Hewlett-Packard's
Photosmart 612 is the middle camera of a group of three recently
released by the company: a 2.3 megapixel model squarely aimed at the first
time buyer.
As with the HP 715,
the HP 612 is straight "point and shoot". It has a rounded silvery
light plastic body, that provides no complex controls; and is equipped
with a 2X zoom lens.
The
power switch is unlabelled, and mounted to the right of the small status
display on the camera's top. Below the status screen, three buttons are
the sum total of the photographic controls.
Starting on the left, the button with 2 stars is to set the image quality
and size. Next is the self-timer which has a 10 second delay; followed
by the flash mode button.
The status screen indicates the current settings for image quality, flash,
and the power remaining in the batteries.
The
back of the HP 612 supports 3 other controls: the LCD On-Off button, identified
by the standard icon .
A wheel control comes next, which is a replacement for the more common
4-direction controls of many other cameras.
The wheel control is referred to as the Control Dial, and works
somewhat like a mouse wheel. Pressing it down makes selections, and turning
it to one side or the other allows navigation of the menu.
The
third remaining control is on the far right, and serves to activate the
2X optical zoom and, if held for more than 2 seconds at the telephoto
position, the 2X digital
zoom.
A very simple optical viewfinder is provided, but its exit pupil is quite
small, making it difficult to see the entire frame if glasses are worn.
There is no diopter correction. An LED is embedded on the right of the
exit pupil, and serves to indicate focus (green), or inability to focus
(orange).
Just like the
HP 715, the HP 612 is an extremely simple camera. Its operation, once
such things as image size and flash mode have been selected are limited
to adjusting the zoom and pressing the shutter release. Things simply
don't get any simpler than that.
.
A wheel control comes next, which is a replacement for the more common
4-direction controls of many other cameras.
