Poor auto-focus, cheaply made, not worth the cost
354511
First of all, I received this as a gift... thankfully I didn't waste my money on it!

Microsoft branded this product, which they probably spent $0.49 on it from their Chinese supplier!

Pros:
It works.
Easy set up, Windows 7 installed the drivers quickly and it required no other software to work with Google, Yahoo, Skype, etc.
Built in microphone is nice touch for use on my laptop or desktop without built in mic and it picks up sound fairly well
Small size is easy to transport (came with pouch to keep it clean and scratch free)
Spring clip holds strong on laptop lid (decent grip), and "lip" on clip fits snug into the groove on my HP desktop monitor

Cons:
USB cord is WAY too short for desktop use, so it only has use for Laptop unless you have USB on your monitor, a hub, or extension cable.
Auto-focus is pathetic (pointed it to the wall and it still changes focus every few seconds) - turn it off and you lose color definition, and you have to install Microsoft software pack to do that.
When not in use, it still lights the blue light (not sure what it is doing or why) for a second or two every few minutes (ANNOYING - and WHAT is it doing?  snapping pics back to Microsoft?  Hmmmm... makes me a bit paranoid...) >>Sarcasm Warning<<
Plastic lens, not glass (even my Logitech has a glass lens element at half the cost of this one)

I'll keep it around for use ONLY with my laptop as a back-up in case my Logitech fails or is lost.

In my best opinion, Microsoft is pushing their name onto shoddy, inferior products to boost a profit margin.  If you are looking for a better/quality web-cam, buy a Logitech and save yourself some money and grief!

****UPDATE:  Microsoft updated the drivers, and now the blue light only comes on when I'm actually using the device.  Auto-focus still seems to be an issue, but not as bad as it was.  Still not "happy" with it, but at least it works better now.
1459927
I wish I had looked at reviews more closely before buying this camera. The automatic settings are useless. The auto focus takes along time to focus as it whirs in and out before settling on a slightly blurry image. And if anything in the picture moves it has to go through the whole 10second process again. Pictures that are focused come out looking bland and cheap. Our Sony point and shoot gives a better picture. I have three friends with Nikons. The 5100D in a similar price range seems to take better quality pictures that don't over expose. I may have a faulty one but looking at reviews there seems to be a lot of faulty Canon's out there.
1184956
Myopic at night, no focus at all. Hardly recognizable car make, not to mention license numbers
The mount sounds like a rusty door when rotated, the tolerances are way off on the ball socket. The optics seem to be some kind of plastic, definitely not optical glass.
The video is not up to HD standard, seems like blown up 480p at best.

The driving assistance seems nice in principle, but in reality it is not, with lots of false positive feedback. Useless unless you drive at a constant speed on a straight road all the time. Extremely annoying and useless.
To sum it up: maybe it is not the worst dash cam out there, but it is for the price. There are 20$ cameras as good (or bad). I know, I had them.

Pros: wide angle, good light sensitivity, daylight image quality OK

Cons: does not work in low light conditions (which was a selling point for the camera, 'first-class night vision'. Maybe they meant first grade, no graduation... The image is unfocused, it is hard even to recognize the car make not to mention license number.
You can see the dailight capture, and 15 minutes later what happens when it is darker.
346711
Olympus cameras USED to be excellent -- this was my fourth one, bought entirely on the basis of my previous experience. How wrong I was!
  The camera is slow to focus, and focuses inaccurately. It is GLACIALLY slow to take a picture -- you know, you push the button, and when an engineer in Japan decides it's time to take the picture, the camera clicks. Usually (but not always.)
  Maybe I had a lemon, but the macro capability was ...well, incapable. Color was okay, but side-by-side comparison with my older FE-230 showed inaccurate and spotty rendering. The overall feel of the camera was cheap and shaky -- I should have trusted my fingers on initial examination! Lesson learned.
  But Olympus's race to the bottom came home most depressingly when the camera broke -- one morning, after the lens came out to play, it wouldn't retract -- and I sent it back for warranty repairs, and my warranty was deemed invalid due to impact damage. Fair enough, had there been an impact, but there wasn't. Previous Olympus cameras sustained serious shocks -- this is a pocket camera, after all! -- and kept on clicking.
  DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA. Even for under $90 it is no bargain. Olympus's quality trimming and mean spirited warranty administration make it a risky buy.
4793733
1. Slow or incorrect auto-focus in both video and photo mode. Multiple botched shots and wasted footage. Example - slow pan of crowd at the Rock and Roll Hall of fame induction .... footage was completely out of focus. Next pan shot was fine.
2. Excessive shutter roll. Example - took video of our puppies inside the house ... excessive shutter roll even on slow pans. The next day it was not showing this rolling shutter effect as much.
3. Just for information - it only takes 10 minute video clips at a time so if you are thinking of strapping one of these on for a lengthy ski or skateboard run ... forget about it.

