A Camera for the Photo Inept

I have always wanted to be a decent photographer for vacation photos and family photos but have always been anything but. As a result, I've never bothered to keep any of the cameras given to me. Any attempts at photography were met with jeers by my relatives and friends until something magical came along - digital cameras! Alas they were too expensive and so my hopes of being a shutterbug died a fast death until recently. Last summer, I was creating ads for E-Bay and found that I needed to photograph many of my items. It was much too expensive to use regular film photography. I had a small web camera but it just wouldn't do the trick. After many pleas I convinced my boyfriend to let me buy a digital camera if I could find one at the right price. I hounded the auction mart at E-Bay and eventually the 612 was posted - I knew from looking at this camera at the store that it would be perfect for my work and so placed a bid and happily I won it three days later for just $109 - well short of the retail price. I have been very pleased with this little camera. I have experienced no problems with it although at times I wish that there is a bit more memory in it. However this is solved with the use of cards. Batteries are drained rather quickly but if you use rechargeables this helps a bit. I've also found it helps to use the batteries made especially for cameras although they are more expensive.

The LCD screen on this camera is especially clear and makes it super easy to take shots without using the viewfinder. The camera has three different settings for photo quality; and the lcd viewer will tell you how many pictures are remaining depending on what setting you have the picture quality set for. However, if the LCD viewer is on, memory may become too low and if this happens the camera locks up. Usually most of the pictures taken will still be safe but this feature can be annoying. For this reason, I almost never operate the camera with the LCD feature on and rarely use anything but the lowest setting unless I'm taking very special photos.

The zoom feature works well but can become confusing at times. The camera cannot be turned off unless the zoom is off. This can be annoying when you want to place the lens cap on since the zoom feature controls the lens. The zoom is controlled by a picture and no words. It's almost as if HP assumes that noone understands english!

I was also far from impressed with the software that came with the camera and instead use Adobe Photoshop Elements. However, bear in mind that I'm a publishing professioal and have used computers for years, the bundled software would likely be just fine for most people.

However, all in all, this is a great camera. HP simply needs to clean up the interface a bit and make it a bit easier to turn off various features even though I'm sure they figure it's already dirt simple!

Regardless, I will still make my next camera an HP.