NoteCam Pro A310 Purchased Feb. 14, 2003, $29

A VERY generic, inexpensive, small camera I picked up at a local computer store. In fact it is so generic, there isn't any writing on the camera except a serial number sticker. I was quite surprised at the quality of the image considering the price. It's actually better than the Logitech Quick Cam Messenger which cost $50. Nice little support bracket which can be used on a notebook or rotated and set on a desktop. It has a metal screw mount on the bottom where the base screws in. It's not a standard 1/4" tripod mount, but you could rig a simple mounting bracket to fasten it to, unlike the Quick Cam Messenger which will only work on its own base without damaging the case.

Thanks to a viewer in Denmark, we now know that the internal component to this camera is made by ZSMC of California. Back in late 2004 there was a website where you could get an updated driver but the driver is no longer available from them.

Sample images showing how this camera performs under different lighting conditions

Pluses
• Small size
• Very inexpensive
• Decent quality image in good light
• A few nice features in Twain driver
• Twain driver seems to be very stable
• Has a small metal threaded mounting hole, rather than plastic

Minuses
• Unlikely to find any reliable support for it (don't loose the driver disk)
• Some of the auto controls in the supplied Twain driver don't seem to be available
• When I tried to use the camera with a USB extension cable one of my computers didn't recognize the camera with the supplied drivers
• When plugged into 2 of my USB hubs, Windows XP shut down to prevent damage to the operating system (note this problem seems to have been solved with the new driver)
• Mounting hole is a metric 4mm 7 thread screw, not standard tripod size
• Not very good for full motion video. 3 frames a second is doing good for this camera, most likely due to inefficiencies in the driver

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