Epson PhotoPC 850Z Digital Camera

I did buy that model as I became interested in timelapse photography, and all sources said that this one has some settings which make it good for that purpose. I am mainly using Sampung PRO815, which lets you choose time between 1 minute-99 minutes. Epson has 10 seconds - 24h, so you can make timelapse movies melting ice - growing plants - rotting fruits, or, if you do not use that camera every day for another purposes you can set it in window and take pictures once a day till memory card will be full. Of course with power charger, as while camera is waiting for next shot, it's still on. And this camera was sold with 16MB card, but when I did put 2GB card in it, it did show that it can do 2992 pictures in best quality settings! Which is enough for timelapse, even when it has only 2 megapixels. Now I can set it to take pics of sky every 10 second, and after making the movie in simple program (even Windows Movie Maker) they look smooth, even in windy day.

Pictures from that camera ary far better that I did expect, but the operation is very slow (zooming, starting, changing modes, pic preview and especially menus). But as I said, it's great as second camera, especially if you do timelapse, and you set it once, then leave it to do the job, somewhere on tripod.

I got it from ebay as 8 years old one, and it's in great condition; altrought I did experience a few accidents when it hang, and only removing batteries did sort it out, I don't know if it was camera's fault, or it's age. And it did never happened during interval photos.
What is suprising, the batteries (rechargeable, AA size, which come with camera, and kit contains original Epson charger) are 8 years old, but they still hold charge for about 700 pictures outdors, a bit more indoors, and about 400 with flash!
Bodybuild is a bit 'not feel very sturdy', but if you do timelapse it doesn't matter, and body is a bit chunky, something like SLR one. It's not heavy thou.

There is just one thing which annoys me: even if you set the flash (in timelapse) on 'off', it will flash as soon as it will get dark. This is big fault, as if you want to take timelapse pics of sunset, it will start flashing as soon as it will get dark.

Otherwise camera is nice and easy to use, it's not that heavy as you would think looking at that, and has proper SLR - shaped body, so it feels good in hand. And it has separate mode with LCD screen swtched off, if you want to use built-in viewfinder. It also have that interesting power-save feature, where LCD screen is lit up by available light, when you open slot over the screen.

Summay: it's better that I thought it would be; some details let it down, but it's still over 90% for this age, price and features. Sorry guys but I will never sell that (unless I will winn lottery and will be able to afford proper SLR with proper software to make timelapse movies).

good sharp photos good colour easy to operate sharp lens chunky not for handbags , 2.1mpx adequate for the average snapshooter reasonable zoom range reasonable iso range, big and chunky has a confident feel to it the solar panel attached to the lcd is a good feature saves a bit of battery power nice camera not for nimble fingers , coalminers and foundry workers would like it!

i brought the camera because my son broke my other one, the camera is ok but when its left on stand by it does take a good few seconds to start back up again,