Bought on special from Walmart with bundled 2 GB SD card for $89.99.

A defective unit or typical performance? I won't waste money another one of these. Would not recommend to a friend.

Summary: one miserable little camera.

PS: I've take photos for corporations and shows and weddings with both budget and professional grade cameras with great results ... however avoid this Made in China product.
3036685
It works ok for the most part, but I hate when the auto-focus feature. It's so annoying, because it's too slow and not clear or smooth. It's blurry for several seconds or so.
4220005
This is an inexpensive digital, but has some serious flaws.  It is a real battery eater, particularly in downloading.  The manual suggests using an ac adaptor to avoid eating batteries.  Compared to the Canon A70, where all you do is connect and turn the camera on, this requires a complicated download of software, which did not work on my networked computer, and then marking each picture you'd like to copy to the computer.
The camera takes a long time to turn on, focus is not nearly as fast as I want or expect, and works poorly in low light.  The manual suggests avoiding that problem by putting the camera in macro and setting distance manually, but for the life of me I can't figure out how and the manual doesn't say.  The pictures look of average quality, and I did like the almost intuitive controls, but missed some of the manual adjustments that are present on other cameras, like the A70.  I am taking it back, and will spend the extra $$ to get the A70 to replace the one stolen from my car.  This one just doesn't cut it.
3522555
I received my copy a couple of weeks ago and, due to all the reviews about front focusing problems, immediately tested the autofocus with my digital rebel. It was fine on the test chart and I was relieved that I had received a good copy. However, further use showed that AF was OK only at short distances (less than 2-3 feet). AF is actually terrible at medium distances, e.g. it focuses at appr. 6 feet when active focus point is at an object appr. 12 feet away. That's what I would call a serious miss, making the AF totally useless. The digital rebel's viewfinder is rather small and dark, making accurate manual focus very hard to achieve. My solution has been to AF, then switch to MF and shoot several times turning the focus wheel a little towards infinity between each shot. This method has given me some keepers, but it is a hassle.

That said, when the subject is in focus (using manual focus), this lens produces very nice and sharp pictures at all apertures. A bit soft in the corners, even at f/4.5, but for this lens' main purpose, that is not a big deal.

Despite the problems, I'm returning the lens to Amazon for a replacement instead of a refund. The in-focus pictures it produces are really nice.
2610792
I rented this lens because I was trying to decide on purchasing this or the nikon 85mm 1.4.  This lens was used on my nikon d7000.  The auto focus was horrible.  I will definitely save to purchase the nikon. The color is not very rich,and the focus was blurry at 1.4...
4696300
I found this lens to feel on the cheap side. The plastic it was made out of felt very cheap and not sturdy.  It was hard to attach to my camera. The button that locks the aperture into place got stuck. Also the message that came across my camera screen would not go away regarding the aperture button. Because of that I ended up returning the lens.  But to be honest with you when I found out that it was not actually auto focus on my model of camera I was really disappointed. I found this out from B&H Photo Video and reading their description of this lens. The seller needs to be more specific as to what cameras the auto focus will work with. The description given here is very vague and not accurate. Having said all that, the quality all the images that I did take were beautiful. It gives a lovely and brilliant bokeh effect.

I went ahead and purchased the Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras for just a few bucks more. I'll review that when it comes.
4224855
You're not going to want to take a picture at anything slower than 1/60th of a second. Anything slower, this lens blurs.

The picture quality is not great. I would say it's worse than the 18-55. Build quality is horrible. Very plasticky, feels very cheaply made.
3666739
For its price, the Vivitar ViviCam V7024 offers some impressive features, uncluding:

- 7.1 megapixel picture quality
- 2.4 inch LCD preview screen
- self-timer
- video recorder for making short films
- digital zoom
- flash
- SD memory card slot

However, the old adage is once again proven here: you get what you pay for. Despite its impressive-sounding features, this camera simply feels cheap. You sense the fragility of its stamped plastic construction the moment you hold it in your hands. Also, despite having an alleged 7.1 megapixel capability, the photos are noticeably choppy, jagged and grainy from any distance, in any light. I thought at first that the grainy jaggedness of the photos was a result of "automatic" settings needing to be manually fine-tuned, but I found that no matter how I set the camera's picture-taking options, the photos were simply not good.

My cellphone has a built in camera of 3.1 megapixels, and its photos are clearly superior to the Vivitar camera. How can this be?

This is simply not a good camera, that's why. One would think that the flash is useful, but it's very weak and doesn't really take good night photos (or even photos in a house with lamps on and not outside light) unless you are right in front of your target.

