Included in the tiny box, is the camera itself, a 6ft USB cable, a camera strap, 2-AA Batteries, a carrying case, driver CD and manual. From the picture, it looks pretty small. Well, it REALLY is small! This is shirt pocket material here.

Included in the driver package, are several software applications, Mr Photo Gold, which is a simple package geared towards organizing your Photo's. It even includes "hooks" into Adobe PhotoShop and PhotoDeluxe. Photo Designer, which is a photo image manipulation package, roughly on-par with Adobe PhotoDeluxe in features.Also included is VideoWorks, which is a basic video editing and composition package. 

Installing the Chameleon's TWAIN and capture drivers is a straightforward affair, as is installing the Chameleon software, which is a simple application interface to obtain access to the camera's digital and webcam modes.

Let's take a closer look at the camera itself.

The front view shows of course the lens, and the flash. The lens is an aspherical fixed focus lens, manufactured by Largan. Thankfully, the Largan has a useful flash! I have used both of Creative's dual-mode cameras, the Creative WebCam Go, and Go-Plus, and the lack of a flash on those cameras seriously limits their usefulness as a digital camera. It's clear from the design and layout of this camera, that it was first and foremost designed as a digital camera.

The top LCD displays information about your MODE, (PC for webcam, #of shots in camera) as well as flash and battery status. The large green button (duh) is the shutter control, and the tiny and somewhat difficult to press orange button turns the camera on, or switches the camera's mode during PC use. You have to switch modes between TWAIN still image mode, and VFW video capture modes with this button, when tethered to the PC's USB port.

The side panel houses the USB port, as well as a normal/macro mode switch. The Macro mode has a fixed focal distance of 8 inches. 

The back panel is rather simple, with a BUSY status indicator, and an indicator light for MACRO mode. You will notice a roughly 3-5 second lag time between shots, which is fairly typical of most digital cameras. Also typical of cameras in this price range, there is no LCD display for your pictures. You wont find that feature in any camera in this price range, so it's not that big of a deal. You'll find on the bottom of the camera, a standard screw mount for a tripod attachment. 

Next page: Taking some pics

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