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This is the snappily titled “Praktica Mini Digital Camera for Family” which was the first digital camera we ever owned. Made in Taiwan, its link to the famous German brand of Praktica is tenuous at best - and the camera is probably better classified by the model number “TC-2S” which is what its original manufacturer referred to it by. Way back in 1999 when I bought it I did find the original manufacturer’s web site - but it is long since gone. However it was clear that the camera could be ordered in bulk with colours and logo to suit so there are potentially many variations of this camera in existence. One other name I’ve heard it sold under is “Mini Pix 320” though I can’t confirm this.
Looking carefully at the box - there is no mention of Praktica at all - so I suspect all the artwork and maybe the box itself was just standard original manufacture’s packaging. At the time it was amazing that any digital camera could be bought for the price (around £50) - but as I write this in 2006 - this sort of money will buy a 3MP camera with many more features.
Other specifications worth knowing about include using a 9v PP3 batter or external DC supply for power and that the internal 4M bits of SRAM would hold 24 pictures. The computer interface is RS232. The camera was supplied with TWAIN drivers on floppy and LivePix LOONEY TUNES Photo Print Studio (v2.0). In theory the TWAIN drivers should work with any TWAIN compatible art package - but I found they gave a nasty blue cast to the captured images unless the supplied copy of LivePix was use. The software was supplied for Windows 95/98 but also seems to work fine on Windows XP (Home). The lack of a LCD screen for picture composition and the lack of a flash mean this camera is limited in the extreme. However with careful use it can produce recognisable pictures. These following ones are at full resolution and show the best the camera can do!
When I came to use this camera again in 2006 after a gap of over 5 years I found the battery compartment door impossible to budge. The external DC connector came to the rescue although the only PSU I could get to fit had a rather odd sized barrel plug designed for a Sony Diskman CD player. This PSU was only rated at 4.5V but it drove the camera quite happily. Despite being the first digital camera we ever owned, now I’ve got around to documenting it on this web site it is likely to end up in a Charity shop very soon! :-) Got a question or can't find the info you are looking for? Click HERE to contact us.
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All text and images Copyright © 2000-2013 Roland Givan, unless otherwise stated. All Rights Reserved. |