After toying around with the Argus Bean for a while, I had the perfect opportunity to have it tested to it’s best ability. A two year old.
Subject (in the best sense of the word): Carter
He is always around cameras and will pretty much only come near me when I let him play with one of my cameras (which is more than his mom lets him do!) I didn’t see any reason to not let him try it out, seeing as though it seems like that’s the target audience for this type of camera. They are slightly rubberized around the outside, built to take a beating from a child and the button is large enough for someone with small fingers to find no matter what. There is a carabiner clip built into the camera design. Which makes it perfect for clipping on to your belt, or a stroller when a child isn’t using it at that exact moment.
This particular version of the Argus Bean that I was given was 3 megapixels. Which means it’s doesn’t get the best size photos to print and I would never use this as my MAIN camera, but for Carter, or any child, this is defiantly a way to figure out what they find is “important” and to get a view of what they see. And what better place to give them that freedom than at a theme park!
There is 16 megabytes of built in memory and also a SD card slot. So, I put a 4 gigabyte SD card in the camera and gave him full reign of the Bean. Between three adults and Carter’s 13 year old sister, we tried to help him out and show him how to use the camera. Telling a 2 year old to “Look at the screen” (which is a 1.5 inch LCD screen) when he’s taking pictures seemed like it would be a waste of time, but as we were watching him take the pictures, he seemed to understand that he could actually see what he was taking when he looked at it.
Throughout the 6 hour day at Animal Kingdom, he took over 150 pictures, given most of them were other people’s feet or his stroller, or my personal favorites: pictures of him because he had the camera turned the wrong way. (See example below.)
There was a point where we were in a petting zoo area. Let’s just say, Carter was following a goat, got sidetracked and took a spill. He and the camera went sliding. Carter had some scrapes and so did the Bean. After making sure Carter was alright, I went to clean off the camera and make sure that it would survive as well. I cleaned it off with a wipey thingy that parents use on kids to clean them. That was about half way through the day and we have pictures from the rest of the day, so the Bean survived!
I took pictures, of him taking pictures.
Here are some of the pictures from our day at Animal Kingdom, through the eyes of my favorite 2 year old photographer, Carter.
As you can see, having the white balance on “auto” didn’t help out much. A lot of the pictures are blown out. He didn’t need the flash since we were out in the sun for the most part. However, when we were in some of the queues, I would turn on the flash and like any camera, getting too close to something, does NOT help out. At all. The flash is very over powering and has quite a bit of a delay.
The battery is rechargeable through the USB port on the computer. The battery lasted all day long, even though it was left on and clipped onto the stroller for 30 minutes or so.
Overall I would take this camera with me to places where I didn’t feel it was “safe” to carry my big cameras, ie. water parks, near water, rainy days. So, water. I haven’t tried the camera out in any water yet, but I believe it would survive more than my Canons would. Plus, this would be a great gift for any child, which is why our 5 year old received one as a birthday gift in July! Haven’t heard if he uses it a lot, but I’m sure he’s loving it!
Picture of and specs from the camera that I was given:
A huge thanks to Argus Bean (@ArgusBean) for giving me this camera to review. You’ve made one child’s mother very happy seeing as though she can treasure these pictures forever and not have to worry about HER camera being broke. As for me, I had a great time watching my friend’s child playing with this camera and enjoy taking LOTS of pictures. Looks like he needs a Bean Sprout for himself now!
You can find Bean and Bean Sprouts at all different types of retail stores.
