1st picture PAID for it
Written: Jan 19 '01 (Updated Jan 19 '01)
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Pros: 3.1 megapixel, never need film again (process your own pictures), excellent user guide.
Cons: No Digita OS, ships with little memory, no time-lapse timer.
The Bottom Line: Kodak countinuously shows themselves as being the top dogs of digital photography by setting standards with cameras like the DC4800.
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| kmic's Full Review: Kodak DC4800 Digital Camera |
I'll start this epinion by letting you know that it is quite long and in depth. I go through a personal account of researching it, buying it, and using it. I also go through all of its features and supply you with much more information than you need to let you know that this is the best, top-of-the-line, and all-around digital camera of its time.
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It's been over two years since I was first exposed to a digital camera. The first camera I ever owned was a DC260. Too bad it broke, like I wrote in an epinion for it (http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-64BC-86DA516-38A6CFB4-prod5). After my loss, I had to upgrade. Being very pleased with the overall quality of the DC260, I stayed loyal and "upgraded" to the DC265. The DC265 brought on all of the features of the DC260 plus more speed and picture resolution (better quality).
Sure enough, I soon ran into problems with the DC265. It started some unexplainable phenomenon of only taking blurry, out of focus exposures. While the DC265 lasted, I was quite pleased with it and therefore didn't change my preference of digital camera manufacturer.
In search of a new (the best) digital camera...
With a bit of research at pcmagazine.com's reviews section and other well known digital camera review sites like Steve's DigiCam site (http://www.steves-digicams.com/, or for the specific DC4800 review http://www.steves-digicams.com/dc4800.html) I was convinced that the DC4800 was made for me.
Searchasing...
With a bit of searching (for the then-best-price) I was allowed to do a bit of purchasing, hence the searchasing. Note: the "then-best-price". It was around $700 at ecost.com that completely blew away any other e-tailer's price. Also note: this was less than a week after public appearance of the DC4800; making it very little known and lacking published material. I put through the order.
I do not endorse or plan to patronize ecost.com anymore. As a matter of fact, I look down on their business practices and think that they lack much of the skills and quality found at 90% of the other e-tailers that don't hide behind silly courier problems. I also forgot to mention their hidden "handling" charge that no other e-tailer tries to swindle people with. Anyone living in California gets charged sales tax from ecost.com simply because they have a warehouse there. On previous online orders originating in California, I would get ground shipping because it is usually as fast as overnight or 2nd day delivery. This occurrence of taking advantage of ground shipping happened to backfire on me when they sent it from one of their warehouses across the country (with no warning). Taxed when not needed to be taxed.
Arrival...a week later than expected...
The DC4800 finally arrives.
Out of the box...
It made a great first impression by having a completely customized user guide a.k.a. instruction manual. Some manufacturers save their own time and money by combining multiple models of cameras or whatever they happen to make all in one big, ugly user guide. Kodak doesn't fall into this category and have such a great business record because of it. Good user guides cut back drastically on the need for customer support. Some manufacturers don't realize this and end up spending much more money hiring and training a team of customer support workers while they could have just developed decent user guides.
This is one of the unknown cases where someone actually read the whole user guide before using the product. It completely explained in depth each and every function of the camera. At the time of reading the user guide, I knew little about aperture or other camera-lingo terms like ISO, f-stop, and color balance. Reading the manual really paid off.
The overall sleekness of the camera is something to brag about. Every digital camera out there that boasts 3+ megapixels does not come close to looking as cool as the DC4800. It's so low profile on a standard tripod that it looks like nothing is even mounted to it.
First Use...
The first picture truly paid for this camera. I was amazed at the quality and the surprisingly little amount of effort required to take a picture (it was even easier to use than most film cameras). The time of day I took the first picture was about 4:30 PM (sunset) and it handled it perfectly with the automatic mode set (more about the auto-mode later).
When I got the image on my computer, I loaded it with a personal favorite image viewer called ACDSee (http://www.acdsystems.com/english/products/acdsee/index.htm). Since I run 1152 x 864 pixels on my computer, the image could not be displayed in full size without being zoomed out. This in itself is pretty impressive. For the final test, I set the zoom to 200% (2x) and the picture didn't distort. I had myself a literal picture-perfect image, first try.
In depth...
