also supports cabled USB transfer via PictBridge. It means I don't even need a PC to print photos.
There are two other cool features about the Ricoh. The first is Wifi connectivity. I've never heard of a camera with Wifi before! I haven't actually tried it out yet, but it might be more convenient for connecting to my laptop than a USB cable. The second feature is that the camera is water- and dust-proof to IP67. It can even be immersed up to 1m for 30 minutes. I'm not sure I want to test that, but it could be handy in the rain.
It's not all good news, though. The camera LCD has one stuck-on pixel in a corner, but I can live with that. The camera is also missing a panorama mode where it can lock the exposure settings for a sequence of photos. That's a little disappointing, as I like making panoramas, but the program I've recently decided to use for my panoramas, Autostitch, can automatically handle different exposures. And strangely, the camera doesn't come with a lens cap. OK, the lens is totally inside the enclosure and it's just a plain clear (glass or plastic) cover in front, but it just doesn't feel right having that front window exposed.
Also, since I bought my camera as part of my business, I'm going to be able to claim 50% of the cost back as a tax rebate!
It's a Ricoh Caplio 500SE and replaces my older Casio QV-3000, which while still in a usable state, was showing its age. Every now and again the lens would stick when extending or retracting. Not that often, but boy did it get annoying!
The features I was looking for when I bought the older Casio were:
- CF card slot for compatibility with my PDA (Ericsson MC218 (=Psion Series 5mx)).
- 2+ megapixel.
- Ir-TranP wireless comms with my PDA.
- AA batteries.
The new Ricoh is very similar:
- SD card slot for compatibility with my PDA (Treo 650).
- 3+ megapixel.
- Bluetooth wireless comms with my PDA.
- AA batteries.
SD does seem to be the new standard. My laptop has a built-in SD slot. My phone has one too. An SD slot seemed the right thing to have. The truth is - try finding a digital camera without an SD slot! It seems only high-end very high-res DSLRs have CF slots these days.
I'd found being able to beam photos from the Casio to my Treo to be very handy. I could MMS photos while on holiday and even update my blog with photos, all without a PC or even needing an Internet café. My phone gives me Internet access; all I need to do is get my photos to the phone. Since IR is being replaced with Bluetooth, my new camera needed Bluetooth support. Very few cameras have Bluetooth support, which really narrowed the choices.
AA battery support was still important to me, just for the sheer flexibility of powering the camera. Having your fancy L-Ion battery go empty far from the nearest charger would be a disaster. You can find AAs just about anywhere! Better still, my Ricoh also takes L-Ion - so I get the best of both worlds. The long life of L-Ions with the ready availability of AAs. It gets even better - the Ricoh and my Bluetooth GPS use the same L-Ion battery!
Speaking of my Bluetooth GPS - since the camera has Bluetooth, the camera can geo-tag photos with the latitude and longitude from the GPS! I've been on several trips to remote areas where I wished I had kept better track of my location, as I have several photos where I can't remember exactly where I was when I took them.
The Ricoh can also send photos directly via Bluetooth to my HP Photosmart A320, just like my Treo can. Unlike my Treo, the Ricoh also supports cabled USB transfer via PictBridge. It means I don't even need a PC to print photos.
There are two other cool features about the Ricoh. The first is Wifi connectivity. I've never heard of a camera with Wifi before! I haven't actually tried it out yet, but it might be more convenient for connecting to my laptop than a USB cable. The second feature is that the camera is water- and dust-proof to IP67. It can even be immersed up to 1m for 30 minutes. I'm not sure I want to test that, but it could be handy in the rain.
It's not all good news, though. The camera LCD has one stuck-on pixel in a corner, but I can live with that. The camera is also missing a panorama mode where it can lock the exposure settings for a sequence of photos. That's a little disappointing, as I like making panoramas, but the program I've recently decided to use for my panoramas, Autostitch, can automatically handle different exposures. And strangely, the camera doesn't come with a lens cap. OK, the lens is totally inside the enclosure and it's just a plain clear (glass or plastic) cover in front, but it just doesn't feel right having that front window exposed.
Also, since I bought my camera as part of my business, I'm going to be able to claim 50% of the cost back as a tax rebate!
WIDGETIZE
Leslie Holloway # 21. October 2009, 13:10
Please reply to lhollow27@gmail.com