Almost a winner
Written: May 24 '06
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Pros: 10X Optical Zoom
Easy to use
Cons: Lots of JPG artifacting at all image quality settings
The Bottom Line: This is an decent camera for those wanting to take a small step up from basic cameras. Between the price and the image quality I would probably not recommend it.
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| brazbit's Full Review: Kodak EasyShare DX7590 Digital Camera |
I purchased my Kodak DX7590 a little over a year ago. For the most part the camera serves me well. I have learned to adjust for its quirks and am somewhat satisfied with the pictures it produces. The camera came very close to meeting my expectations but just barely missed the mark.
First the good:
This is a nice camera with an excellent optical zoom. A good optical zoom is important when it comes to taking digital pictures as digital zoom is just trimming the edges away and not actually zooming at all. This was one of the primary selling points of this camera.
The size and form factor of the camera are excellent. The camera fits comfortably in the hand and does not weigh all that much.
The multitude of modes and settings allow for taking pictures in almost any condition. Even with all these options the camera can still be set to operate like a fully automatic point and shoot camera if you so desire.
Battery life is acceptable.
Now for my concerns with the DX7590:
The first DX7590 I had died within three days. It just simply would not turn on any more and the zoom lens motor made a grinding noise when any attempt at turning it on was made. The camera was not mishandled in any way shape or form; it was my new baby after all. The retailer would not exchange it so I was forced to deal with Kodak and after several hours of explaining the situation they finally agreed to exchange it for a remanufactured camera. So I more or less paid full price for a used camera. My grudge on this point is with the retailer (who shall remain nameless) and not Kodak.
My primary concern with this camera is image quality. The camera is designed to highly compress files to conserve memory. Even in its highest resolution and quality setting it is still below what I would call acceptable quality.
The high compression turns what would be a 14MB file if it was saved as a bitmap into a 1.3MB JPG file. While this lets you get more images on a memory chip I would have liked to see either a lossless format or even a low compression option where the image would be around 8-10MB.
Why is this important? Because the high compression used by this camera results in artifacting which is a reduction in quality that gives a picture a speckled look to it. Also the compression creates jagged edges and creates a "halo" around some items.
To correct for this I often need to run images through photo editing software to remove the artifacts and apply a very light blur to the image. Then I can save the image at a lower resolution and get a much better image then that which came directly out of the camera. When saved as a maximum quality JPG in the editing software the images do not suffer the problems encountered in the camera's implementation of JPG. The camera's handling of JPG is more in line with a medium to low quality JPG in the editing software.
On some images this can be time consuming to do correctly and results in images that are lower resolution then the 5MP this camera claims. Of course this is not a false claim as the camera did produce a 5MP picture it just had to be downsized to be good quality. When all is said and done this camera takes below average 5MP pictures but they can be turned into high quality 3MP pictures if you have the time and are willing to put in the effort.
Conclusion:
Even with the drawbacks the camera works well for most picture taking situations and many people would be more than happy with this when taking family photos and vacation pictures. Where the camera tends to fall down is in low contrast situations.
I would suggest this camera for people looking for something more than a point and shoot but not for someone looking to do more serious photography.
With the simple addition of a lossless file format or even a lower compression implementation of JPG this camera could have lived up to it's potential. As I said in the title this camera is almost a winner.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 499.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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Epinions.com ID:
brazbit
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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