Acer DC 300 User manual

Acer Digital Camera 300
Electronic User’s Manual
Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300 1
Touring Your Camera 2
Preparing the Camera for Using 4
Installing batteries and neck strap 4
Installing digital camera software 5
Using Your Camera 6
The digital camera mode 6
The PC camera mode 18
The video camera mode 25
Using the cradle 30
Installing the cradle 30
Troubleshooting Tips 33
Service Information 35
Technical support 35

Copyright
Copyright (c) 2001 by Acer Communictions & Multimedia Inc. (Acer CM). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro-
duced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without prior written permission from Acer CM.
Brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Disclaimer
Acer CM makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantabil-
ity and fitness for a particular purpose. Acer CM assumes no responsibility for any error that may appear in this document. Acer CM makes
no commitment to update nor to keep current the information contained in this document.
Taking care of your camera
• Do not use your camera over the following environmental range: temperature: O C to 40 C, relative humidity: 45% ~ 85%.
• Do not use or store your camera in environments listed below:
Direct sunlight
High humidity and dusty places.
Next to the air conditioner, electric heater or the other heat sources.
In a closed car that is directly under the sun.
Avoid shaky places.
• If your camera becomes wet, wipe it with dry cloth as soon as possible.
• Salt of seawater may cause severe camera damage.
• Do not use organic solvents, such as alcohol, etc., to clean your camera.
• If the lens or viewfinder is dirty, please use the lens brush or soft cloth to clean the lens. Do not touch the lens with your fingers.
• To prevent electrical shock, do not attempt to disassemble or repair your camera by yourself.
• Water may cause a fire or electric shock. Therefore, please store your camera in a dry place.
• Do not use your camera outdoors when it is raining or snowing.
• Do not use your camera in the water.
• If the foreign substance or water gets in your camera, please tum the power off immediately and disconnect the batteries and the trans-
former. Remove the foreign substance or water, and send it to the maintenance center.
• Transfer the data to the computer as soon as possible to avoid losing your image data.

Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300
1
Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300
Acer Digital Camera 300 is equipped with the following features:
• Small size for easy carriage and convenience of use
• High resolution: 640 x 480 pixels in digital camera mode; selectable 640 x 480, 352 x
288, 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 pixels in PC camera mode
• 24-bit true color representation for high image fidelity
• Onboard 8MB memory to store up to 95 ~128 images in digital camera mode
• Mode selectable flash light
• Built-in self-timer
• Fixed focus : 8 inch(0.2m) for macro mode, and 2ft.(0.6m) to infinity from camera for
normal mode
• Electronic shutter
• Easy recognizable LCD screen for camera and image handling
• USB interface for easy and quick connection to PC
• Automatic power-off system
• 3 operation modes:
Digital camera mode for taking photos
PC camera mode for using the camera as an image capturing device for PC
Video camera mode for capturing motion clips with a PC

Touring Your Camera
2
Touring Your Camera
Viewfinder
Shutter
Flash light
Self-timer activation
indicator Lens
Macro switch
USB connector
Front
BUSY indicator
MACRO indicator
Status display
MODE button
POWER button
Neck strap holder
Battery compartment
cover
Rear
SELECT button

Touring Your Camera
3
elete all images in memory
Enter self-timer
mode
Delete the last image
Image counter
Battery status
Turn off flash
Enter auto flash mode
The status display

Preparing the Camera for Using
4
Preparing the Camera for Using
Installing batteries and neck strap
Open the battery compartment cover and insert two AAA alkaline batteries into the
compartment. Note the polarity of the batteries when you install.
Refer to the illustration below to install the neck strap.
Now you are ready to use your camera!

Preparing the Camera for Using
5
Installing digital camera software
Insert the digital camera software CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive. The following
software installation menu will appear on computer screen automatically.
Note: If the software installation menu did not appear, open Windows Explore and
double-click the “Autorun.exe” icon in the CD-ROM directory.
Click Digital Camera 300 Driver first to install digital camera software. Follow the
on-screen instructions to proceed.
When you are done installing the digital camera software, you have the choice to go
back to the software installation menu and click other items to install the bundled
software programs.
Click this item to install digital camera software
Click this item to install Presto! Mr.Photo Gold
Click this item to install Presto! Image Folio
Click this item to install Presto! VideoWorks
Click this item to open Electronic user guide
Click this item to install NetMeeting
Click this item to install Acrobat Reader

Using Your Camera
6
Using Your Camera
Acer Digital Camera 300 provides 3 different operation modes: Digital camera mode,
PC camera mode, and video camera mode. With these modes, you can not only use
Digital Camera 300 to take photos, but capture and show images in various ways.
The digital camera mode
In digital camera mode, you can take photos, view and download them from your cam-
era and save them as files.
Taking pictures
Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the POWER button. The camera beeps
once and enters camera mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display.
: This icon indicates that the flash light is in Auto mode. You can choose to turn it
off. See “Turning on/off the flash light” on page 13.
: The counter that indicates the number of photos taken. You can choose to let
the counter display in another way. See “View picture counter” on page 16.

