2 comments about Vivitar VGA Camera.

1. I originally wrote that this camera doesn't work with Macs but it seems like a solid product for 25 bucks. Has a built-in flash and a picture counter and a dozen different modes.
   
   After getting a "sorry, that camera does not support OS X" message from Vivitar, the helpful folks at SourceForge pointed me to a driver offered by Specra Merchandising International for a Strawberry Shortcake camera that works like a charm with the Vivitar. The driver is available here - http://
   www.spectraintl.com/xsp/ss702updates.html . It let me download pictures directly into iPhoto on computers running OS X 10.2.8 and 10.3.9. (There's also a video driver, but I haven't checked that out yet.) I had to use a USB port on the computers themselves rather than on peripheral devices like keyboards, though, to avoid a "USB Low Power" error.
   
   As for the quality of the pictures - well, I guess they're what you would expect from a $25 camera - grainy, a little blurry and not very well-lit. Lots of lighting and a steady hand would be helpful to get anything other than a really basic snapshot. We haven't had a chance to check the camera's quality outdoors in sunshine, because we haven't had any in a few weeks, but other reviewers have said the pictures are acceptable under those conditions.



2. The Vivitar Vivicam35 is an awesome camera for its cost. I got it for 20$ Its light and can be used as a web cam! My dad also has a expensive digital camera and can take almost the same quality pictures but doesent have a screen to show them and you cant zoom.

3 comments about Vivitar PZ7000 Zoom Date 35mm Camera.

1. Really nice camera. Pictures are good and clear. I would recommend a high speed film. Does take some reading to figure out all the bells and whistles.



2. well this is a great little camera. gets the job done well. easy to use and has some fun features like the landscape setting. does what a point and shoot is made for and that is, to do the job quickly. good to have, and fun to use.



3. When I first got this camera I was amazed at the difference using a "real" camera makes. This easy to use camera takes great photos and has a wide variety of features. It does most of the work itself as far as lighting and focus, and has taken some great pictures in the past few months.

No comments about Vivitar FA1 Filter Adapter for 283 Flash.

No comments about VIVITAR 1511241 7x50 BINOCULARS.

2 comments about Vivitar 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 Autofocus Zoom Lens for Canon EOS Autofocus Film & Digital SLR Cameras.

1. Very Crisp images.
   light wieght.
   fast auto focus.
   works great with the canon reble xt.



2. This lens is nothing special.
   
   But for the price, I love it. It's simple, and it does not have a lot of features, but it is everything it advertises.
   
   I bring this lens to any situation where I fear that my nice glass may get dinged or smeared. This lens takes good pictures and can easily be replaced if it gets damaged.
   
   Now that I have a 5D, I cannot use the cheap 18-55 that came with the 20D. This lens is a good replacement. Similar range (sort of), and no worries about potential damage.
   
   Worth the low price.

5 comments about Vivitar 19-35mm Series One Zoom Lens For Minolta SLR Cameras.

1. I wanted a wide-angle lens for some while, but they were just too expensive. Plus, I had never tried a 3rd party lens with my Minolta, and was not sure what to expect. This lens produced results that I found quite acceptable. Like any cheapie wide angle lens, it is prone to flare. Oh, well. The edges do not appear soft to me, as I believe someone claimed, but I have not made any really large prints. One major downer is the very dull unimpressive looking plastic case. The picture at least looks like aluminum. The real thing does not. Also, I have not taken any pictures in the 30-35mm range (I have an expensive lens for that). If your Maxxum is one with a panoramic mode the pictures you take at 19mm will look pretty cool.



2. Like others have said, this is a great lens for the price. It's not for professionals, but then I'm not a professional. I looked around at new and used camera stores, and even the fixed-focus wide-angles were out of my price range. With this lens, at this price, you get the product you're probably looking for.



3. I am an amateur photographer (read: take lots of pictures at parties, of the dog, on vacation etc.). Until I bought this lens, I had a 28-80mm (came with my Minolta XTsi) and a 70-210mm (bought when got camera) but I always wanted a wide-angle lens. Problem is that most wide-angle lenses are *very* expensive. (For instance, I searched for other wide-angle lenses when I bought this and the next closest one was $300!)

