Design
The Vivitar ViviCam 6200w is not really what we'd call a fashionable or trendy camera. Its bright yellow rubber body makes it hard to lose -- or hide -- which can be useful if you are constantly looking for your misplaced gear or accidentally dropping it in the surf or on the slopes.
It's also quite chunky at 120mm by 78mm by 43mm and 230 grams without battery or memory card installed, which makes it difficult to swim with or slip inside your wetsuit while surfing but it provides a good grip for stability.
Features
The camera controls have been kept simple, but were sometimes difficult to press because of their size and close proximity. The camera includes several scene modes including Auto, Sport, Night, Portrait, Landscape, Backlight and Underwater. You have access to few other manual features including manual white balance, exposure, ISO, colour, saturation and sharpness.
To power the 6200w, two AA batteries slot in next to the SD card under the waterproof door. The zoom is limited to three levels (2x, 3x, 4x) and you have to press the zoom button three times if you want to utilise the maximum zoom. We found ourselves not using the zoom because of added noise which made images quite grainy. The 6200w can also switch between landscape and macro mode quite easily through a switch placed on the left of the 2-inch LCD screen.
Storage-wise, the Vivitar ViviCam 6200w supports the widely-recognised Secure Digital (SD) card format, which means you can store up to 1GB of images. Unfortunately, the newer Secure Digital Higher Capacity (SDHC) card which offers twice the storage space -- up to 2GB -- is not supported. In addition, the 6200w includes 16MB of internal memory. Though 16MB is not a huge amount, we welcome any extra storage space, and the built-in memory should allow you to shoot approximately nine photos using the camera's maximum resolution of 6-megapixels.
The 6200w also offers video recording, so you can capture movement underwater, but the quality is limited to QVGA at 320x240 pixels.
Performance and Image quality
The overall quality of our photographs was good, even though we missed a few shots due to condensation while shooting in the water.
The battery indicator was also repeatedly misleading; it showed a completely drained battery and proceeded to shut down after only few minutes of use. This only occurred while we were in the water -- when switched back on after a few minutes on dry land, the indicator reversed to show a full battery.
The camera felt very sturdy in our hands and we weren't afraid of dropping it in the sand or experimenting with it while swimming among a group of surfers. Our final verdict -- the ViviCam 6200w didn't let us down. It is a robust camera which lives up to claims of its waterproof capabilities.
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psoper49
12/11/2008, 11:48 PM
rating
9/10
Just got back from a trip to Cozumel. I.m not a professional photographer by any means but I do read the manual when I get a new camera. All in all I think this is a great little camera for the price! It takes great pictures and is pretty easy to use. This trip was my first time to use the camera and i came away with some pretty nice underwater shots. Takes great above water shots also! Check out the link to where I've posted a few pics and judge for yourself! For the money this camera performed better than I expected.
http://s282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/psoper49/vivitar%206200w%20pics/
Pros: Easy to use
great pictures for a point and shoot
sturdy
great performance for the money
Cons: the led screen is hard to see at times.
buttons are too close together on back
Battery indicator can be kind of screwy
battery life isn't great
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Cal
09/10/2008, 01:03 AM
rating
2/10
I bought this same camera new. It seems a good camera but when I installed the vivicam as a webcam on my computer, my entire computer crashed with the blue screen of death and I am having no end of trouble getting my computer to work again. I can't even get into safe mode to uninstall the webcam software
Pros: Takes fairly good photos
Cons: Software crashes Windows XP
9 September 2008
NSW
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pentax camera
30/05/2008, 11:15 PM
rating
5/10
Vivitar camera is for ladies and newbies. This camera have average performance. Has no any optical viewfinder. Small LCD and large body with very slow features.
Pros: Attractive design.
Uses AA batteries.
Water resist.
Cons: Small LCD.
Large body.
Heavy weight.
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