Digital cameras for kids?

[zax]

Little Zax just got his first roll of film developed - we were given a disposable camera when we visited a local steak house for a family meal and he decided he would try it out. He's not yet 3 years old, but the pictures are very entertaining in a random, strange angled, shot from low-down, bizarre subjects in the life of a toddler sort of way

He's now very taken with the concept of being able to take pictures of things he sees, and who am I to curb his enthusiasm? Problem is at around €20 for a disposable camera & film processing it could become an expensive hobby. Is there such a thing as a cheap, point and shoot digital camera for kids? Preferably made of heavy duty, brightly coloured plastic with no moving or detachable parts. And fairly immune to the effects of sticky fingers, food, sand, mud and the various other things he likes to shoot pictures of. I'm thinking "Fisher Price"...

I've seen film cameras that match the above description, so I'm sure by now digital technology must have reached this sector of the market!

[davidy]

zax

about 4 years ago I bought my 3yo daughter a creative webcam, this takes 1024x768 stills and 320x256 movies. THe reason why I got it was that:-

1) Its only got 4 external controls - on/off - trigger - flash setting - picture/movie type
2) It has internal memory therefore no fiddly cards (or card door covers/etc) - pictures are offloaded by USB
3) No zoom/protuding lens - built into camera body.

Its been great, holds about 70 pictures before the memory is full, batteries 4 x AAA seem to last for ages at least 1000 shots, and its been robust, dropped several times (including onto a hard tiled floor) and the worst that has happened is that the battery cover opens and the batteries fall out!

Its still going strong and has taken 1000's of pictures. She is now about to graduate to my old digital compact and her brother will get the Creative camera.

Its this one here, no idea if its still made

www.dooyoo.co.uk/web-cam/creative-pc-cam-750/1036985/

davidy

[davidy]

Just noticed there is a similar model here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Creative-Labs-P

davidy

[SGirl]

I'm going to get one of these for SBaby for Christmas...

www.amazon.co.uk/Fisher-Price-J8209-Kid-Tough-Digital/dp/B000EULZPU/sr=1-2/qid=1159271960/ref=sr_1_2/026-1597949-3915640?ie=UTF8&s=kids

He loves the idea of taking photos, and it's getting to the stage where my D70s needs protecting from him.

Edited by SGirl on Tuesday 26th September 12:59

[davidy]

SGirl it certainly looks robust, but I would consider something with the movie option (will also protect your video camera), my daughter very quickly graduated from stills to movies.

davidy

[Gemm]

I bought one for my friends' daughter (6yo) a Vivitar one from Argos (About £30, I think). I would suggest getting one with LCD (although they are more expensive) as they love seeing what they've just photographed.

Edited by Gemm on Tuesday 26th September 13:12

[zax]

That Fisher-Price one is exactly the sort of I was looking for. Big, bright and simple. It doesn't appear on their European website (at least I didn't find it, hence the post here), but does on their US site. Go figure...

www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2623&e=commercial&pid=37019&acccat=cameracc&mainid=37019

Looks nice & tough, plus it's blue which is always a good selling point with Zax Jr. I think Santa will be dropping one down the chimney this year, should be tough enough to take the fall

[davidd]

I just gave Alfie (just turned 4) my old olympus camedia 1.3 mp digicam. He loves it.

results here...

www.donnan.org.uk/Events/Alfie%20gets%20a%20camera!/index.html

I give it a month before he destroys it at which point I'll get another from ebay

D

[SGirl]

davidy said:

SGirl it certainly looks robust, but I would consider something with the movie option (will also protect your video camera), my daughter very quickly graduated from stills to movies.

davidy

That's a good point. I hadn't thought about the video option. But then again, SBaby likes to be in videos, he hasn't yet discovered the joys of actually being the other side of the lens. I think I'll still go with the Fisher Price option. At least the thing should withstand being dropped. I wonder whether it's waterproof too?

Well, it's that or give him my old Sony DSC-75. And he's nowhere near careful enough for me to hand that over just yet.

[zax]

Just wondering, am I alone in owning a video camera that is rarely used?

I've had the digital camera and the mini dv camera for around the same amount of time (3 years). I have literally thousands of images from the camera, I suspect almost every week of junior's life is covered. But I must have only taken about an hour of video footage, and none whatsoever for at least 8 months. The camera goes almost everywhere but the video camera is left lying on the shelf, giving me occasional guilt trips for not using it...

Maybe it's partly due to the hassle of viewing the clips, since my antiquated laptop won't burn DVDs and we don't own a VCR. I should probably buy a shiny new imac and fling myself into the movie world

[prelude4ws]

camera

Think this is the same as sGirl's link.

Mrs4ws found it as we are going to get one for Jnr4ws.

he often takes better pics than me on my camera phone

Edited by prelude4ws on Tuesday 26th September 22:15

[franv8]

zax said:

Just wondering, am I alone in owning a video camera that is rarely used?

I've had the digital camera and the mini dv camera for around the same amount of time (3 years). I have literally thousands of images from the camera, I suspect almost every week of junior's life is covered. But I must have only taken about an hour of video footage, and none whatsoever for at least 8 months. The camera goes almost everywhere but the video camera is left lying on the shelf, giving me occasional guilt trips for not using it...

Maybe it's partly due to the hassle of viewing the clips, since my antiquated laptop won't burn DVDs and we don't own a VCR. I should probably buy a shiny new imac and fling myself into the movie world

I think I've got an easy answer for this, when you take a stills pic it only takes a moment to do, then you can participate in whatever it is you're photographing, however with the video camera, realistically you can only be the cameraman, so it's a bit too intrusive.

I've got a canon analogue video camera - I used an Archos media device to 'digitize' the file (think it became a .avi) for playing with it on the PC. Only use it for some of the motorsport I go and see/get involved with, never shoot more than about 20 minutes worth though. Stills camera gets a lot more thrash!