Fold out flash
HD video resolution
Image stabilising system
20.0 Megapixel CCD Sensor
Blink Detection and Red Eye Reduction
SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards up to 64GB
Accessories include Lithium-Ion Battery, USB Charger and Picture Editing Software
HD video resolution
Image stabilising system
20.0 Megapixel CCD Sensor
Blink Detection and Red Eye Reduction
SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards up to 64GB
Accessories include Lithium-Ion Battery, USB Charger and Picture Editing Software
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argos.co.uk/sta…htm?
which was that? the only sj4000 I know is a gopro alternative.
Besides, it can't be that ludicrous, the deals at -3 !
It was an action camera for £80 that had absolutely no advantages over an sj4000, and very few reviews (of a different cam from.the same company) showing pq
a benefit for some people
medion, maginon, crane and the other 'own brand' stuff is usually fairly good, not top end obviously, but good. offering a 3yr warranty on most of their electronics is unusual for a supermarket and better than the known brands, it's also a good warranty as the few people i've known need to use it have had quick responses with no niggles and quick turnarounds.
as for the camera, you guess Aldi are hoping people mistake it for a DSLR - why? almost all bridge cameras are built to the same format so by that token, all the mfrs are trying to confuse the customer. They clearly state it's a bridge camera and there's no apparent attempt to pretend otherwise (or like some far east brands calling it a kanon or nickon).
I can't state the actual performance of this item, i haven't seen it, but i wouldn't be surprised if it were worth the just below market asking price. Like you, I'd probably tend toward the nikon, but not dismissing this out of hand and, for whatever reason, calling the integrity of the seller into question. There are few reviews around, as not widely available, but take last year's Nov deal as a guide, gadgetspeak.com/gad…tml and it doesn't seem to be a particularly bad option.
Unlike Medion cameras, it doesn't come with a memory card, but the camera's continuous shooting of 720p HD movies wasn't disrupted by any write-buffering issues arising from my only using a cheap Medion brand "4"-grade 8GB SD card I bought at Aldi quite some time ago. Better-brand-name cameras and DSLRs will generally be less forgiving, but I suspect that might be because they are laying down better (i.e. more) data in movie image jpegs than this camera.
The zoom seems quite quiet, but plenty of good-make bridge cameras suffer quite badly if you zoom during a movie shot, so I'm not assuming this one will be getting away with that problem. The SZ350 really isn't giving me anything like a hard time - it even has selectable manual focus via a magnified patch of display, just like the focus in an old-fashioned film SLR viewfinder, though the menu tree doesn't always allow you to select the "M" option, and the focussing fine-tuning granularity isn't enormous. But it's miles better than not being able to control a contrary focussing engine - like the "smart" ones that want to focus on the interesting leaf textures nearby, or the brickwork of the wall in the background, when you want to focus on the actual flowers much nearer the camera lens.
Looking at the captured images using the very usable bright display screen, image quality seems generally good - not a lot a of noise speckling in the images, though I've stayed below ASA 800 so far, and I though I've pixel-peeped hard using the image review zoom magnification, I still haven't been able to find any noticeable chromatic aberration on my images. I think that tends to appear when you imagined you were working in good light conditions - something I haven't been able to do yet.
After 197 shots and a fair bit of messing about with image and movie reviewing, the battery condition indicator dropped from 3 blocks to 2, so there's still plenty to go on my first charge. I want to see how much I can do on that one charge, so I won't upload my photos yet - the PC would be re-charging the battery if I did that!
OK, it's not quite as discreet and portable as my pocketable cameras, but they really don't have the ease-of-use features and zoom reach this slightly bigger one seems to offer.
Maginon may not have the brand-name kudos of the big photo companies, but the camera has solid qualities. The cameras only seem to be trickling slowly into Aldi stores due to the older, dearer SZ24 model still being on the shelves, so if you want one and see one, act assertively like a recent reviewer
. The Aldi experience...
Apart from STILL being unused to having to take the lens cap off before switching the camera on, I think the Maginon 350X is an easy camera to use, and has one or two nice picture-taking features I've not seen before, including a limited manual focus capability - useful now and again but not offered in all shooting modes. It doesn't have DSLR battery life, but the camera can nevertheless take hundreds of pictures on a single charge, so battery life isn't really an issue. Viewing pictures, and particularly movies, in the field can eat into those numbers, but it's pointless having a digital camera if you don't use the screen a bit, just to see how you're getting on. Be aware the camera screen can be a bit flattering of your images and movies though. Still image size is 20 megapixels, so in high-quality mode, you might find the image files a bit bigger than you are used to, when you come to edit them in photo software. The photo software supplied with the camera is fairly uninspiring, but to get the best out of the camera you will probably want to use the software you are already used to and have some skills with.
Anyway, it might not be a SLR, but it's not bad either.
When you can see them, connect the camera to your PC using the USB cable, and switch on the camera. A device icon for the camera, camera-shaped and probably named "Maginon SZ 350" should eventually appear next to your disk drives. Function Key F5 might cajole Explorer into updating its display for you.
If you double-click on the camera icon, you should be able to double-click down through layers of folders "External Memory" and "DCIM" to "100DICAM", the list of images and videos in the camera. Highlight one of the files in the file-list, then do a Ctrl-A to highlight them all, or use the mouse to highlight them all if you prefer, then use Ctrl-C or the "Copy" system menu action item if you can see one and it's active, to copy the list of files.
Then quickly navigate to a suitable picture folder on your hard drive, or one of your hard drives or memory devices, or if Windows 7 lets you, open another Windows Explorer and find a suitable hard-drive folder folder that way. Right-click in the hard-drive folder's file-list space and select "Paste", or left-click there and then either do a Ctrl-V or a click on the "Paste" icon if your Explorer has one and it's active. Copying camera files takes actual time and might involve idly staring at flying-file animated icons - or coffee-making.
Once all the files have been copied across, you can go back up to the camera's device icon, right-click on it, and select the "Eject" menu item, before physically disconnecting it when told it's OK to do so. Or, failing that, power down the PC and then switch off and disconnect the camera. Either way, the picture and video files you pasted should still be waiting for you on the hard drive or memory device.