Why I buy this one ?
- Smooth, full motion 30fps digital video streams and top quality images with High Speed USB 2.0 throughput
- Fits easily to almost anything - notebook displays, CRT monitors and flat panel displays
- Spice up your chats with fun audio and video effects including Live! Cam FX Creative and Live! Cam Doodling
- Edit and organize your photos easily & create fun photo calendars with Creative Live! Cam Suite
- Certified for Windows Vista

moeansari from CA, United States offers this stuff for:

Price : $70.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

WonderElectronics offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $76.32 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Endless Variety offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $81.39 Usually ships in 4-5 business days

ANTOnline offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $78.36 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Computer Brain offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $82.05 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Beach Audio offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $84.01 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

spddys from VA, United States offers this stuff for:

Price : $84.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Amazon.com offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $86.12 Usually ships in 24 hours

BuyNow Incorporated offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $86.24 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

SkyBox-USA offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $86.33 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

What our customer's say!

"good alternative to the expensive isight", yeah. it works. but it doesnt look great.
cheaper than the Apple iSight - Web camera - color - audio - FireWire

"I plugged it in and pictures did indeed come out!", it doesn't work so well in conjunction with a mac pro. I bought this webcam back in march 08, and so far have been totally disappointed with its performance. the picture is grainy at best and all broken up at worst. sound appears to echo when used, I've often had to cut short video calls due to problems with the sound.
I've since replaced this with the logitech 9000 pro, which at $20 less i consider a complete bargain. so far the 9000 pro provides a much crisper image ( i have yet to try the sound out).

"Works great with a Mac", I bought this to work with a Mac Mini and it does so at an affordable price.

"Creative Live! Cam Optia AF (VF0280) ", This camera only works with bundled applications and a few others like AOL IM, etc... and barely at that. Even when using Creative's bundled software, switching between modes (video mode, picture mode, etc), the software locks up and forces you to restart.

IF you use another IM client, like Trillian, forget about it. And using it as an imaging device for other software like Photoshop, Paint.net, etc - double forget it.

The camera turns off whenever you are not using one of the bundled apps. Other applications can see the camera is installed, but since it automatically turns itself off (with no manual way to turn it back on), you can forget about using it to grab snapshots for editing.

Customer support? Horrible. They ask you to do the same things any novice would even know to do - download the latest drivers, re-install, etc etc... none of which work.

I returned mine after 3 days, got the Logitech 9000 instead and am VERY happy I did so. These 2 cameras are approximately the same price - but look at the actual customers ratings... Logitech mainly has nothing but praise, while you can see the comments on this one. Check Newegg's reviews; this one barely gets 2 stars there and you know most of Newegg's customers are the tech-y type.

To sum it up - this sucks (like all other Creative cams), has driver issues (like all other Creative cams), and horrible customer support (like everything else Creative - just check their company support forums - you'll see it's filled with unanswered complaints & questions).

[...] Trust me, You'll thank me later.


"Excellent product", The Creative Live! Cam Opia AF camera is easy to install and delivers a sharp, clear picture. We are very happy with our choice and recommend it without reservation.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Creative Live! Cam Optia AF Worked Well With Our Macs", We had success with the Creative Live! Cam Optia AF.

We have a new iMac-24" aluminum with OS 10.5.x, and a built-in iSight camera. However, we wanted to show a full room, and the built-in iSight camera did not provide a wide enough angle. So we tried the Creative Live! Cam Optia AF, on the end of a 16-foot Tripp Lite U026-016 USB 2.0 Active Extension Cable (both purchased through Amazon). The camera was placed on top of a high book case, in the corner of the room.

It worked very well for us. We plugged the Creative Live! Cam Optia AF into the Mac, opened the iChat Preferences, selected the Optia camera for video ("unknown USB device"), and selected the iMac for audio input. (The Optia camera has a microphone, but as it was placed high up in the corner of the room, we used the iMac for the audio input.)

Our remote chat partner was also on a new iMac-24" aluminum, with the built-in iSight camera. He was able to see and hear all of us well. We held the iChat, over our local wireless Airport connection, for about 2 hours, with no drops. We did see the remote screen refresh itself, like a progressive sweep across the screen from left to right. The remote picture was a bit blotchy, certainly not television quality, but video and audio were acceptable for our solution.

There were three small annoyances.

When our iMac went to sleep and then woke, iChat could not recognize the external Optia camera. To restore its function, I quit iChat, disconnected the cam, plugged it back into the USB port, and then restarted iChat. It was then available in the iChat preferences.

The software that comes with the Optia camera is Windows only. So we had no access to whatever controls a Windows user might have. I don't know what those controls are -- perhaps focus, pan, zoom and various video effects. The upside of this is that the Optia camera plugs in and works with absolutely no additional software or drivers. It is a "UVC (USB video device class)" camera, so support is built into the Mac, the Optia camera, and into iChat.

There is no manual zoom control on the camera. The camera does have an easy pan up-down swivel. It also perches very well on a Mac or any corner surface.

Autofocus worked perfectly, and the camera changed focus quickly from "talking head" to "full room."

I called Optia and talked with their tech support fellow, Enoch, before I made the purchase. He was quite helpful.

All in all, that was $100 well spent!

"auto focus is cool", works as well as advertised, but it's still just a webcam. i wanted that high def pro camera look but realistically i didn't spend a thousand or two that it takes to buy that kind of gear. i guess it's as good as it gets for my budget. ohh, the auto focus is cool!

"CREATIVE's Superb Webcam", It is a superior product in its class. Superb clarity and sound. This item arrived in perfect packaging and was delivered within committed time. Superb. Recommendable to everyone who wants a quality webcam product!! Cheers !!

"serious software and hardware issues", I bought this cam to replace my aging intel webcam. My intel webcam worked great, and also functioned as a detacable ditigal camera, which I made good use of. Intel's software was simple, but easy to use. Unfortunately, intel no longer makes cameras, and no brand seems to make detachable webcameras anymore.
However, since my webcam was several years old now, I wanted to update it and creative's optia AF seemed to offer the best specs. The camera worked like crap right from the start. At the high resolution modes, the camera is very choppy. At the lower modes it smoothes out, but the picture gets extremely dark. Then the camera, after only one use, stopped working at all. I called creative and they quized me up and down. I asked them about the software issues and they told me they were unaware of any software issues with this product despite the fact,that their own website forum list numerous complaints about software bugs with this product. Because it was in the first 3 months they finally agreed that I could send it in. After over a month later, I get a call saying they can't fix it and don't have a replacement to send me. I told them I wanted a refund, and they told me that wasn't their policy, that I could exchange it for something else. At first they offered a lesser webcam, which was cheaper then what I had paid for and had worse specs. Then they offered me a mp3 player, but I had to pay them another 50 bucks cause it was more expensive, also I'm getting a refurbished model. That was their best offer. Don't buy from this company.

"Support for Mac OS X Questionable", This is a very stylish camera. The manufacturer claims that its compatible with OS X (10.4.9 and later) but I've experienced one very annoying problem with it. My Mac will not recognize the camera after it awakes from sleep. I'm running Leopard (10.5.1). I have to reseat the USB 2.0 plug if I want to use the camera after my Mac wakes from sleep. Aside from this, the camera works great. I'm satisfied with image and sound quality. In this regard, the camera lives up to its promises. Unfortunately, the manufacturer does not do a good job responding to customers on its website (forums). I haven't been able to get any help. My final rating is sub-par because I'm a little disappointed. This problem should be solvable, but the manufacturer doesn't seem to care very much. I'd like to give a better rating because its a nice camera, but unfortunately, it doesn't work properly on the Mac.