User manual BENQ DC 1300

BENQ Digital Camera 1300 Electronic User's Manual Introduction to Benq Digital Camera 1300 1 Touring Your Camera 2 Preparing the Camera for Using 5 Installing batteries and strap 5 Installing Digital Camera Software 6 Using Your Camera 8 The digital camera mode 8 Taking pictures 8 Managing photos in camera 11 The continuous shooting mode 13 The video camera mode 14 The sound recording mode 15 The PC camera mode 16 Options 18 Troubleshooting Tips 25 Service Information 26 Copyright Copyright (c) 2002 by Benq Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without prior written permission from Benq. Brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Disclaimer Benq makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Benq assumes no responsibility for any error that may appear in this document. Benq makes no commitment to update nor to keep current the information contained in this document. Taking care of your camera · Do not use your camera over the following environmental range: temperature: O C to 40 C, relative humidity: 45% ~ 85%. · Do not use or store your camera in environments listed below: Direct sunlight High humidity and dusty places. Next to the air conditioner, electric heater or the other heat sources. In a closed car that is directly under the sun. Avoid shaky places. · If your camera becomes wet, wipe it with dry cloth as soon as possible. · Salt of seawater may cause severe camera damage. · Do not use organic solvents, such as alcohol, etc., to clean your camera. · If the lens or viewfinder is dirty, please use the lens brush or soft cloth to clean the lens. Do not touch the lens with your fingers. · To prevent electrical shock, do not attempt to disassemble or repair your camera by yourself. · Water may cause a fire or electric shock. Therefore, please store your camera in a dry place. · Do not use your camera outdoors when it is raining or snowing. · Do not use your camera in the water. · If the foreign substance or water gets in your camera, please tum the power off immediately and disconnect the batteries and the transformer. Remove the foreign substance or water, and send it to the maintenance center. Table of Contents 1. Introduction to Benq Digital Camera 1300 .....................................1 2. Touring Your Camera ........................................................................2 3. Preparing the Camera for Using ......................................................5 3.1. Installing batteries and strap ....................................................................... 5 3.2. Installing Digital Camera Software ............................................................. 6 4. Using Your Camera ............................................................................8 4.1. The digital camera mode ............................................................................. 8 4.1.1. Taking pictures ........................................................................................................... 8 4.1.3. Managing photos in camera ..................................................................................... 11 4.2. The continuous shooting mode ..................................................................13 4.3. The video camera mode ..............................................................................14 4.4. The sound recording mode .........................................................................15 4.5. The PC camera mode ..................................................................................16 4.5.1. Using Digital Camera as a PC camera .................................................................. 16 4.5.2. The function of the DC 1300 monitor frame ...................................................... 17 4.6. Options ..........................................................................................................18 i 5. Troubleshooting Tips .......................................................................25 6. Service Information ..........................................................................26 ii 1. Introduction to Benq Digital Camera 1300 1. Introduction to Benq Digital Camera 1300 Benq Digital Camera 1300 is equipped with the following features: · Small size for easy carriage and convenience of use · High resolution: 1280 x 1024 pixels in digital camera mode · Onboard 16 MB memory · Mode selectable flash light · Built-in self-timer · Fixed focus : 40 cm for macro mode, and 1.5 m to infinity from camera for normal mode · Electronic shutter · Easy recognizable LCD screen for camera and image handling · USB interface for easy and quick connection to PC · Automatic power-off system · 5 operation modes: Digital camera mode for taking photos PC camera mode for using the camera as an image capturing device for PC Video camera mode for capturing motion clips with a PC Continuous shooting mode for taking photos continuously Sound recording mode for recording sound 1 2. Touring Your Camera 2. Touring Your Camera Front View Shutter Flash light Viewfinder Lens Macro switch Self-timer activation indicator USB connection port Rear View Viewfinder Strap Eyelet Busy indicator Status display Flash/ Enter button Power/ Mode button White Balance Mode/ + button Pixel Selection/ _ button 2 2. Touring Your Camera Bottom View Battery compartment cover Tripod set The status display Flash Mode Daylight Mode Tungsten Light Mode Auto mode (White Balance) Compression Selection Mode (Fine/ Normal) Resolution Selection Mode (1280 X 1024) (1024 X 768) (640 X 480) Overcast Mode Fluorescent Mode Self-timer Mode Battery status Erase Mode Image counter PC Camera Mode Sound Recording Mode Video Camera Mode Continuous Shooting Mode Digital Camera Mode 3 3. Preparing the Camera for Using 3. Preparing the Camera for Using 3.1. Installing batteries and strap Open the battery compartment cover and insert two AAA alkaline batteries into the compartment. Note the polarity of the batteries when you install. Refer to the illustration below to install the strap. Now you are ready to use your camera! 