Mustek VDC 3500

Review Date
June 21, 2009

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.00 of 5, 1 votes

Reviewed by
sfpeter , Intermediate

Price Paid
$3.00 at Ebay

Photography Experience
6-10 years , Outdoor

Summary
Whenever people gripe about modern cameras and noise or saturation, they should pick up one of these and see how far we've come.

My particular example is a Dimera Relisys 3500, but aside from the name they're all the same camera. My particular reason for owning one is this was literally the first digital camera I ever owned, and I guess it shows how far I've come. For $3 plus shipping I thought why not go back to the egg and see how it was.

History wise this camera was made when an "affordable" SLR like the D1 was $5,000, and had a resolution of 2.74 megapixels, and 640X480 was considered an acceptable resolution for consumer cameras. Sony was cleaning up with their floppy disc based Mavica cameras, which made the Dimera/Mustek the equivalent of a 110 film camera.

This was also one of the earliest cameras to use a removable flash memory, although it was a "serial flash" unit available in 2mb or 4MB sizes, and quickly left the market. There are no readers for these cards and they are now very rare.

Shooting it is like stepping back to a 110 film camera, it's all automatic so you simply point, click, and hope for the best. You have no manual controls and no ability to view your images whatsoever.

But enough with that, on to the rest of it....

Strengths
It will take a picture. In color.

Weaknesses
The most outstanding weakness is the horrible image quality; a grainy noisy, smudgy thing that makes 110 film look like large format. The images look like stills from a contemporary webcam, and the sensor likely came from one. As the adage goes a photograph is better than none at all, and my first camera did let me take pictures of a few important family memories.

It's a serial based connection and no readers are available for the serial flash card. I was able to get mine working on a Windows XP box by installing the driver only and then using acquire in Photoshop Elements 2.0. You can also take a grainy b/w soundless video when the camera is tethered, which could have some artistic potential.

Uses a non-rechargeable lithium battery, but at least it's a standard one you can get at the store.

Default image format is BMP, which was very unusual even then, but nothing virtually any photo editor can't work with.

Similar Products Used
Similar to this camera really none.

Customer Service
Didn't use

Review Date
September 19, 2001

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
2-5 years

Reviewed by
Yaser Farid , Casual , from Jeddah, Western, Saudi Arabia

Price Paid
$90.00 at Yahoo Auction

Summary
This camera sucks, only 8 pictures, completly wierd color, no light control so the pictures are either very bright or totally dark.

Sucks sucks sucks.

Strengths
hmmm... bmp output

Weaknesses
capacity, memory card isn't widely avilable, bad coloring, no saturation of color, unclear picture.

Similar Products Used
none

Customer Service
none

Review Date
September 19, 2001

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
2-5 years

Reviewed by
Yaser Farid , Casual , from Jeddah, Western, Saudi Arabia

Price Paid
$90.00 at Yahoo Auction

Summary
This camera sucks, only 8 pictures, completly wierd color, no light control so the pictures are either very bright or totally dark.

Sucks sucks sucks.

Strengths
hmmm... bmp output

Weaknesses
capacity, memory card isn't widely avilable, bad coloring, no saturation of color, unclear picture.

Similar Products Used
none

Customer Service
none

Review Date
July 7, 2001

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
1 Week

Reviewed by
Jong Kim , Beginner , from Tamuning, GU, USA

Summary
Bought this from the auction at $41 in different brand name Relysis dimera 3500. It is limited to 8 pictures in fine mode 640x480. It is descent for web use or emailing pictures to friends and relative. Printout quality from 1200 dpi Compaq printer is not great as printout from scanned regular photo pictures. For the cheap price I paid, it is worth it for my use.

Strengths
Descent picture quality. Sometime overexposed.

Weaknesses
Limited to 8 pictures for fine mode. Standard mode quality is not good.

Review Date
November 26, 2000

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
1 Month

Reviewed by
George Aumann , Expert , from Altadena, CA

Summary
Surprisingly sharp images in the 640 x 480 mode, more than adequate for web use, but noticable coloration of sharp edges with 4 x 6 inch prints. Optical viewfinder is reasonably accurate. No LCD display. The single 3 Volt Lithium battery is good for about 50 - 100 shots. Serial interface takes 40 seconds to download each image. Merifully, there are only 8 on the 2MB removable memory card. Pictures tend to be slightly overexposed, but this can be handles in PhotoShop. Almost no shutter delay (fix focus lens), but saving one image takes 9 seconds. Flash power output is set for 10 ft. Anything nearer will be overexposed. Good deal for $60, but if you are looking for printing your pictures as large as 7 x 10 inch, look elsewhere, get an Olympus 360L or equivalent and expect to spend about $250.

Strengths
Cheap. Good for web use.

Weaknesses
Limited to 8 pictures

Similar Products Used
Kodal DC40, Olympus D340R

Customer Service
Not needed