Vivitar's 5MP CCD compact — 3x optical zoom, 1.5in LCD, SD storage, AA or CR-V3 power, 2004.
The Vivitar ViviCam 3935 was a 5-megapixel digital compact announced in May 2004, sitting in the mid-range of Vivitar's ViviCam digicam line during the brand's push into affordable consumer digital cameras. It offered a genuine optical zoom at a time when many budget rivals made do with digital zoom alone.
It pairs a 5.0-megapixel CCD sensor with a 3x optical zoom lens, framed through either the optical viewfinder or a 1.5-inch TFT LCD. Scene modes cover automatic, macro, portrait, landscape, night scene and sports, with four flash modes including red-eye reduction. Storage is 14MB internal memory plus SD card, and power comes from two AA cells, a CR-V3, or a mains adapter, with basic video recording also on board.
The 3935 suits casual shooters and collectors of mid-2000s CCD compacts: the CCD sensor delivers the punchy colour that draws people to cameras of this era, and AA compatibility makes it painless to run today. Controls are simple and startup and autofocus are leisurely by modern standards, so it rewards unhurried snapshot use.
Used examples are cheap and plentiful in the US, scarcer in the UK. Check it powers up on fresh AAs, that the lens extends and retracts without error messages, and that it writes to a standard SD card — early SD cameras may reject SDHC and larger, so test with a 2GB-or-smaller card. Inspect the LCD and battery contacts for wear and corrosion.