Bitten By The Jealousy Bug: Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Digital Camera
Written: Dec 28 '03
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Pros: Easy, amazing features, great bargain...
Cons: Still not "cheap"
The Bottom Line: Looking for something to impress your friends, take great pictures, and prove easy to use? Look no further.
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| lambchops's Full Review: Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Digital Camera |
While not an avid photographer, I do enjoy the art and every now and again find myself seeking out new and better alternatives to my current 2-year-old Olympus C-3000. One such alternative showed up amongst my dear mother’s Christmas gifts and after fiddling with it I must say I’m officially jealous.
The Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Digital Camera is a great value at something less than $500. Sounds strange, eh? But consider for a moment that the camera does what very few others do on the market. It takes pictures with a 10x optical zoom lens. There are very, very few consumer-level models that offer this feature. But whereas many other cameras (including my dear old Olympus) are pretty difficult to get a handle of this one is definitely meant to be user-friendly. For ease of use, impressiveness of features, and price this Kodak model is as good as you can get.
No, it’s not a professional level (with only 4.0 megapixels) and not it’s not the product of a famous digital camera maker but it does impress on most every level. And sometimes you just gotta go for the actual quality and value over brand name, hence the purchase of the DX6490. Do I like it better (gasp!) than my Olympus C-3000? Heck yeah. Would I run out and buy it immediately for myself immediately and without hesitation? Double heck yeah.
First and foremost, the camera is easy. Who would have thought that such a powerful machine would be so easy to deal with? Not me, therefore I found myself absolutely impressed by how simple it is to operate. From taking pictures to viewing the images to finally transferring to a computer and/or printing the process is easy and relatively seamless. As with many digital cameras, the actual picture taking is made possible with a combination of dial and button operations. But what separates this from my Olympus is that it doesn’t really take much “fiddling” to get things right. Planted directly on the dial are presets for regular automatic picture taking in addition to manual, sport, night, landscape, portrait, and close-up (macro) modes. There are settings for any situation at the flick of your thumb.
While in manual mode (where most of the bonus settings are accessible and appropriate) lucky owners may choose to adjust both aperture and shutter speed settings. Here you can also choose to change exposure time, ISO speed (from 80 to 800), color mode (saturated and neutral color, sepia, and black and white), image sharpness, exposure metering type, and focus zone format. If there’s a picture you want to take, the DX6490 can satisfy.
Not only are the actual controls functional, easy, and flexible but the LCD screen is brilliant and beautiful (if that is indeed positive). It doesn’t glitch or skip—as you look at an image in real life it appears the same on the screen. The 2.2” LCD screen is large and bright and representative of the end result. While taking photos outside in the brightness of both sun and snow it was easy to see. The same goes for indoor viewing.
Speaking of looking good, the Kodak also has a video option. It works well and easily and can handle a pretty good deal of video of course contingent on the size of the memory you’ve installed in the system. One word of warning though…unless you like incessant clicking turn off the automatic focus before taking video.
But there is more to this camera than technical benefits. The Kodak DX6490 also includes (as do all Kodak EasyShare models) a docking station. This isn’t a standard feature for most models, but is an added bonus here. After installing the software (a simple, standard step-by-step process) just plug in the unit to your USB and set the camera into the base. Open the software and push the clearly marked button on the front of the unit…your pictures will be viewable and downloadable from the camera almost immediately. Ahhhh…the joy of USB.
This Kodak is also very light. It is easy to carry as a result of Kodak’s choice to include a high-capacity lithium-ion battery rather than requiring AA batteries. The base fully charges the built-in battery in less than three hours. It promises to last for upwards of 300 pictures, and there has been no indication that this isn’t indeed the truth. In fact, it seems that Kodak has underestimated their camera’s performance. But as with all batteries, the lithium-ion doesn’t promise to last forever. This was a major concern. What happens when it dies? What do we do? Batteries are indeed replaceable (something that may need to be done after three or four years of usage) for $30. Consider for a moment how many AA batteries you can go through in the same time period--$30 is actually a very good bargain.
Included in the package are the following things: camera (of course), dock, AV cable, USB cable, neck strap, lens cap and tether, lithium ion battery, power cord, software CD, and a friendly “welcome kit.” There are of course a few optional items available from printers to added memory (it comes with a built-in 16MB chip but is compatible with SD memory cards) to a rapid charge kit. But the things included are more than enough to get any usual photographer up and going.
Overall and thus far I’ve been incredibly impressed and subsequently incredibly jealous of the Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Digital Camera. I can’t say enough about how good a bargain it is. It may not be a proper choice for a professional photographer, but for casual photographers it is a wonderful choice—if you can stomach coughing up the initial $500.
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Boring Technical Specifications:
Megapixels: 4.0
Max Resolution: 2304 x 1728 (four modes)
Max Zoom: 30x (10x optical, 3x digital)
Lens: 10X SCHNEIDER-KREUZNACH VARIOGON Optical Zoom Lens
Screen: Bright 2.2" (5.6 cm) LCD Display and Electronic Viewfinder
Installed Memory: 16MB
Controls: Manual, Semi-Manual, Automated Controls
Max/Min Aperture: 2.8 f / 8.0 f
Max/Min Shutter Speed: 16 seconds / 1700 1/x Second
Recording Method: Internal Memory, MultiMedia Card (MMC), Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card
Image Formats: AVI, EXIF, JPEG
Video Framer Per Second: 320 x 240 pixels at 20 fps
Battery: Lithium Ion Rechargeable
Compatibility: Macintosh and PC
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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lambchops
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Member: Shelly T.
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
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Bye-bye CL hat. Hopefully I'll write some new reviews some time soon!
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