SoundVision SVmini3 209 (1997)

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Look what the cat dragged in! The SoundVision SVmini3 209. Now what is it? Looking at the camera it's a successor of the SVmini-2 but looking at the model name it is a merger of the two previously known SoundVision digital camera SVmini-2 + SVmini-209 = SVmini-3-209. The labels on the camera clearly read "Mini Cam 3 209 digital camera" and these are not some stickers or decals but actually printed into the camera body!

We received the cameras in plain white neutral SoundVision boxes. The package contained the camera, video drivers, Adobe Photo Deluxe, a SVmini-209 manual and a serial cable. The SVmini-3 was now able to compress images in JPG (7 compression levels!) and could record to standard compact flash cards (by using a PCMCIA adapter). Storing a picture would take 10 seconds. The camera had the tiniest LCD status display and would emit beep tones to communicate with the user. The internal DRAM was 1MB. Also the camera had 1MB of NVRAM as well as an mechanical and electronic shutter. The camera was apparently distributed through  Eagle Technologies. Anyway, we consider this digital camera to be an exclusive and very unique item and we have reason to believe that not too many of these have surfaced.

We have two of these little babies and we took some sample shots with and without flash as well as trying out the different JPG compression levels and we came to the conclusion that the SVmini3/209 is actually capable of taking decent pictures.... but only outdoors! Above you can see the best possible shots we could take (notice the purple tint in the sky pic)!

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