Oregon Scientific ATC5K Waterproof Action Camera

• Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 1 review
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 4 stars

  Mostly bad

  by downdown on August 15, 2009

  Pros: Waterproof. Really it is.
  Solid, well constructed case.

  Cons: This device has a lot of problems. A lot. But by far the biggest is the centre-loaded automatic exposure, which makes the thing unusable in the real world.
  Then there's the flimsy mountings, the unreadable LCD, the file errors...

  Summary: Auto exposure control: Oh boy. It's bad. Real bad. Only a tiny area in the centre of the image is used to set the exposure level. So if this ...

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  Summary: Auto exposure control: Oh boy. It's bad. Real bad. Only a tiny area in the centre of the image is used to set the exposure level. So if this happens to be pointing above the horizon then the whole image goes dark and looks like it was shot in moonlight. Yes, really that dark. And if the centre of the image is just below the horizon then the whole image goes intensely bright again. Mount this camera on (say) the front of a kayak and the video playback is like being bombed with multiple H-bombs at night... too dark to see anything when the kayak pitches upwards, then flashing too bright to bear when it pitches downwards. Even panning across a scene which contains dark and light patches causes rapid and random changes to the exposure level so the video is constantly flickering as if some idiot is playing with the brightness control on your display. And when you paddle through a cave, even a relatively well-lit one, the results are just awful.
  
  Display: Invisible in bright daylight. And the camera doesn't work in the dark anyway. So this is an utterly useless 'feature'.
  
  Menus: Too small to see. I have an eye loupe here on my desk which I use to read them. No exaggeration.
  
  File Errors: If the battery goes flat while you're filming, 50/50 chance you'll get a "file error" and will be unable to access your video.
  
  Video quality: Rubbish. Massive color bleed. Highly pixelated, even allowing for 640 resolution. See also "Auto exposure control". It's just unwatchable.
  
  Low light performance: None whatsoever.
  
  Mountings: Flimsy. Extremely flimsy when you consider the weight of this camera.
  
  Would I recommend this? You are kidding. But if you really, really must buy one of these Oregon beasties because you don't believe a word I say, then do yourself a favour and get the 3K version without the LCD screen. That'll save you 40% of the price. You're still wasting the other 60% though.
  
  Two stars. Because it is waterproof and solid. But what's the point of producing a well-made casing... and then filling it with terrible technology?

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