Using Your Camera
7
: Indicates the battery status. If the battery power becomes low, the battery icon
will become empty.
Look through the viewfinder to determine the object to be taken. Make the object
appear in the center of the viewfinder.
Press the shutter. The image will be taken and the BUSY indicator will flash, indicating
that the camera is saving the image to memory.
When the indicator becomes off, you are ready to take the next photo. The memory of
camera allows you to take up to 95 ~ 128 photos.
Note: Do not press the POWER button when the BUSY indicator flashes.
After the shutter is pressed, hold the camera still until the BUSY indicator
becomes OFF to prevent blurred images.
To save battery power, if the camera power is turned on and not used for 2 min-
utes, it will be turned off automatically.
Turning off the camera
Press and hold the POWER button of the camera. The camera beeps once and the
power will be turned off.
Make the object appear in the center
of the viewfinder.

Using Your Camera
8
Managing photos in camera
Deleting the last photo taken
Press the MODE button 4 times. The icon flashes on the status display.
Press and hold the shutter for 1 second. The last photo taken will be deleted.
Deleting all photos
Press the MODE button 5 times. The icon flashes on the status display.
Press and hold the shutter for 1 second. All photos in camera memory will be deleted.

Using Your Camera
9
Downloading photos from camera
Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the POWER button.
Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. When
connected, the number of images in camera memory will appear on the status display.
Power on your computer. Click the Start button on Windows Taskbar, and choose Pro-
grams > Acer DC 300 > DC300 Digital Camera. Or, right-click on the icon on
Windows Taskbar and select “Digital Camera” in the submenu that appears.

Using Your Camera
10
The image preview window will appear on your computer screen and start creating
thumbnails of the photos in the camera.
If there are more than 20 photos in the camera, the image thumbnails will appear on
different pages. Click on the tab on top of each page to switch among the pages.
Choose the thumbnail of the photo you want to download. You can:
• Click on each thumbnail to select a photo separately. Click on the thumbnail again
and the photo is not selected.
• Click on the Select All button to select all photos on a page.
• Click on the Unselect button to cancel selecting photos.
Click Save. A Save as dialogue box will appear. Specify the file name and location and
click Save. If you have selected multiple photos, you will be prompted to enter a prefix
for the file name of the photos. The image files will be named in the format of (pre-
fix)001, (prefix)002.... For example, if you entered “Mypic” as the prefix, the images in
camera will be saved using the names “Mypic001”, “Mypic002”...

Using Your Camera
11
Deleting photos in camera in the image preview window
Select the photo(s) you want to delete in the image preview window.
Click on the Delete button. The photo(s) will be deleted from your camera.

Using Your Camera
12
Using the image browser
Click on the Browser button in the image preview window. The Image Browser win-
dow shown below will appear. You can use it to browse the photos in your camera.
In the Image Browser window, you can:
Click the button to go to the previous photo.
Click the button to go to the next photo.
Click the button to zoom in on the photo.
Click the button to zoom out on the photo.

Using Your Camera
13
Options
Using the flash light
Your camera is equipped with a flash light. It is recommended that you use the flash
within the best working range as illustrated below.
Turning on/off the flash light
Press the MODE button. The icon appears and flashes on the status display.

Using Your Camera
14
Press the SELECT button to select from the following. The one selected will flash.
Now you are ready to take pictures.
Note: If the macro function is turned on, the flash light will be disabled.
It takes about 11 seconds for the flash light to recharge for the next shot. During
charging, the FLASH indicator blinks. Charging is completed when the FLASH
indicator becomes off.
Auto flash light Flash light OFF

Using Your Camera
15
Using the macro function
If you need to shoot objects at a very close distance (from 8 inches to 2 feet), turn on
the macro function before shooting.
To turn on, slide the Macro switch to the “macro on” position. The MACRO indica-
tor will be on.
Note: If the macro function is turned on, the flash light will be disabled.
To turn off the macro function, slide the switch to the position marked .
Slide the switch to the
position marked .

Using Your Camera
16
View picture counter
The picture counter provides 2 display modes. You can view picture counter by the
number of pictures taken or by the number of photos allowed in the remaining mem-
ory space.
View picture counter by the number of pictures taken
View picture counter by number of photos allowed in the remaining memory space
Now you are ready to press the shutter and take pictures.
Normally, the picture counter shows the number of pictures
taken (or the number of pictures in camera memory). For
example, if you have taken 20 pictures (or, there are 20
images in camera memory), the counter shows “20”.
If there are 102 pictures in camera memory, an “1” will appear
at the lower right corner of the status display, and “2”
appears on the picture counter.
Press the MODE button twice
until the picture counter
flashes.
Press the SELECT button until “REMAIN” appears above the
counter.

Using Your Camera
17
Enabling self-timer
The self-timer function allows you to let the camera take pictures 10 seconds after the
shutter is pressed. To enable self-timer:
Press the MODE button 3 times. The self-timer icon will flash.
After10 seconds, the camera will take picture automatically.
Press the shutter and the camera will start generating
beep sound. The icon flashes and the self-timer
activation indicator blinks.

Using Your Camera
18
The PC camera mode
In PC camera mode, you can use Digital Camera 300 as a motion image capturing
device for your PC. You can use it for video conferencing, capturing snapshots and so
on.
Using Digital Camera 300 as a PC camera
Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. “PC”
will appear on the status display.
Power on the computer. Click the Start button on Windows Taskbar, and choose Pro-
grams > Acer Digital Camera 300 > Acer Digital Camera 300 App. Or, right-click
on the icon on Windows Taskbar and select “PC Camera” in the submenu that
appears.