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REVIEW: JAMCAM 3.0 DIGITAL CAMERA

Ken Ross

cbm8032@bigfoot.com

The JamCam 3.0 comes in a box which shows assorted young Americans having fun

Inside the box you get a small camera and a USB connecting lead along with a PC serial cable. There is a small booklet in American English and a CD with software on it.

Being a Mac user I very rarely go into Dixons, (but it turns out Jessops also sell them), but on a random chance I went in on a non computing errand and started looking at the cheapo digital cameras. Some were in my price bracket even!

After a bit of effort to get the concept of (a) poverty and (b) Mac owning across to the seasonal staff they said they didn't think that any of the cheap cameras did Mac, but they would get the boxes so I could check.

Luck was on my side that day and one of them had the magic words Mac OS 8.5.1 (and above) on the side, so I got it. (It also does PC if anyone asks.)

Being a budget camera it does have limitations, in the same way that equivalent film cameras do. There isn't a zoom lens and some pictures will not be as sharp as I'd like, but at £40 it's still a very good buy for what I intend to do with it.

It has a flash unit, which others in the cheap price bracket didn't. This can reduce the 9V battery life somewhat with a lot of use, (but I've got Ni-Cad rechargeable batteries in my odds and sods box).

The 2Mb memory on board can store either 8x 640*480 shots or 28 x 320 * 240 shots (72 dpi) or combinations of the two. The LCD screen on the back gives info as to the current state of the battery and shots left etc.

The JamCam software uses a main screen at 800*600 , but as my set up is fixed at 640*480 this wasn't very helpful as it put the exit button around 2'' off screen even though the main menu options were just visible from underneath My Macs menu bar at the top of the screen. Based on past experience Resedit was put to use to alter the main screen down slightly and by experimenting I found that if I reduced the height a bit as well I could drag it about to exit gracefully.

On the bottom of the main screen there are icons for modifying pictures, but raising the bottom lost them so I can't comment on how they behaved. (After a picture is on my desktop I can alter it a pixel at a time if need be anyway with existing software)

On the CD there's also an AOL trial (ignored), Photodeluxe (I prefer what I use already).

Also in the box is a serial lead for using with a PC that uses a standard 3.5mm stereo type plug into the camera (into the salvage box). Looking through the manual it turns out that PC users have to leave the installer CD in the drive when they want to download pictures from the camera - we Mac users don't and can put it away in a safe undisturbed place (like a Mac manual!).

Memory can be expanded with 'multi media cards', which come in a variety of sizes from 2Mb to 64Mb, but the manufacturers site http://www.jamonline.com seems to imply that it can only address 16Mb cards at max. (Memory expansion awaiting good fortune!). There are card readers available I've noted in the Jessops catalogue, but they won't work with the JamCam picture files due to format storage differences- so the camera has to be hooked up to that USB cable for download.

There is a 'film wind on' equivalent in the image compressing stage - which takes longer for the larger images. The fact the the camera has taken a picture is indicated by an LED near the viewfinder. The LCD screen & two buttons are used for the various menu options: image size; flash on/off; delay; clear memory; etc.

I'm very pleased with it and it's making a change to my photographic habits. I'm already able to use my Mac as the Developer and Printer. I clear the camera memory and start again.

Since this article has been published I have had a number of e-mail queries. Please note that I use a Mac for my computer work and cannot answer queries where a knowledge of PCs is required. Send such queries to the Editor who can perhaps use them as a Reader's Write for someone out there to respond with the answers.

Note: The web address for JamCam online, given above, is no longer operational. This may mean the company is out of business and no longer updating their software for bugs/new operating systems.
(Editor 05/01/03)
 

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