Before I get into anything else, I would like to bring up one of the DC4800's lacking feature:
As with all of Kodak's "Digital Science" (really "Digita", see http://www.digitaphoto.com/ for more details) digital cameras (including the DC260 and DC265), there were a few priceless features practiced in almost no other digital camera. Rather than having a digital camera to just take pictures, you could almost treat it like an appliance. For example, you could set the camera to automatically take pictures whenever you chose. You could set it to take a picture every 15 minutes, every 30 seconds, or every other day if you'd like. This "timer mode" could be used to make some amazing time-lapse-photography sets or videos.
Another one of Kodak's "Digital Science" features was the ability to use macros and scripts. You could download scripts to the digital camera that it interprets the same way your web browser is interpreting the HTML on this web page. In other words, this could make the camera do amazing, customized things. Some people wrote scripts to let you browse the pictures stored in the CompactFlash card that's loaded the same way you browse files on your hard drive. Someone else wrote a game, taking a random picture off the CompactFlash card and making a puzzle game out of it. Some people have gone as far as taking the infamous computer/console game "Doom" and emulated it for camera play (http://digita.mame.net/ for more information). The "Doom" game is a bit far fetched, but shows perfectly well that the DC4800 is lacking something that it shouldn't.
After having 3 months of time to play around with the DC4800, I've learned all of its ins and outs. Read on for detail about...well, everything:
Package Contents:
Kodak DC4800 Zoom Digital Camera.
Neck strap.
The neck strap is a necessity. The last thing you want to do is drop your camera and it happens all too often. There's no spot on this camera that could hit pavement and not be damaged or broken.
Lens cover.
The lens cap/cover is easily lost. For some reason, they didn't include a string to keep the cap connected to the camera like they did with the DC265 and DC260. I borrowed the string from the DC260 and it fit quite nicely. I can't think of an excuse for why they didn't include one. There's even hole on the bottom of the cap to accommodate one.
16-megabyte CompactFlash card.
The 16-megabyte CompactFlash card that comes with the camera is hardly sufficient. You can fit only 8 or 9 pictures at maximum resolution on it. I recommend investing in a bigger CompactFlash card.
Lithium-ion battery and AC adapter for in-camera charging.
Right away you'll find yourself wanting a second battery. The in-camera charging takes a few hours and requires your camera to be plugged in. This completely disables mobile use of the camera while you charge.
There is an add-on package that Kodak makes which includes a second lithium-ion battery and a separate super-fast battery charger. Not only does this let you charge one battery and take pictures with the other, but also it takes only an hour to charge the battery. Another huge benefit is that the charger comes with an automatic shutoff. As soon as it senses the battery having sufficient voltage it shuts off and prevents over-charging, which can ruin a battery.
The DC260 and DC265 (plus mostly all other digital cameras) want AA photo-batteries. $4 each x 4 batteries = 16 bucks for a few hours of usage. There's always rechargeable AA's and the like but they're also very expensive and don't last as long as lithium-ion batteries.
The battery life is another very surprising thing. In conjunction with the priceless power-management features of the DC4800, you can get in hours of use between charges.
USB cable for use with Windows and Macintosh systems.
Video out cable for viewing pictures on TV.
Kodak software CD.
The software on this CD is very sufficient for anyone who wants a no-hassle way of getting, viewing, and printing their pictures. My only complaint with this software is that they used the cheap way to develop it. Rather than hiring a team of software developers to do a custom C++ program, like they did with their old "Picture Easy" software, they took the road less traveled and used Macromedia.
ArcSoft Panorama Maker 2000 is a fully functional software package bundled on the CD. It's very nice. It makes outstanding panoramas without requiring much skill. There are even samples of panoramas to give you an example of the amazing possibilities. You can even turn them into a 360° QuickTime file like the ones you may have seen on a 3D real-estate website.
Quick start setup guide.
User guide.
The user guide is put together perfectly. It's very easy to read and follow. Rather than feeling alienated, you feel like someone actually put some hard work into creating this. Most manuals for anything you buy are translated terribly from an already poorly written Japanese version. Open up a JVC product and you'll see what I mean: six or so manuals in different languages all translated from a "master" Japanese version. Some of the things are worded so terribly you wonder how they got away with it.
Registration card.
Camera Main Features:
3.1 megapixel resolution (2160 x 1440 pixels).
This is where I talk about the image quality. It's absolutely amazing. You can make 8.5" x 11" photo prints with no distortion. To put it simply, with a photo printer and the DC4800, say goodbye to film development and darkrooms and hello to your personal photo lab.
If you saw a DC4800 print my Epson Photo EX made, you'd be very jealous.
