Customer Reviews

Kodak DC290 2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have a DC265 and the DC290 is awesome! My wife bought me the DC290 for X-mas.. (Yes I have a wife that would do that..) and I can't put the darn thing down. The picture quality is stunning in comparison to the DC265 and I love the uncompressed mode. I have a lens kit and did some +17 close-ups with uncompressed max resolution and the picture is unreal.. I have a HP4500N Color Laser printer (yes I'm spoiled) and it prints 8x10's that look like photographs when they come off this printer.. The DC265 can print maybe 5x3.5" or so before the picture degrades. And uncompressed image in the DC290 at 8"x10" is very beautiful. It's hard to see any pixelation at all. Also it captures a lot more detail color and light than the DC265. I took a shot out doors at night and was able to lighten it in PaintShop Pro and was amazed to find all these hidden details that the DC265 would have lost.. I'm in love.. Now if I could only afford the DC660 (Price of a medium sized car!) Oh.. Buy a really big flash card, the uncompressed images are 6.6MB! So on a 32Mb card you only get a couple snaps and you're done.. I swear that the camera shoots FASTER in uncompressed mode.. If you have the money to buy a high-speed 160Mb Compact Flash go for it..

I have been using the Kodak DC290 for about 2 weeks and have been very satisfied by the images I am getting. I have had a lot of experience with 35mm cameras and have been waiting for the technology to improve before venturing into the digital arena. The camera takes stunning photographs which can be hard to distinguish from actual 35mm photographs. You can easily make 8 by 10 prints which are photo quality. Once you buy this camera you will probably also want to upgrade your printer. I have a HP Deskjet 722C and I think that the printer limits the quality of my final prints. The camera appears to be well-made and is very easy to operate. Everything is intuitive and I mastered it in a couple of hours. Be prepared to buy a couple sets of NIMH batteries because the alkaline batteries that came with the camera only lasted a couple of hours. The NIMH batteries last much longer. The only negative that I can determine is that the camera is a little slow in releasing the shutter once the button is pushed. For anyone trying to take pictures of fast moving children, this can cause you to miss the shot.

I have had the Fuji 1700, Sony FD91, & FD88, let me say that those are paper weights now. This camera changes everything about digital photography. It surely raises the bar. I have a web site with many pictures on it. Some sudjestions: buy the best rechargeables (I bought sony and they last a long time), before you email them reduse the size, high res pics are very large (500k-6.6meg) This camera can do low light something my other camera's couldn't do. What else can I say. Oh, buy the AC adapter too, it's usefull.

I've had my DC-290 about 2 weeks &have taken about 150 pictures.My main reason for buying the 290 was to get the longer zoom range and to print shots 8x10 and larger.Detail in 8x10 prints almost equal 35mm when shot at the best setting. Have shot several at the uncompressed setting and printed to 11x17 with an Epson stylus photo EX printer. Detail is very good. Color is outstanding. Had a DC-200 before and didn't find the detail good enough for even 4x6 prints. Once the instruction book is read,the camera is very easy to operate.The camera is a bit heavy to hold but I like the feel.The camera is expensive but if you are serious about digital,you will find it worth the money.I'm from Rochester,N.Y.but I don't work for Kodak.

The DC290 is a remarkable camera. I've been using mine in addition to my DC265, and the difference in image quality is amazing! Any amateur or professional looking to purchase a digital camera should seriously consider this model. It's price is slightly high for many, but the quality is worth it. In addition, make sure you are equipped with a decent color printer. The prints on my Kyocera Color Laser are phenomenal, as well as those on my HP DeskJet 870C. Great camera! Great features!

The DC290 is probably the best consumer digital camera in the market, and I'm sure it's the best one in this price range. The camera delivers very high quality pictures and you can make impressive 8x10 prints. As with most digital cameras, the DC290 is a big energy consumer. Unfortunately, present day battery technology is growing only linearly as opposed to the exponential growth in portable electronics. Thus, the battery life for the DC290 is rather short. Maybe you might want to consider buying an extra set of rechargable batteries. Also, since the uncompressed size of pictures is proportional to the number of pixels the camera can capture, a 2.1 megapixel camera like the DC290 can have uncompressed pictures of the order of megabytes (6.6mb to be precise)... thus, a large flash card is a must and you will be seriously inconvenienced if you don't have enough flash card storage.

I'm just an amateur photographer but in the past 25 years I've owned three 35mm SLR cameras and two auto-everything 35mm cameras. The Kodak DC290 is my first digital and it operates about the same as the auto-everything cameras. It can't do everything that an SLR and a gadget bag full of accessories can do and it doesn't have the "feel" of an SLR. But, it does 99% of what I want and produces beautiful photos. I've had mine for about four months and have taken almost 1000 photos with it. Last week I went to the USAF Museum and took over 300 photos, about 100 of them with it on a tripod using shutter speeds of 0.5 to 3.0 seconds. Fantastic quality. I bought an extra compact flash card (64M) and two extra sets of NiMH batteries and took along my old notebook PC. When the picture cards were full, I transferred the photos to the notebook PC using a PCMCIA adapter then erased the card. That worked fine and I have not had any problems transferring files to my home PC using the USB port either.

When you consider that we were spending over $200 per year on film and developing anyway, going digital just made sense. I like the ergonomics of the camera and the menus are easy to use - just spend a few minutes with the manual. I was switching between a variety of modes at the museum to get the best photos possible and it wasn't that difficult. I haven't had this much fun since I bought my first SLR. Coworkers were amazed by an 8x10 portrait of my wife that I took with the DC290 and printed on photo quality paper. Kodak provides support through their web page including OS upgrades to the camera's software.

