Review: Camp Snap Camera

The Camp Snap Camera and box contents.

Note: The Camp Snap Camera was purchased by Guitar Ted and is being reviewed without the knowledge of Camp Snap. I was not paid, bribed, nor am I affiliated with Camp Snap in any way. I always strive to give my honest thoughts and views in any review I write.

Well, a camera is kind of a 'cycling adjacent' item here, since as you all know, I take a lot of images and post many here on this blog. That said, I must post a disclaimer here: I am in no way a "photographer", nor do I know anything much about photography. 

So, any persons reading this that are well versed in photography may want to tune out here. I'm probably not going to impart the information you want, nor will I speak to this Camp Snap camera in photographer jargon. So I'll likely offend those who hold those tenants of photography religiously. If you are a 'photographer' and dare to read on, that's on you. 

I am a cyclist that happens to carry a camera and I take a bunch of images. I like simplicity and the Camp Snap Camera promised that. Turn it on. Point the lens at a subject. Press button. Done. My kind of device there. Especially since a lot of my imagery is taken while riding. I don't have time for settings, tweaking, or what have you.

This is a super-simple camera. Not much to see here.

First Impressions:

Out of the box you will notice that this camera is very lightweight. No wonder, as it is all plastic construction. The Camp Snap Camera only weighs 93 grams, so it definitely won't weigh your pocket down. The size of the device is 11.5cm long X 6cm high X 2.5cm deep, not including the "lens protrusion". It's roughly the same size as my Olympus Tough TG-5. 

Camp Snap developed this camera for kids to take on vacations and the like. So, it is super-simple. It also feels like a toy. If you want a "real camera feel", you will be highly disappointed. 

That said, Camp Snap claims this camera is rough and tumble ready since it has zero moving parts inside and only two buttons. The shutter/on/off button up top and a slider button that controls the LED flash. You will also note that on the back there is an LED read out for the number of images taken and a "viewfinder" window. Four small Phillips head screws hold the back on. 

On the bottom of the camera there is a door for access to a Micro-SD card which is held in place by a 'micro-Phillips' screw. The USB C port is also here covered by a rubber cap tethered to the surround for the opening. There is also a perforated circular shaped section where the speaker resides inside the camera housing.

Annnnnd......that's about it! You long-press the shutter button to hear a double beep from the speaker to activate the camera. One short press will activate a "shutter sound" which indicates that an image has been grabbed. The LED will read out "001" and count upward as more images are taken. One long-press again, one beep, and the camera shuts down. Or you can simply set the device down and it self-shuts down after ten minutes. 

Recharging the device is done via the USB-C port. The cable provided has double USB-C ends, so you'll need an adapter to hook up to your computer, or you can sub in another cable, as I did, to hook the camera up to a computer's USB outlet. 

The camera arrived partially charged, but it only took about half an hour to bring it up to a full charge. There is a 4GB Micro-SD card installed which can hold up to a claimed 2000 images. Images can be downloaded to a computer via USB, or directly off the card using a card reader. 

I thought the Camp Snap construction was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. It feels cheap, and it definitely does not seem robust enough to hold up to even a child's rough handling. For instance, the colorful faux-leather panel is glued directly on top of the plastic housing and the edges of that panel are exposed which could catch and end up pulling off the casing. We will see in the future. But that and the cheesy "beep" emanating from the inside of the camera, the "shutter" sound, and the 1990's era LED panel emanate a feeling of a carnival prize, in my opinion. But hey! It's 65 bucks, right? 

How about some images? 

The first three images were heavily processed in the computer. The last one is untouched. A few notes...

• It seems that the Camp Snap camera has a hard time with brightness control. I had a couple other images that were unusable due to their being blown out. The top three images required a lot of brightness control and contrasting to bring out more detail and interesting textures. 
• That being the case, this camera does not tolerate being pointed anywhere near a bright source of light. This blows out the images badly. This includes when the camera senses that it needs the flash. I found the flash to be kind of useless in the daytime. Maybe at night it would work better? I'll try to find out.
  
• Depth of field is odd. You can see how my bike is out of focus in the last image but the tree bark is in focus about a foot and a half behind the bike. So, no real close shots here. For reference, that grip is leaning on the tree.

So the camera is pretty low-tech and it shows. This is not "character" in that the images are not cheesy-fun. The images are just not very good. But we'll see how things go once I get out in the country and start shooting from the saddle of the bike like I usually do. 

Now on to my experience downloading the images. I am a card reader kind of guy. I don't like other camera's native software and I usually eschew any such complexities. Give me the card, I slap that puppy in a card reader, hook up to my computer, and boom! I get to work. It's just been my process over the years. 

The Camp Snap files can be searched and sent to your favorite processing "in the box" program or to wherever you want. But I figured I'd pull that Micro-SD card out and just get to work as usual. But wait! That door held on by that tiny screw? Yeah.... 

That screw is very tiny and you'd better not lose it or you will be looking a long time to find a replacement. Then there is the Micro-SD slot. 

Generally, in my limited experiences with SD card slots, the opening is almost impossible to miss or over-shoot when replacing the card. However; there is a "Micro-SD" sized space above the card slot in the Camp Snap that I inadvertently slid the card into and.... There went the card into the internals of the camera! 

I tried shaking it out but the card migrated further into the bowels of the camera. I could hear it rattling around in there, and I figured that was not a good thing. So, in desperation, I went in where "no user serviceable parts" are found. I removed the four screws holding the two halves of the Camp Snap together and gently tried prying those halves apart. 

That was stymied when I found that the back didn't want to separate and I could only get one end to open about a centimeter. But that was enough to shake out the SD card and get everything back where it belonged. And the camera still works! 

Phew! 

So, the lesson here is that IF you decide to get at the SD card, be very, very careful! That mess was on me. 

More soon...