Y4000 with size comparisons

Mini Phototomic – The Y4000 Review

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.

Y4000 with optional Powerunit
Y4000 with optional power unit show that to be at full. The LED light is ready to fire

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

Top of the box

When the screen looks more like this

LCD panel on the Y4000

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).

Y4000 with powerbank

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.

Nikon F Phototomic T
Nikon F with Phototomic T head. Courtesy and copyright of of Aly’s Vintage Camera Alley

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).

bottom of the Y4000
micro SD slot and USB C connector on the base. the button like thing beside the lens is faux.

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

Night Shot of Suspension Bridge on Y4000
Click on image for full size Y4000
Night Shot across the NIth In Dumfries. Y4000
Click on image for full size

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

Dusk Shot Y4000
Y4000 dusk shot. Click on image for full size

Daylight shots equally better than the Y3000 but not great. Lot of noise and processing going on and it’s highly suggestive of interpolation

Lola walking. Y4000

Especially when you close crop

Close crop of Lola from Y4000 shot
664×664 close crop of above image

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)

VW on Red. Y4000

Which although not great cropped is way better

Close crop of VW on Red
640×640 close crop

Longer shots soften more

River View. Taken On Y4000
River View. Taken On Y4000

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.

Distortion text test Y4000

The LCD Flash works for close shots about your arms length. Perfect for selfies.

LED “Flash” off on left and on on right

There is no metered control of this as close shots get washed out.

From about 20cm LED off on left, on on right

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.

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