The Kodak DC290 is terrific.
Written: Jul 14 '02 (Updated Jul 14 '02)
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Pros: excellent pictures, sound recording, sturdy build, low light capabilities, USB connectivity
Cons: shutter lag, drains alkaline batteries quickly, no neck strap included
The Bottom Line: If you want a very good digital camera that's loaded with useful features, easy to use, and produces beautiful, breath-taking pictures, try to get one of these.
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| pvr8's Full Review: Kodak DC290 Zoom Digital Camera |
I was a little leery of buying this camera due to some of the reviews I have read, but something kept telling me that I wanted this camera. I went to try out some other digitals, Fuji 4700, Olympus 3000, ect. I finally went with my gut feeling and bought the DC290, of course the very reasonable price helped too. I am so glad I didn't change my mind.
I printed out some photo's that I shot at a consortium meeting here in Hawaii. Some of the pictures were taken indoors with flash and some outside without flash. The results were astonishing. I printed the pictures on Epson photo paper using a Epson Stylus Photo 875DCS printer(an excellent printer)and the pictures are superior to many 35mm film pictures I have taken with my Nikon N6006 SLR. The colors this camera produces are brilliant and the picture detail is excellent
The endless list of features that this camera offers and the fantastic picture quality it delivers far outweighs any weaknesses I've found in this camera. Although this camera has a fixed ISO rated at 100, it takes some of the finest pictures in low light of any consumer digital camera.
Most of the camera's settings are done via an internal menu. The user interface is pretty straight forward and the menu is easy to navigate. The camera came with a 16 meg compact flash card which is O.K. for getting used to the camera but it's too small for any real serious picture taking. I recently purchased a 128 meg card and now I have all the picture space I need.
This camera can save pictures in several different JPEG formats or it can save pictures in the TIFF format. JPEG is a compressed format that sacrifices some picture quality for reduced file size. TIFF format saves picture files with no loss of quality but the files are very large and take up a lot of space on the compact flash card. The difference in JPEG and TIFF picture quality isn't really noticeable until you start printing enlarged pictures 8x10 or larger. This camera is a 2.1 megapixel camera but it has an ultra setting that allows the camera shoot at 3.3 megapixels (interpolated). 2.1 megapixels are enough to produce fine prints up to 8"x10" in size and even larger when using the ultra mode.
The camera does take a few seconds to boot up and processing can take a couple of seconds between shots but neither of these minor weaknesses are too bothersome except to the most finicky or professional photographers. BTW, many professional photographers have reported that they use this same camera with fantastic results. However, this is not a very good camera for taking fast moving or action shots, it's just too slow for capturing fast action with great detail. In my opinion, this is this camera's major weakness. This camera, like nearly all digital cameras, eats up regular batteries but this problem is easily solved by buying an extra set of rechargable ni-mh batteries. The camera comes with one set and a charger. These batteries last far longer than alkaline batteries.
Kodak has replaced this model with newer models but some dealers are still selling this one and it can be found on the internet and at some retail stores. The prices I've seen recently are good also, $400 to $600, Excellent deal.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 400.00
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Epinions.com ID:
pvr8
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Member: Preston Rhem
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 0 members
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