4 3. Preparing the Camera for Using 3.2. Installing Digital Camera Software The CD that accompanies your camera contains the digital camera driver bundled with valuable image-editing software. To install digital camera software: Insert the utility CD into the CD-ROM drive. The software installation menu will appear automatically. 1. If the software installation menu does not automatically display, open Windows Explore and double-click the "Autorun.exe" icon in the CD-ROM directory. 2. If your Operating System is Windows XP, please feel comfortable to continue the installation process when the below dialog box appears on the screen. (In Windows 2000/NT, the same dialog box may also occur. Please feel comfortable to continue the installation process.) 5 3. Preparing the Camera for Using Click "Camera Driver" on the menu. Follow the on-line instructions to complete the driver intallation. Click to install digital camera driver Click to install Video Impression Click to browse User's Manual Click to install DirectX 8.1 Click to close the menu and exit You may be prompted to restart the computer at this point. Do not restart your computer until all the software has been installed. Click to install NetMeeting Click to install Photo Base Click to install Acrobat Reader 6 3. Preparing the Camera for Using Click on other items on the menu to install the bundled application software. Software DirectX 8.1 Description DirectX gives developers the tools to create amazing games for the Windows operating system and allows users the multimedia power to run the latest cutting-edge games. Install this software program to open document files in .pdf format. With VideoImpression you can edit and combine your video files. New videos can be created using existing video, animation, and image files. Quickly and easily create desktop video presentations for use at home, business or on the internet. You can use this application program to easily manage your pictures. This software program allows you to use your digital camera as a video camera for video conferencing. Acrobat Reader VideoImpression PhotoBase NetMeeting A desktop shortcut of the program is automatically created after successful installation. Restart your computer when you have finished installing all of the above software. 7 4. Using Your Camera 4. Using Your Camera Benq Digital Camera 1300 provides 5 different operation modes: Digital camera mode, Continuous shooting mode, video camera mode, Sound recording mode, PC camera mode. With these modes, you can not only use Digital Camera 1300 to take photos, but capture and show images in various ways by connecting to your PC. 4.1. The digital camera mode In digital camera mode, you can take photos, view and download them from your camera and save them as files. 4.1.1. Taking pictures Press the POWER button for 3 seconds to turn on the power of the camera. The camera beeps once and enters camera mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display. : This icon indicates that the white balance value setting is in Auto mode. You can choose to change the white balance setting. See "4.6.3. White Balance Setting" on page 21. 8 4. Using Your Camera : The counter that indicates the number of photos taken. You can choose to let the counter display in another way. : Indicates the battery status. If the battery power becomes low, the battery icon will become empty. : This icon indicates the DC 1300 is in digital camera mode. You can change the mode setting by pressing the Power/ Mode button. : This icon indicates the flash mode is set to flash off mode. You can change the flash mode setting by pressing the Flash/ Enter button. : This icon indicates the compression setting is set to "Fine". You can change the compression setting by pressing the Pix/ _ button. : This icon indicates the resolution setting is set to "1280 X 1024". You can also change the resolution setting by pressing the Pix/ _ button. Look through the viewfinder to determine the object to be taken. Make the object appear in the center of the viewfinder. Make the object appear in the center of the viewfinder. 9 4. Using Your Camera Press the shutter. The image will be taken with a beep sound and the BUSY indicator will flash, indicating that the camera is saving the image to memory. When the indicator becomes off, you are ready to take the next photo. Note: Do not press the POWER button when the BUSY indicator flashes. After the shutter is pressed, hold the camera still until the BUSY indicator becomes OFF to prevent blurred images. To save battery power, if the camera power is turned on and not used for 1 minutes, it will be turned off automatically. 