   This 19-35mm AF zoom lens is perefect and works with Minolta and many other cameras. If you are not a professional you will NEVER notice the difference between this and a $300 wide-angle lens, so why bother spending more than you need to?

   If you do buy this, pick up a basic UV filter (77mm thread) for it. Might as well protect your investment.




4. Good, but not spectacular zoom. Very good sharpness when the aperture is closed to 8, or smaller vallues. Metal mount, plastic body. Worth the spent money.



5. Needed an inexpensive wide angle zoom, this fit the bill. I trust Vivitar products and this one hasn't let me down yet. Takes 77mm filters. Note: This lens is a true ultra-wide angle lens, and as such image quality will suffer if used with standard, inexpensive filters. When using filters, spend the extra money and get one of the ultra-thin models from Hoya or similar. Otherwise you will notice rounding at the corners on shots taken at 19mm caused by the overhang of the filters getting the way of the shot (called "vignetting"). Makes a neat effect if intentional, but can mess up your shot if not.

5 comments about Vivitar 283 Electronic Flash.

1. Having played around with photography for 20 years now I am baffled by Vivitar.They produce the 283 flashgun (a good product). Then they produce the 285 with almost the same specs.Except the 283 trigger voltage is over 300 volts and the 285 is 8 volts. Ok if used on the old SLR`s.But what about digital cameras? There are users asking what flashgun can I use on my Fuji 4900 and 6900? I go faint at the thought of putting a 283 on my Fuji 4900. No information is given in the instruction book. So i must conclude with the old saying "Buyer beware"



2. Vivitar 283s made from the late 1990's onward will work fine with Digital Cameras. Only older units from the 1980's and early 1990's have a trigger voltage that sometimes exceeds 300v. Newer units will may function just fine depending on what voltage your camera can handle (again, research). You can test the trigger voltage of the unit by using a multimeter on the shoe pins and triggering the flash with the test button. Much more information can be found via a web search.



3. I've been using Vivitar 283 and 285's for years now. I was introduced to the 285 when my backlight died on a Glamour shoot. The style my client wanted was an over exposed background to ad a haze around the subject through the softener1 filter. This required a powerful flash. The only store near the salon was a Carmen's camera and all they had in their used department was this old 285, the man in the store, a professional photographer himself, assured me that with a slave unit on the manual setting this flash would be powerful enough to do the job. He even had an SB-4 power supply and this little plastic display unit, which made a perfect little backlight stand!

   Not only did this flash recycle in time, it was powerful enough to do the job. This little flash even replaced my Metz for wedding work because of its compact size!

   I also noticed at the time that many other press photographers were leaving their Metz's at home too! For travelling and backpacking I bring my 283, which is very light and also has the remote sensor feature so handy for close-up work.

   The 283 also sits nicer on the hot shoe being lighter, making the camera less top-heavy. Which brings me to the only complaint I have with these two flashes.... or many hot shoe flashes for that matter. Shooting at crowded concerts or busy news scrums the vulnerability of the hot shoe is always on my mind, on more than one occasion I have broken this hot shoe and had to order a new one which requires a bit of assembly and downtime. To make up for this -the remote sensor makes it possible to use these flashes off camera even with the broken hot shoe and with the amount of used 283's and 285's out there at good prices, they are still the best darn portable mini flashes I've come across!

   With an on camera 283 fill light, reflected, a slaved 285 with a reflector on a stand next to the camera and a 283 slaved for a back light and you have yourself a portable studio, but watch out your subject doesn't step on the backlight!




4. I've been using 283 flashes for 20+ years and have had no trouble with them. An excellent unit that can take much abuse. Kudos to Vivitar!



5. Have owned several Vivitar 283's and 285HV's on the Nikon FM2 & F3HP. I like the 283 more because I don't have to mess with the zoom head. Now using a Nikon D70 with the 283. The power is not as high as Vivitar says (ISO 400 closer to 260) but I set the camera on manual and I have auto exposure with auto focus thrown in for free! Vary shutter speed for indoor/outdoor balance. For indoors in low ceilings I can also use bounce flash with great color on grand children . Newer units sync around 8 volts but use a Wein HSBC Safe Sync which allows Vivitar cord and flash bracket for off camera flash.

