Children's camera.

[JJM74]

My three year old daughter has picked up on my enthusiasm for photos, and wants to take pictures. For her fourth birthday, I'm thinking of getting her a vtech kidizoom, my thinking being it's pink, less than £50 (we have other gifts to buy too), simple, fun and has games and other stuff likely to appeal - video, distortion effects etc...

On the other hand, I'm worried that the camera is only 640 x 480. She won't want big prints, but is the image quality going to disappoint her? Is it tough enough to last a year or two? I should add that I know I'm not going to get a £50 D3x or 5DII, but I would like something useable for her.

Does anyone here have experience of these, or a similar alternative they can recommend? Local shops don't seem to have one to look at, so probably going to be an internet buy if we go for it, but we would appreciate any suggestions.

[alanS]

Hello,

I've just had a look at that camera on Amazon and it gets mixed reviews. Is it worthwhile getting your daughter an ordinary (as in not specifically a kids) camera?

I have a Medion that cost under £50 but the price later fell to £15, it's metal and really small and really simple and it's a real camera but unfortunately it's not listed on the Medion site now. So...

I had a quick look at the supermarkets and Tesco do a pink camera for £25 with a free memory card (I'm sure that the other supermarkets will sell something similar too.) I'm sure that your daughter will take to it like a duck to water and she might appreciate having a real grown up camera. What do you think?

Good luck choosing.

[Barney]

Yes, I got my daughter one for her third birthday. To be honest, we haven't printed anything off it, and she's only just got the hang of taking photos of anything other than her feet so I can't comment on the quality of prints. I'd say that getting her into taking photos was more important and the controls are well suited for small hands and the double view finder is easy for kids who can't manage to shut one eye yet.

You should be able to pick one up for £30-£40 though.

[TheFatControlleR]

Thanks for that Barney, useful observations.

I've been contemplating getting one for my boy for his third birthday next month. Just want a cam he can 'play' with, minimum controls, something he can see the results on his laptop.

[Barney]

One word of warning, it appears that when the batteries run out you appear to lose all the shots on the memory.

[JJM74]

The battery thing doesn't sound too good - was that the internal memory, or a card? We'd probably put in one of the memory cards we have lying around.

Still tempting. I did consider a normal compact, but I'm not convinced that she'd get on too well with the handling yet. Would be a shame to put her off as she's so enthusiastic right now.

Her favourite so far is the RZ67, but I'm reluctant to get her one of those just yet.

Thanks.

[parisian]

She is how old? and you want her to have one of these - RZ 67?
Click

My word, she is pretty advanced

[JJM74]

She is how old? and you want her to have one of these - RZ 67?
Click

My word, she is pretty advanced

No, I have one, she wants it...In pink. She likes looking through the viewfinder, and always wants me to use it no matter where we're going. Bit heavy for her though.

[Barney]

The VTec doesn't take memory cards, it jusr has internal memory. To be honest I'm presuming that the memory loss is down to the batteries, someone could have deleted them all. It's only a problem if you forget to connect it up only a problem if you don't connect it to a pc on a regular basis.

[Barney]

Just to add, I'll upload a shot from ours tonight so you can see the quality and feel the width.

[JJM74]

Thanks. Confirmation of batteries wiping the memory.

[Tickhiller]

Last christmas I bought my nephews a Vivitar camera each (about £25 from Argos) they used SD cards and AAA batteries. They were simple to use and sturdily built. The kids were very happy and their little sister was about your kids age and she used the camera as well. Pictures were hit and miss but that was part of the game - lets load the pictures on the laptop and see what we have got!!

[archive59]

The Guardian did a sort of mini review of cameras suitable for a young child a few months back if I remember correctly. They compared purpose built cameras such as the vTech and 'cheap' normal cameras and came down pretty firmly on the side of the normal cameras. The main issue seems not to lie with the lack of resolution but the poor click-to-capture time that means the pictures rarely came out because the child moved the camera.