The LCD screen is of extremely poor resolution and doesn't really show a good depiction of shots you took unless you zoom the image, which seems easy, but the software inside the camera is very... slow... and you'll be waiting forever just to check and see if your kid smiled in the shot you just took.

This camera isn't even really good for beginners who just want to take photos and aren't all that interested in quality. Why? Because this camera eats batteries so fast!

It takes 3 AAA batteries (not included). Also, you need to buy an SD memory card, don't forget. This camera has no built in memory at all and is inoperative without the card. When I purchased the camera I bought a package of 12 AAA batteries separately. This camera went through them really quickly.

Especially when you use the flash -- your 3 AAA batteries might last only ten or fifteen shots before the LCD screen says "flash charge failure" and the camera turns off automatically.

Okay, then, how about with non-flash photos? Your 3 AAA batteries will last for dozens and dozens of photos, right?

No.

I bought high-quality batteries, and noticed that after only about thirty photos, the batteries were already used up.

So, to summarize, this camera is not good for adults because it feels really cheap, and IS cheap, and takes cheap pictures.

For kids, they'll run through batteries so quickly they won't have any fun.

Overall, the money you waste on batteries for this thing will very quickly erase the initial advantage of the camera's lower base price.

I returned this camera to the store and bought a different camera from a different manufacturer for only twenty-five dollars more. It has an internal rechargeable battery, so I won't waste more money on endless batteries. It too is rated at 7.1 megapixels, and yet is pictures are superior both in flash and non flash occasions.

This leads me to believe that the Vivitar is just ViviJUNK. Do yourself a favor and skip it -- bite the bullet and buy quality the first time. Profit from my mistake!
1186377
I was highly disappointed in this lens, didn't measure up to my expectation, neither the auto focus or the manual focus really give you a clear picture, will do a much better research on the next lens I purchase.
2438092
Exterior: This is made primarily of cheap feeling plastic, and I'm always afraid I'll break it if I bump it against something. The adjustment dials are very loose and I keep having to recalibrate it, as they get turned accidentally just from normal use. The on-off switch just pops off, and I've almost lost it on more than one occasion.

Viewing: The area you look through is TINY in comparison to the overall size of the unit (which is quite large), making it difficult to aim in a hurry. The actual crosshair also ends up obscuring a large amount of your view. It has two brightness settings, which is nice, but that doesn't overcome the problems with this sight.

If you've got a gun that's worth over $100, invest in a better sight. Your aim will thank you for it. Airsoft backyard warzzz? Go for it.
855699
I can't say I'd recommend these extension tubes for anyone who really wants to get some photography done.  Yes, I understood that I wouldn't have autofocus or aperture control with these tubes, but I severely underestimated how annoying it would be to not have aperture control.  Unless you use the DOF "trick" that others on here have mentioned to set apertures at stops other than wide open, you end up with extremely tight depths of field, which in the case of macro photography is highly limiting.  Continually taking off and putting on your lens to achieve different f-stops is not a good idea; you're continually tempting fate with the risk of dropping your lens.

Also, after having used these tubes for just a few days, the mechanism that locks the lens to the tube broke, resulting in a greater risk that my lens would fall off and shatter (and my lens was pretty darn expensive).  Rather than even waste my time getting my ten bucks back, I just tossed these tubes in the trash.  I'm either going to purchase the Kenko tubes or, more likely, a dedicated macro lens.  I'll mark this off as a cheap experiment that failed.
3173838
Pros:
1. Cheap I got for $118(including Tax + shipping)
2. AutoFocus is very nice and fast.
3. Picture Quality is good.
4. very portable and light.

Cons:
1. Build Quality is cheap( cheap Plastic is used), when you tap on lens it sounds like empty can.
2. The Autofous make sound so if you are doing video it will be recorded.

Suggestion to canon:
Kindly upgrade the plastic quality a bit even if it cost extra $20 per piece.
3495136
I sent this camera back after using it for a few days.  The images taken with the intelligent auto setting are frequently really awful. You can get good pictures if you take the time to set things manually, but I buy a point and shoot camera primarily to use on automatic mode.  I found the colors to be dull, the images to be underexposed, the dynamic range to be dismal and, at the long end of the zoom range, the contrast to be terrible.  For such an expensive camera, this is really unacceptable. Judge for yourself from the attached images, all shot on auto mode. I am an experienced photographer, having shot 35 mm for decades and don't mind doing manual settings. However, there are many times that it simply takes too long and the shot is missed if it is all done manually, especially given the clunkiness of manual controls on a camera of this type. Thus, it is critical that the auto mode gives reasonably reliable results..