As you all know, I LOVE Educational Insights stuff! Not only because they are so fun, but also because they are nice and sturdy! So I was totally psyched (yes, I’m an 80’s child) when they asked me to review the GeoSafari® Tuff Cam!
As you can imagine, with all the photos we take around here the kids are always dying to get involved. And aside from handing them my Canon T1i Rebel, which NEVER happens, they are constantly begging to take a picture.
I have to say, we’ve used other “kids” cameras before, and the photos are just not that great. But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality from the GeoSafari® Tuff Cam. It is a 12 Megapixel camera with both photo and video capabilities. It has a 2” viewing screen, and frankly whoever came up with the design is a genius! It looks like a store scanner, and for kids its PERFECT! There is an easy point and shoot “trigger” that takes the photo, or video and can be operated easily with one hand. The buttons are also very easy to understand. My kids figured it out before I even had the chance to read them the instructions.
Before I knew it they were taking pictures of everything from our fish, trees, grass, cat, flowers, me (to which they giggled endlessly) and anything else they could get photos of. There were also numerous videos taken, some people singing, plays being acted out, the cat drinking water, and the like. But what about the quality and how about getting the images off the camera?
Easy peasy! The GeoSafari® Tuff Cam comes with a docking station that connects to both PC and Mac computers using a USB port. This also charges the camera so….can we all say this in unison….NO BATTERIES!! EVER!!! To transfer images and video to your computer simply set the GeoSafari® Tuff Cam in the docking station and turn the button to “Play”. The camera will show up as a removable storage device in your file explorer window.
One super cool thing about this camera is the features. It comes with several menu options you can play with including zoom, scene mode (Auto, Sports, Night, Portrait, Landscape, Backlight). It even has Exposure correction, White Balance options, ISO options (auto, 100,200), and several other settings you can have fun with.
Here are some actual images from the GeoSafari® Tuff Cam, we played with the zoom here and I think it turned out great:
You’ll notice the shadows, so we changed it to the “backlight” setting. You can see the difference below.
The above photo is WITHOUT the “backlight setting”.
This one is WITH the “backlight” setting, you can definitely see a difference, and these guys had the sun directly behind them. The pic above had it to the right a little bit.
A couple things we noticed as we went; images tend to be blurry if you get too close to them, and you also have to stay fairly still to get a nice crisp photo. But for a kids cam, I honestly think this took great photos! The video quality was just as good. Although I will have to have a talk with the kids about proper video technique so Mom doesn’t get carsick watching them. I’ll spare you.
Another favorite feature aside from the design and ease of use, was the durability! Just as the name implies the GeoSafari® Tuff Cam is actually fairly “Tuff”…it has withstood several drops, tug-o-wars, and general kid abuse. It comes with a nice tough rubber casing which seems to keep it fairly protected. (Too bad I don’t have that for my iphone! )
What’s the cost? The GeoSafari® Tuff Cam retails for $179.99. A little pricey, but like I said the quality is excellent. Especially if you have kids who are interested in photography, I think it’s a good buy!
Here are some stats if you techy people out there are interested:
Want more info? Visit the Educational Insights links below, if you stop by let them know that Erica @ Confessions sent you over!
Thanks for letting us know about this. I’ve never seen this gadget before. What a great idea! This might be something for me to consider purchasing.