found at San Diego Costco. Olympus Brio D-150. Optical and digital zoom. $149.00. No rebate, $149.00 at checkout. As simple as that .. Is going for $300.00 in today?s Fry's Ad.
review at Steve's Digital camera. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/d150.html
Steve's Conclusion
The Camedia Brio D-150 is a small (pocket-sized) digital camera that offers a combination of good image quality with point-n-shoot ease of use. It doesn't record movie clips and there's no advanced camera modes, this is simply a snapshooter's camera. It's priced within reach of most people's budget and has a robust shot to shot speed (~2.5 secs) when compared to other 1.3 megapixel cameras. It's ready to shoot about 3 seconds after you slide open the lens cover. Even though it is small and pocket size it's equipped with a powerful 3x optical zoom lens that retracts back into the camera when powered down.
Small cameras also mean small LCD displays, the D-150 has a better than average 1.5-inch color display. The refresh rate when used as a viewfinder is very close to real time, there is no smearing or herky-jerky motion when panning. It is bright and the colors are true but I wouldn't say it's any easier to use in the bright sun than most other LCD displays. The optical viewfinder is the best choice for most picture-taking tasks other than macro. It saves your battery power and allows the camera to be put up to your eye which is the way most of us are used to holding a camera. The optical viewfinder shows about 94% of the captured image but offers no viewfinder information other than a set of cross hair marks.
The D-150 is powered by two AA size batteries or one of the Olympus CR-3V lithium one-use batteries. I used the camera with a pair of 1600mAH NiMH type batteries and was quite impressed with the runtime as long as the color LCD was not turned on too often. You could easily fill a 64MB size memory card with an all-day visit to your favorite tourist hangout using just a single set of batteries. In SHQ mode the average picture size is about 820KB, HQ about 265KB and SQ 640x480 (VGA) images are about 80KB.
Overall the image quality is quite good for a 1280 x 960 camera. The color rendition is excellent and I was satisfied with the saturation on 95% of the pictures, even macro-flash pictures were handled properly. The most annoying thing to me was the lack of a sequential numbering option for the filenames that it creates. This means that if you swap memory cards you can end up with duplicate filenames if pictures are taken on the same day. The camera names images using the date as a template (Pmddnnnn.JPG) - i.e. P4090006.JPG is the sixth picture taken on April 9. If you're like me you probably keep all the pictures taken at a particular place or event in one directory so duplicate filenames are a real pain. I use the PicMeta Software's PIE program to rename files to avoid this when necessary.
If you want a very compact point-n-shoot with fast shot to shot time and a high quality 3x zoom that's capable of making 4x6" or 5x7" prints and fits in your pocket then the D-150 may be just what you are looking for.
review at Steve's Digital camera. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/d150.html
Steve's Conclusion
The Camedia Brio D-150 is a small (pocket-sized) digital camera that offers a combination of good image quality with point-n-shoot ease of use. It doesn't record movie clips and there's no advanced camera modes, this is simply a snapshooter's camera. It's priced within reach of most people's budget and has a robust shot to shot speed (~2.5 secs) when compared to other 1.3 megapixel cameras. It's ready to shoot about 3 seconds after you slide open the lens cover. Even though it is small and pocket size it's equipped with a powerful 3x optical zoom lens that retracts back into the camera when powered down.
Small cameras also mean small LCD displays, the D-150 has a better than average 1.5-inch color display. The refresh rate when used as a viewfinder is very close to real time, there is no smearing or herky-jerky motion when panning. It is bright and the colors are true but I wouldn't say it's any easier to use in the bright sun than most other LCD displays. The optical viewfinder is the best choice for most picture-taking tasks other than macro. It saves your battery power and allows the camera to be put up to your eye which is the way most of us are used to holding a camera. The optical viewfinder shows about 94% of the captured image but offers no viewfinder information other than a set of cross hair marks.
The D-150 is powered by two AA size batteries or one of the Olympus CR-3V lithium one-use batteries. I used the camera with a pair of 1600mAH NiMH type batteries and was quite impressed with the runtime as long as the color LCD was not turned on too often. You could easily fill a 64MB size memory card with an all-day visit to your favorite tourist hangout using just a single set of batteries. In SHQ mode the average picture size is about 820KB, HQ about 265KB and SQ 640x480 (VGA) images are about 80KB.
Overall the image quality is quite good for a 1280 x 960 camera. The color rendition is excellent and I was satisfied with the saturation on 95% of the pictures, even macro-flash pictures were handled properly. The most annoying thing to me was the lack of a sequential numbering option for the filenames that it creates. This means that if you swap memory cards you can end up with duplicate filenames if pictures are taken on the same day. The camera names images using the date as a template (Pmddnnnn.JPG) - i.e. P4090006.JPG is the sixth picture taken on April 9. If you're like me you probably keep all the pictures taken at a particular place or event in one directory so duplicate filenames are a real pain. I use the PicMeta Software's PIE program to rename files to avoid this when necessary.
If you want a very compact point-n-shoot with fast shot to shot time and a high quality 3x zoom that's capable of making 4x6" or 5x7" prints and fits in your pocket then the D-150 may be just what you are looking for.
