Another day another ten quid mini camera from China. Meet the Y3000‘s big brother the Y4000. With a flash and an optional power drive, it’s better although still flawed fun.
The Y4000 is very similar to the Y3000 bar the LED “flash” and larger screen. Broadly it offer similar features and controls with a 8MP (3760*2128) stills and 30fps HD video as well as a choice of colour filters for still. It also has a slot for micro SD card on the base and a USB slot for charging /data transfer. That USB slot is upgraded to a USB-C. It can also be used as a webcam.
We get an on board 180mA rechargeable battery. The optional power driver (just really a small powerbank) adds 300mA. Worth noting this connects via USB for charging too but it doesn’t allow for pass through data if the camera is plugged in. It shows 3 LED to indicate power level
Boxing
This has been better boxed with swing out door on the box with a magnetic clip. The packaging is a step up and has lots touches although the translated English is a bit clanky e.g. “with vlog creation artifact”
There is one downright fib in a scamera fashion however. It’s a shot of the alleged screen
When the screen looks more like this
In the box you get the same as the Y3000, a cheap, too small wrist strap, keyring and the one sheet instructions
Y4000 Styling & Controls
The creators took no chances they stuck camera right on the front to remind you (not usually a good sign).
Like the Y2000 & Y3000 It is styled to look like a SLR/ But the LED unit on top makes it look more like a Nikon F1 with a Phototomic head.
The 1.44″ LCD is an odd square shape and doesn’t match the actual still size and HD 16:9 frames. It is bright and clear.
The camera is turned off and on by holding down the shutter button. On the side just like the Y3000 is a 2 button toggle. In still mode the bottom mode engages the colour filters as shown below. There’s a few Random colours B&W and a horrible orangey sepia
Pressing the top button cycles between still, video and playback. In playback both buttons works to let you move between stills and video clips. the shutter button activates video. To leave playback you need to do a long press of the upper toggle.
Memory & setting time
The camera depending on seller may or may not come with a micro SD card. If you’re a Millennial or older it’s likely you have a few of these sloshing around from old phones. I stuck in a 16GB card which on screen suggested I’d have nearly 9,000 images (file size around 4-500KB).
Worth noting the card needs to be formatted as FAT32. This default for card under 32GB but bigger cards are often exFAT format or occasionally if used other large formats like NTFS
Just like the Y3000 sticking in the card will generate both a photo and video file as well as a time.txt file. The latter can be used to change the time & date the camera sets to. It is expressed in the standard international date format which is beloved of computer geeks but only used in a few countries
YYYY:MM:DD HH:MM:SS
Oddly mines appeared in weird characters in notepad (although system showed it correctly). I had to edit in word pad. Unlike the Y3000 there was no flag to turn off the time stamp (and adding N after the time sequence did nought)
In use
Hold down shutter to turn on. You go into photo mode after friendly splash screen. Hit shutter to shoot lag is reasonable for the price but you get no feedback you’ve taken the shot except for the numbers going down but given the font is only about 1.5mm tall they’re hard to see. No beeps.
Switch modes and filters as above. Simply plug the camera into your PC when done. When connected it acts both as a flash drive and as a webcam.
It down powers itself eventually (initially just suspends and later full shut down). Just like the Y3000 holding down the shutter too long forces it to turn off.
Y4000 Video
My big complain was just how crap the Y3000 video was. Look I know you expect a lo-fi crappiness but frankly it was like a bad oil painting that got stretched.
Here the aspect ratio is spot on and whilst it looks lo-fi is useable at that. It’s a huge improvement but audio is really quiet and there is no image stabilisation
So this does what I’d expect and I’ve done a YT on this that shows just how much better this is
I probably will suit someone looking for that lo-fi feel of the late Hi-8 camcorders and the early DV ones. You’ll need to dub your sound though.
Y4000 Photos
Okay things aren’t better here with one odd except.
That’s night shooting. I mean it’s not brilliant but these turned out way better than I had expected. As ever click on each to bring up full sized
There’s no EXIF data but they are granular suggesting the gain (aka ISO) is cranked up a bit but for such a cheap camera this is quite pleasing.
It isn’t so pleasing on lower light shots but still better than the Y3000
Daylight shots equally better than the Y3000 but not great. Lot of noise and processing going on and it’s highly suggestive of interpolation
Especially when you close crop
Yikes
It’s clearly the processing involved as there were exceptions with block colour (these 2 shots were taken same day same conditions and arguably the VW had lower light as it was the rear logo facing a house)
Which although not great cropped is way better
Longer shots soften more
Using the Text on screen test we can see focus is best central and falls off to the edges which darken a bit. We’ve some pincushion distortion and ghosting. the latter is likely a combination of optics, processing, compression and interpolation.
The LCD Flash works for close shots about your arms length. Perfect for selfies.
There is no metered control of this as close shots get washed out.
Here’s some more shots taken on the Y4000 clicking them will bring them up
Buying the Y4000 – It pays to shop around
There are some unscrupulous folk trying to sell this as their novel creation for £39 for just the camera. Just don’t bother that’s just mark up city.
You can find it for almost half that on sites like Amazon and I paid just over £22 for the camera plus power bank delivered and taxed from AliExpress. You’ll find it on loads of sites from the ‘Bay to Wish
Final Thoughts on the Y4000
This is wacky fun. It’s images and video aren’t going to win prizes but for Tenner (£10GBP) or 2 what do you expect. The HD video is lo-fi but useable (you’ll need to dub) and the images well you get what you pay for I guess. This is no film like Lo-FI shooter but as my recent round up shows, to get that pay more.
It’s a fun toy and good stocking filler for a lo-fi enthusiast in your life
Other sources
Not much out there. Here’s My Weekend Adventures’s test footage taken in London’s Piccadilly Square shot on this.