5 comments about Vivitar Vivicam 5385 5MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom.

1. My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica, the photos were OK but after a few yrs I started to get disapointed in the quality. While in Walmart I seen this 5 MP Vivitar for only $147. I got it along with some batteries and a 128 SD card all for $200. Ive had the camera for almost a year now and Im just blown away with the quality of the photos, sunrises are unbelieable. Its always worked, very rugged and durable, and yea the thing is battery hungry, so I buy my AA's in bulk and also hav the rechargables. The movie mode I dont use it much I hav a mini DV for that. I was a little embarassed cuz its not a name brand high dollar unit, but if you can liv with that, its a great little camera and how u gonna beat that price? You cant!



2. I bought this camera about 7 months ago and thoguht it was great, except for the pictures were somtimes discolored. But now it is broken. The camera will lock up when the zoom button is pressed. Overall i was not happy with this camera and got a new one and differnt brand more reliable.



3. This is an ok camera in my opinion. Not a bad camera, just didn't meet my standards! When I first got it I was just so excited to have a camera since my last one was stolen, that I loved it. After a while of using it I noticed a few flaws that I was dissappointed with! At times the flash can be really harsh, and if you turn the flash off, you are 90% guarenteed to have a blurry picture! The 10% chance of a decent picture is if it is completly still like on self timer mode, but still the quality just isn't that great with out the flash. Close ups are not much of an option!! I like to take pictures of flowers but that was near impossible with this camera, you couldn't get close enough without it being blurry and over exposed from the flash! But on a good note, I have gotten some good pics from this camera, it's easy to use and it's not too big. It's a good choice if you just wanna take average photos of friends and family and just everyday life, but for those artistic photographs I love to take, I just wasn't satisfied. I am now lookig for another camera to meet my needs!



4. I have disliked this camera from the moment I first used it. Unfortunately I didn't do any research before buying it, I bought it spontaneously at WalMart for about $150. It eats up the batteries really fast, if the batteries aren't brand new, forget getting any kind of decent picture if the lighting isn't perfect. I am going to sell this thing on ebay for whatever I can get out of it. If somebody offers me a dollar, I'll take it. I would like to say that this is a great starter camera, but I am sure there are cameras out there on the market for the same price, or cheaper, that take better pics and don't eat batteries.



5. I got this camera for my birthday two years ago and I loved it! It takes really good pictures and it has an automatic stabilizer so if the camera is moving, the picture won't come out blurry. The only bad thing about this camera is that it eats up batteries really quick. If you buy non brand batteries, the camera won't even turn on. So you usually end up spending more money buying the more expensive batteries just so the camera would work.
   
   I still use the camera to this day. Unfortunately I dropped it by accident last summer so the screen gets black here and there, but it's still a good camera. Just make sure you have enough money to buy extra batteries.

1 comments about VIVITAR Mariner Underwater 35mm Camera.

1. I went on a vacation where I knew I was going to do a lot of snorkeling and I looked at various options for underwater photography. I decided on this one, and was delighted with the results for the most part. The photos are better than the ones that I took with my good digital camera in an underwater housing. As long as there was good light, I got good shots. The downsides: because there is nothing "sticking out" that indicates where the lens is, we ended up with quite a few photos with our fingers in front of the lens. Also, it is entirely manual to load and unload the film. That was a little tricky every time I reloaded the film. But once I got it working, it did fine. Manually rewinding the film was frustrating because it would get stuck and I was constantly afraid that it wouldn't be finished rewinding and I would end up exposing my film accidentally. Those issues aside, this is a good alternative to the disposable underwater cameras.

1 comments about Vivitar SC1 Remote Sensor Cord for 283 Flash.

1. I have been a photographer for over 20 years and even with the age of digital cameras and speedlights, I still find the Vivitar 283 with a remote sensor cord gives me the best results. Vivitar SC1 Remote Sensor Cord for 283 Flash