And just to be nice, Kodak made the DC4800 with four resolution possibilities. If you're looking to save space on your CompactFlash card, bog the resolution down and fit more than twice the pictures you could before. Here is a small table representing the four resolutions:
Megapixels | Resolution (pixels)
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3.1................2160 x 1440
2.2................1800 x 1200
1.6................1536 x 1024
0.8................1080 x 720
3x optical zoom (28 - 84 mm) and an additional 2x digital zoom.
Well, it is what it is. I can't brag about the zoom features or else the Sony Mavica MVC-CD100 (10x optical zoom, ouch) folks will get on me. However, I can say that the lens is very small for the zoom it provides while playing a huge role in the stealthy design of the DC4800.
Two LCDs.
There are two LCDs (liquid crystal displays) on the DC4800.
The first is the LCD on the top, which displays certain modes/settings that you currently have set and other miscellaneous information like how many pictures you can take before running out of space on the CompactFlash card. This is an extremely useful LCD and I find myself referring to it quite often.
The second LCD is the most important part of the camera as far as the user is concerned. It displays everything that you could possibly need. This is the interface between you and your camera.
Very advanced LIVE image reviewing and previewing.
Wow. Excellent feature. This is where film cameras take a header right off the cliff.
After you take a picture, you are greeted with (on the 1.8" LCD) an exact display of it. It displays this image for a nominal amount of time. During display, simply press a couple of buttons to discard it, or don't touch anything and let it automatically "timeout" and write it to the memory card. That right there is any person's excuse to get a digital camera.
What if you don't want to put your eye up to that tiny little viewfinder and relax for once to take a picture? Simply press the "Display" button and you'll be greeted with a live video-preview of what the camera is aimed at. You can even lower (or higher) the frames-per-second (smoothness) to preserve battery power.
Optical image viewfinder.
The optical image viewfinder is the part of the camera you put your eye up to and squint at to find your "view" (hence viewfinder). As opposed to a standard viewfinder on conventional cameras, the DC4800 has a "diopter dial" which is excellent when multiple people use the camera. The diopter dial is similar to a pair of glasses or contact lenses. By changing it one way or another, it reflects light differently, or to simply say, it focuses the picture. This makes it ideal for anyone with or without glasses needing to share the camera.
Automatic "Dummy-Proof" mode (Point & Shoot).
The "dummy-proof" mode is basically a "safe and simple" way of taking pictures. If you're sick and tired of all the functions and adjustments of the camera and "just want to take a damn picture", put the camera in Automatic mode.
The automatic mode just lets the camera do it's own thing. It sets all of the settings by itself depending on what its sensors tell it. For daylight shots, the automatic mode is amazing. I wouldn't recommend manual mode for daylight shots with automatic mode available, even if you know the settings you want.
Built-in flash.
The built-in flash mechanism on the DC4800, providing lighting for a 15-foot wide x 10-foot long area is placed perfectly in such a compressed atmosphere. With the flick of a little switch, the spring-loaded flash pops up. To disengage, just press the top of it and it sets back into place. End of story.
I cannot stress enough the ingenious idea of having the flash mechanism manually controlled. The DC260 and DC265 each had a very annoying process of enabling/disabling the flash. You would have had to go into the menu, press multiple buttons all the while eating up valuable battery power. Or, you would have to navigate your way around the non-backlit LCD on the top of the camera. This would be impossible at night and make flash all the harder to use.
More features: (just as important as above, but somewhat technical)
Audible "beep" notifications.
Sadly enough, the "beeps" are quite a drawback from the DC260 and DC265. They provided emulated camera shutter sounds and other ones that made the camera more alive. Since the DC4800 is sans Digital Science, all it really has is a small speaker that emits a "beep" every time you take a picture or navigate through the menus. The audible beeps can be disabled from the setup menu.
CompactFlash image storage.
All you can complain about is the price. CompactFlash cards are solid-state, meaning they're basically like an inert compact disc. They store (what was once considered) a lot of data in a very small space.
At the time of starting their digital camera line, Kodak could have chosen Smart Media, which in my opinion is highly expensive junk, CompactFlash, or invent a new format for storing data. They made the right choice with CompactFlash.
Auto-Focus and Auto-Exposure.
The auto-focus is one of the automatic mode features. However, the DC4800 can be set to auto-focus while you set a custom exposure or you can use it in conjunction with auto-exposure, described below.
