Customer Reviews

Vivitar V8018 ViviCam 8.1 MP Digital Camera

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I don't like writing poor reviews, but I am disappointed with this camera. The pictures are almost always blurry. The time from button down to photo taken is always slow enough to miss the moment. The video capture has no audio, although for some reason the actual picture quality is pretty good. The industrial design hints that the lens might telescope some, but this is purely for looks. The only way to get good pictures out of this camera is to take lots of pictures of the same scene and hope that one of them turns out alright. Battery life is surprisingly good, although I think after you give up taking pictures the battery usage becomes irrelevant. The camera is not hard to use, however if there is some trick to actually taking decent pictures with it in the user guide I have missed it. The tag "3x optical zoom" is marketing at its best. The zoom is digital.

I bought the 10 MP version of this and it was the worst camera I have ever used. All the pictures came out blurry even with the 'anti shake' feature on. The lag time to take the picture was so slow that you miss the picture. The other thing that bugged me was that you never know if you have taken a picture because it doesn't show you the picture you just took like every other camera on the planet...so you have to change the mode to review the pictures..It also defaults the flash to OFF so you have to always push the auto button or your pictures will be even more crappy. I have uploaded my pictures so you can see just how terrible this camera is and save yourself the money.

First of all I borrowed this (thank goodness I didn't buy this one) from a friend for this trip to France and Italy with a group since I didn't want to bring my SLR (but boy was I screaming for it later). Each day we had an exciting full itinerary so we wouldn't get back to the hotel until early evening (to charge the battery). Hour and a half tops and it'd die. I don't leave it on during shots either but that didn't prolong it. I'd get some pictures in the morning and then I'd have to miss the rest of the day! I had to buy some disposable cameras for back up just so I didn't miss out. If I'd known that it had such a crappy battery life then I would have bought another one (or three). And you see, I'd consider myself an amateur photographer. I'm pretty good at getting some nice shots. Even with any point and shoot I've had, I never had to work so hard to get a decent shot. I'm glad to have gotten the photos I did but a lot of them came out horribly. I had to trash a lot. Well, just wanted to share my experience. I think point and shoots shouldn't be this much a hassle. If you want to keep some memories, I wouldn't buy this one.

I didn't expect professional quality pictures with this camera, but I at least expected a quality better than what I received. I have worked professionally with electronics (industrial electronic programmer) and I was unable to find the secret setting that allowed for a decent photo. I read the online manual provided by Vivitar from cover to cover, I went to enthusiast sites looking for clues, but all to no avail. A camera with 8.1 megapixel capability is useless if the optics are something akin to what you would get on a dollar store toy.

I've bought cheaper, and what I consider to be "disposable", digital cameras that took far, FAR higher quality photos than this piece of junk. Vivitar, you really dropped the ball on this thing, I'll stick to Aries some other el-cheapo brand from now on for my budget units.

I truly wish it were possible to give a negative star rating for a product.

This is an awful camera.
It has a fixed focal length that appears to be set at about 3 feet for optimal focus. So ANY picture outside that range is blurry.
It has an auto focus feature that tries to work but doesn't. It WILL however focus on glass, so if you take a picture through a window, it will take razor sharp pictures... of the window.
Menus are hard to use and inconsistent in function.
The video capture feature is OK if you are taking a movie of something a foot away.

I found a use for this POS by building a rig to transfer old 8MM Film to video and it worked for that fairly well. But who besides me will ever do that?
Save your money and buy just about ANY other camera. You will be happier.

This camera isn't bad. I thought it was a terrible camera at first though, until I went into the camera settings and realized that it defaults to the lowest resolution (to save room on your SD Card). So, I changed the quality to 8.1 MP and it takes great pictures. Not Blurry, they print well. I'm happy.

This looked like a very small camera that would be easy to use but the second time I used it I got the message "sensor fail" on the screen and the camera totally died. The three pictures I was able to take with it were excellent quality.

I bought two cameras to my children (8 and 6 y.o.), after one day one of them stopped working. Since I bought the cameras while traveling to NY and I live outside USA it is not worthwhile to send it to warranty. I cannot say if the camera is good or not, but my experience was bad.

I bought this camera at walmart and i was not happy with it, it toke HORRIBLE Pictures like i toke it to the beach and uploaded it to the computer and it was not ever good at all if you zoom it its graining i toke it back and got the Samsung SL605 (blue)

I wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone. I got this camera as a 10 yr anniversary gift from my workplace. Granted, I had options to choose from, however, I got the camera for my 2 yr old so he wouldn't play with mine. I'm glad that I didn't choose this camera for myself as the picture quality is horrible. Yes, it has high pic resolution, lots of features, but the low grade quality when you take the pic nullifies those options. I posted some pics that were taken by adults, and the quality is still blurry, even with the antishake on. If there is any slight movement by the camera or the person/item being photographed, the picture doesn't come out. Makes me think of my 110 camera days.