Ricoh RDC-5000

To Ricoh's credit, you're offered two ways of transferring pictures from your camera to a computer. The first is the usual way: via a serial cable and using the RDC-5000's TWAIN driver. The far quicker way is to use the supplied USB cable, with peak data transfers of 12Mbits/sec as opposed to the serial port's maximum 115.2Kbits/sec.

Once you've decided on your preferred method of transferring photos, you can use one of the software packages bundled with the camera. Chief among these is ArcSoft's PhotoStudio 3, which has a comprehensive range of tools for editing the results, as well as being a one-stop control centre for managing photo albums and acquiring photos from the camera. You can even use PhotoMontage 1 to create an image out of 'pixels' that are actually photos from your own library of files.

There's no disputing that the RDC-5000 is a good camera, and its ease of use makes it a good option if you're unused to digital cameras. Unfortunately for Ricoh, there are cameras available for similar money that produce better photos, even at lower resolution. If you have around £600 to spend on a digital camera, you're better off with the Nikon CoolPix 950 instead.

Author: Tim Danton