cheap and tiny

Oregon Scientific has a whole line of digital cameras — as well as other devices — but the smallest, thinnest, and cheapest of them all is the Thincam 1.3MP. I got mine for $40 (open-box deal) at the Discovery Store, and have found it to be an excellent low-cost tiny camera, most unique in its genre for having a surprisingly powerful flash attachment. And it comes in different colors.

Resolution and Image Quality
The Thincam’s photos have a resolution of 1.3 megapixels (that’s 1280 x 1024 px), which is good enough for publishing to the web and making small, casual prints of acceptable quality. You can also go into “low-res” mode, which gives you smaller 640×480 px photos, but image quality at this resolution drops significantly. (On the up side, low-res photos snap faster and take up less space, and the image quality is still comparable to a cheap cameraphone.) Like most cameras in its genre, the Thincam performs best in bright outdoor settings.

Memory
The camera has 16MB of internal memory (about 20 high-res photos or 90 low-res), and also has an SD/MMC card slot for additional storage. (My 128MB SD card holds 136 high-res photos.) The camera attaches to your PC via a simple USB-to-mini-USB cable. I use an iBook running Mac OS X 10.2, and iPhoto recognized the camera and downloaded photos from it without a hitch, though somewhat slowly.

LCD and Viewfinder
To cut down on size, cost, and power consumption, there is no high-quality color LCD, and hence no photo preview. There is a standard viewfinder, and a simple monochrome LCD provides basic memory and mode info.

Flash
The flash attachment was a major factor in my choosing this over other low-cost tiny cameras. The Thincam comes with a small flash extension (separately powered by 1 AAA battery), a bit thicker than the camera itself, which snaps onto the top of the unit. One must manually switch on the extension, and wait for a little flash icon to appear in the display, and wait several seconds between flash fires, but the flash itself is quite powerful, which is great for low light and indoor settings, where the Thincam’s unassisted photos tend to be dim and grainy.

Operation
The camera is switched on by spinning a little spoked wheel on the left side, which slides from Off to On to Macro Mode. (One must be sure to slide the wheel to “On” mode and not Macro for regular non-closeup use, to avoid taking blurry shots.) Two buttons under the LCD control sound, image resolution mode, and image deletion. As with most cameras, the trigger is on the top-left of the body. That’s all there is to it: three buttons and a wheel, plus the SD slot.

Macro Mode
The Thincam’s Macro Mode is great for closeup shots of small, stationary objects, like plants and flowers, at a distance of about a foot. Be sure to turn off the flash attachment in this mode, as it tends to severely overexpose anything closer to it than an arm’s length or two.

Power
The Thincam has an internal battery which charges when the camera is plugged into your PC via USB. It charges pretty quickly, and lasts a while; I haven’t had it die on me yet.

(Sample photo and more after the jump.)

Sample Photo
Here’s a sample photo of withered cherry blossoms in Washington DC, taken by the Thincam in Macro Mode, outdoors on a cloudy spring day:

Buy it!
Interested? Buy the Oregon Scientific 1.3MP Thincam on Amazon!