4.1.2. Turning off the camera Press and hold the POWER button of the camera for 3 seconds. The camera beeps once and the power will be turned off. 10 4. Using Your Camera 4.1.3. Managing photos in camera 4.1.3.1. Deleting the last photo taken Press the "Power/ Mode" button 4 times. The icon mode. will appear on the status display. It indicates the camera is in Erase Press the "Flash/ Enter" button, the camera will beep once and the BUSY indicator will flash, then the last photo taken will be deleted. 4.1.3.2. Deleting all photos When in Erase mode, you can choose to delete the last photo or all the photos saved in the memory of camera by pressing the " WB/ +" button or "Pix/ _ " button. 11 4. Using Your Camera After choosing to delete all the photos saved in camera memory, press the "Flash/ Enter" button. The camera will beep once and the Busy indicator will flash, then all photos saved in camera memory will be deleted. 4.1.3.3. Downloading photos from camera Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the "Power/Mode" button. Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. When connected, the PC mode icon and the number of images in camera memory will appear on the status display. Then the system will transfer all the images from camera to PC automatically. The images will be downloaded to C drive and saved in the file folder named "My Medias". Everytime you connect the camera and PC for transferring images, the system will set up a new folder in "My Medias" for downloading and saving these images. To change the transferring settings, just right-click on the icon you can reset the transferring settings. on Windows Taskbar and select "Setting" in the submenu which appears, then 12 4. Using Your Camera 4.2. The continuous shooting mode In continuous shooting mode, you can take 3 photos a time by simply pressing the shutter button once. Taking pictures Press the POWER button for 3 seconds to turn on the power of the camera. The camera beeps once and enters camera mode. Then press the "Power/ Mode" button 1 times. The icon will appear on the status display. It indicates the camera is in continuous shooting mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display as follow shows. After entering the continuous shooting mode, press the shutter button once and the camera will capture 3 photos continuously. Every photo will be taken in the time sequence by every 0.6 second. 13 4. Using Your Camera 4.3. The video camera mode In video camera mode, you can shoot video by pressing the shutter button. Shoot videos Press the POWER button for 3 seconds to turn on the power of the camera. The camera beeps once and enters camera mode. Then press the "Power/ Mode" button 2 times. The icon will appear on the status display. It indicates the camera is in video camera mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display as follow shows. After entering the video camera mode, press the shutter button and the camera starts to shoot video. It will show "REC" on the status display at the same time and the Busy indicator will also keep on flashing. These activation will keep on until you stop shooting. Press the shutter button again to stop shooting video. In this mode, you can shoot video up to 90 seconds. The video recorded will be saved in camera memory as "AVI" file format. 14 4. Using Your Camera 4.4. The sound recording mode In sound recording mode, you can record sounds by pressing the shutter button. Record sounds Press the POWER button for 3 seconds to turn on the power of the camera. The camera beeps once and enters camera mode. Then press the "Power/ Mode" button 3 times. The icon will appear on the status display. It indicates the camera is in sound recording mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display as follow shows. After entering the sound recording mode, press the shutter button and the camera starts to record sounds. It will show "REC" on the status display at the same time and the Busy indicator will also keep on flashing. These activation will keep on until you stop shooting. Press the shutter button again to stop recording sounds. In this mode, you can record sounds up to 9 minutes. The sounds recorded will be saved in camera memory as "WAV" file format. 15 4. Using Your Camera 4.5. The PC camera mode In PC camera mode, you can use Digital Camera 1300 as a motion image capturing device for your PC. You can use it for video conferencing, capturing snapshots and so on. 4.5.1. Using Digital Camera as a PC camera Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the "Power/Mode" button. Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. When connected, the PC mode icon and the number of images in camera memory will appear on the status display. Right-click on the icon on Windows Taskbar and select "QuickSnap" in the submenu which appears, then you will see a DC 1300 frame appear on the screen. Wait several seconds and the frame will turn to be a DC 1300 monitor frame as follow shows. 16 4. Using Your Camera The motion images captured by camera will appear on the motion image display of the DC 1300 monitor frame. This means you are using your DC 1300 as a PC camera. It is shown as follows: Motion Images Captured Motion Image Display 4.5.2. The function of the DC 1300 monitor frame There are 5 buttons on the buttom of the DC 1300 monitor frame. The fuctions of these 5 buttons are listed below: Tool Box Help Exit Snapshot Resolution Setting 17 4. Using Your Camera 4.6. Options 4.6.1. Using the flash light Your camera is equipped with a flash light. It is recommended that you use the flash within the best working range as illustrated below. 