Auto-Exposure is a mode that the camera has that tries to automatically set the shutter speed. It analyzes the current camera "shake", making the shutter speed shorter for a still camera or still picture, and quicker for a moving ("shaking") camera or fast-moving target.
Exposure Compensation.
There is an exposure compensation "dial" on the top of the camera near the shutter button. It has a label with markings from -2 to +2 (in .5 increments), with the dial defaulted at "0" from the factory. The exposure compensation would be changed to a higher number to add more light to the picture (i.e. dark exposure) and changed to a lower number to subtract light from the picture (too bright). The exposure compensation works quite well for indoor pictures when you need to do a little "tweaking".
White Balance.
Although I don't use the white balance as much as I should, I still think that it's one of the DC4800's priceless features. If you're indoors and there's a lot of overhead lighting (light bulbs), and you want your picture not to look generic, set the white balance to tungsten. Light bulbs cast an orange-like light and the tungsten mode changes it to be a little bluer, changing the picture drastically, but in a good way.
If I'm not taking an indoors picture, I leave the white balance in Auto, which is usually best since it automatically picks out any white balance that it senses to be needed.
On top of tungsten and Auto, you can pick from:
Daylight, Fluorescent, Flash, Sepia, Black and White, Manual (self-select the white balance), and selectable color temperature (2500-10,000 Kelvin).
Shutter speeds ranging from 1/1000s - 16s.
If you want to take a picture of a bullet in flight, you may have a slight chance with the 1/1000 of a second shutter speed. Actually, you'd probably need a faster shutter speed.
If you want a "night-vision" effect, set the camera up for a 16 second exposure and watch as it amazingly lights and photographs surroundings that a human eye couldn't possibly see, even with the most dilated pupils.
Tripod mount.
The tripod mount works great on my tripod.
Burst capture.
The burst capture works great. It can take 5 pictures consecutively within a couple of seconds. However there are many reasons to use burst capture, it is ideal for any situation where multiple photos are needed of a one-time-only action scene.
Battery-save.
The battery save features work quite well. If you want to treat the camera more like a film one, you can run it for many hours on a single battery. However, for that much battery power you have to compensate the digital LCD and other features otherwise known as necessities.
One minor complaint is that when the camera is running low on batteries, it stops displaying the short review of the last picture taken (since the LCD requires so much battery power). This encourages you to substitute a not-yet-dead battery for a newly charged one. Doing this a lot can ruin a battery.
JPEG, Uncompressed TIFF & EXIF 2.1 image formats.
JPEG is the standard for compressed digital images. JPEG is a standard because you cannot tell the difference between a certain 35 kilobyte JPEG image and a 350 kilobyte bitmap (BMP) image.
JPEG is strictly for the human-eye, unless of course you're going into resolutions in the 3.1 megapixel range (like the DC4800). For picture-perfect printing functions (although JPEG is quite sufficient with consumer photo printers) Kodak included a mode for using an uncompressed TIFF format. As opposed to the regular 100-200 kilobyte JPEG image, an uncompressed TIFF of the same image can result in a 9 megabyte file. Yes, that's ninety times larger than the JPEG with little or no human-noticeable difference. Only professional photographers will find themselves with the need for the uncompressed TIFF format.
Now, EXIF is a whole new ballgame. I love this feature and am sad to say that the DC260 and DC265 did not incorporate it. With EXIF, the camera can write specific data tags to each and every image. For example, you can find out what shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, etc. was used for every image. This is a priceless feature to any photographer.
Built-in self-timer.
This is a commonly known feature and the DC4800 has it. If you put the camera in self-timer mode and press the shutter button, it waits 8 seconds, starts flashing a light on the front of the camera for 2 seconds, then takes the exposure. Sadly, like in the Digital Science cameras, this feature is not customizable to a time other than 10 seconds.
External flash connector.
I haven't used this so all I can say is that it's there. You can plug in an external flash to this connector and it signals to the flash when to do its thing, canceling the built-in flash.
Date & time stamp.
The date and time stamp could be quite useful for any type of professional situation, or documentation. For example, a police officer taking photos of a crime scene needs to know the exact time the photos were taken, or an insurance agent investigating an accident needs it for their records.
If you don't know what the date and time stamp is, it means that the camera takes its date and/or time and digitally "writes" or "stamps" it on every picture before it is written to memory.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 800
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Epinions.com ID:
kmic
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Reviews written: 43
Trusted by: 8 members
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