4.6.1.1. Turning on/off the flash light Turn on the camera power and the default flash icon appears on the status display. 18 4. Using Your Camera Press the Flash/ Enter button, the camera will beep as the flash icon changes in the sequence as follow illustrated: Flash light OFF Now you are ready to take pictures. Note: If the macro function is turned on, the flash light will be disabled. It takes about 11 seconds for the flash light to recharge for the next shot. During charging, the Flash indicator blinks. Charging is completed when the Flash indicator becomes off. Forced flash light ON Auto flash light 19 4. Using Your Camera 4.6.2. Using the macro function If you need to shoot objects at a very close distance (from 8 inches to 2 feet), turn on the macro function before shooting. To turn on, slide the Macro switch to the "macro on" position. Slide the switch to the . position marked To turn off the macro function, slide the switch to the position marked . 20 4. Using Your Camera 4.6.3. White Balance Setting Under different environments, you can adjust white balance settings to get the best color registration image effect. The DC 1300 provides 5 white balance settings to modify white balance under different situations. Turn on the camera power and the default flash icon appears on the status display. Press the WB/ + button, the camera will beep as the white balance icon changes in the sequence as follow illustrated: Auto Tungsten light Daylight Overcast Fluorescent light White Balance Settings: Auto: The DC 1300 selects a white balance mode automatically. Tungsten light: Select this mode if you are taking photos under tungsten light bulb. Daylight: Select this mode if you are taking photos under direct daylight. Overcast: Select this mode if you are taking photos under windy sky. Fluorescent light: Select this mode if you are taking photos under fluorescent light. Now you are ready to take pictures under different situations. 21 4. Using Your Camera 4.6.4. Enabling self-timer The self-timer function allows you to let the camera take pictures 10 seconds after the shutter is pressed. To enable self-timer: Press the Power/ Mode button 5 times. The self-timer icon will appear on the status display. Press the shutter and the camera will start generating beep sound. The self-timer activation indicator on the front panel and the busy indicator on the rear panel will both blinks simultaneously. After10 seconds, the camera will take photos automatically. 22 4. Using Your Camera 4.6.5. Pixel Setting The pixel setting function allows you to let the camera take pictures in different compression and resolution. To adjust the pixel settings: Turn on the power. The default pixel setting icon will appear on the status display as illustrated below. Press the Pix/ _ button, the camera will beep as the pixel icon changes in the sequence as follow illustrates: Pixel Settings: 1. Compression: Fine: Image with low compression. Normal: Image with high compression. 23 4. Using Your Camera 2. Resolution: 1280 X 1024 Resolution: Image with 1280 X 1024 resolution. 1024 X 768 Resolution: Image with 1024 X 768 resolution. 640 X 480 Resolution: Image with 640 X 480 resolution. Now you are ready to take photos in different compression and resolution. 24 5. Troubleshooting Tips 5. Troubleshooting Tips 1. The LCD panel remains blank when I press the POWER button and can't take pictures. Check that the battery is correctly inserted. If it is old, replace it. 2. The camera can not take a picture. When the FLASH indicator is on, it takes up about 15 seconds to charge the flash light for the next shot. During this time the camera is busy and cannot take pictures. Wait until the indicator becomes OFF. 3. Cannot download all my images from my camera to PC. The RAM memory installed in your computer may not have sufficient storage space. Close all software programs and proceed to download your images. If the problem persists, download images in batches and store each batch in your hard drive before proceeding to the next batch. Make sure all the images you want are stored prior to clearing the camera memory. 4. I have connected the camera to the computer, but the Digital Camera 1300 driver says "Device not ready!". Make sure that the batteries are installed correctly and there is enough power in them. Check if the camera power is turned on. If not, turn it on and then connect the camera to the computer again. 5. In Windows 2000, when I unplug the camera from my computer while running Benq Dgitial Camera 1300 driver, the computer freezes. Unplugging the camera from your computer while running the Digital Camera 1300 driver will cause the computer to become unstable. Do not unplug the camera from your computer when the camera or driver is in use. 25 6. Service Information 6. Service Information Technical support If you encountered problems using Digital Camera 1300 and the camera driver program, please send an E-mail (containing detailed descriptions of the problem you came upon, the hardware and software environment of your system) to the following addresses: USA: support-sc@benq.com Europe: support@benq-eu.com Taiwan: service-tw@benq.com China: service@benq.com.cn Asia and other countries: IMGservice@benq.com For free driver program updates, product information and news release, please visit the following web address: http://www.benq.com.tw/global/ For questions about the bundled application, please consult the following web addresses: http://www.adobe.com (Adobe Active Share) http://www.newsoft.com 26