Recommendations: Get a case and one or two extra sets of NiMH batteries. I haven't bought the AC adapter for it but I can see how it would be useful to some because it takes about 8 hours to recharge the batteries. The batteries will last longer if you use the viewfinder instead of the LCD. The LCD is essential for close up shots and the digital zoom only works with the LCD. A large compact flash card is a good idea if you intend to use the best quality at high resolution since the picture size in that format are usually around 500K. The graphics software that comes with the camera is OK but better programs are available for any serious photo editing you might want to do.

In some ways, the DC290 beats some of Kodaks more recent offerings. I read a lot of positive reviews earlier this year on the DC290, but what finally convinced me was this: I live near a Marine Base, and they evaluated a large variety of cameras from many manufacturers and selected the DC290. After several months of use, the Marines I spoke to rave about it! When I finally purchased one from Amazon, I wasn't disappointed. The image quality is very good & is easy to use. The infamous one second shutter delay reported by past reviewers are operating it improperly. Hold the shutter release halfway (yes, Kodak designed it so you can feel it), and wait until the viewfinder light comes on. Depress it the rest of the way when you really want the picture taken. Other cameras operate the same way, usually to charge the flash, and any photographer should spend the second to compose a snapshot before taking it anyway. There is no delay after the viewfinder light comes on.All the positive comments from other reviewers apply. Additionally, this camera uses standard "AA" NiMH cells which are common and inexpensive compared to proprietary battery packs that are expensive and difficult to find. Most people underate the importance of a common battery type until they travel & the battery fails! The only negative comment is that the DC290, as well as most digital cameras sold today, uses expensive flash memeory. I purchased additional Memory (96MB Sandisk from Amazon) because the included 16MB card is inadaquate, especially when taking uncompressed TIFF images- only 2! Mathmatically speaking, a 2.1 megapixal camera like the DC290 is capable of printing 35mm photo quality 4x6 prints at 300dpi, using 6MB of compact flash memory. Spending the extra money for a 3 megapixal camera doesn't make sense for me, as these cameras hog even more memory! I wish this camera was compatible with IBM's microdisk, which recently released a 1GB drive. A much more economical [solution] is Iomega's new external 250MB USB Zip drive, the FotoShow, which downloads images directly from flashmemory card to Zip disk without needing a bulky computer, a real boon for travelers! This drive will work with any camera using compact or smartdisc memory. This is so new, Amazon doesn't sell this yet! One last point: the software included with the DC290 works for WIN98, not WINME. You need to go to Kodak's website to download the latest software which is WINME compatible. I gave this camera a 5 star rating. With FotoShow, I would give it 6 stars, if it were possible!

I have owned digital cameras for 3 or 4 years now and the Kodak DC290 is the best, overall, I have owned/used. At work I have occasion to use a SONY MVC-FD95, SONY MVC-FD91 and the Kodak DC290 camera; and while the zoom capability of the either SONY is better, the Kodak DC290 produces a picture quality that just can't be beat! The colors come out so true and crisp it is hard to believe they were taken with a digital camera. I print the pictures out on a HP 952C printer and I use Kodak photo paper (not because it is better than the HP paper but rather the local Office Depot has it on sale more often). The photos are indistinguishable from 35mm prints up to 5 X 7 but I have not printed any larger yet.

The camera "feels" good and is easy to hold. The controls are all well placed. The .5 to 1 second lag between the time you push the shutter release and the time the picture is actually taken, does take some getting used to. This is a bad feature on all digital cameras I have used. It takes about 2 to 4 seconds to "process" the picture but this time is a function of how fast your Compact Flash memory card is as well as the camera itself.

I appreciate the "scripts" that can be downloaded from various websites into the DC290. These allow you to "change" the functionality of the camera or add features such as auto-bracketing, or putting your name and phone number on the startup screen. I also purchased the Kodak lens kit for the camera. I have played with the various lenses but have not done anything serious with them. My main observation is that the wide-angle lens seems to cause a noticeable loss of contrast on the final print. The 2X lens works fine as do the close-up lenses. And, I purchased a couple of extra sets of rechargeable batteries, mostly for convenience rather than necessity. While the camera is a noted battery hog, I can take 45 to 60 flash pictures, displaying each shot on the LCD for 5 seconds before the batteries give out. It's nothing to change the batteries.

The 16 MB card that comes with the DC290 is adequate to get you going. Sooner or later, though, you will want to get a second memory card that probably has a larger capacity. You get about 25 high res, best quality pictures or in standard resolution and good compression, about 250 pictures on a 16 MB Compact Flash card. If you download any scripts to the camera, they take up room (not much) also. Downloading from the camera is fast if you use the USB connection. That eats batteries also and Kodak suggests you AC power the camera while doing this. I, instead, opted for a Compact Flash card reader. It cost about $35 and is so much more convenient. You just pop the Compact Flash card out of the camera and into the reader and it shows up as a hard drive on your system. You just access the pictures as you would any other file. Each high Res, best quality picture (about 550K) takes about 1 to 1.5 seconds to download. I did not try the standard serial port connection.

The LCD viewer is wonderful indoors or outside out of bright light but is all but useless in sunlight. This is a drawback because using menus visible through the LCD viewer sets most of the camera settings. However, some of the more common settings are viewable and changable from an LCD on the top of the camera but nothing fancy is adjustable without using the main color LCD viewer.

Overall, I highly recommend the camera. I used one at work first for several weeks and still decided to purchase one for myself.

Kodak DC290 is fine for medium/long range subjects. However, because the viewfinder and the lens are off-center, you invariably get off-center results - unless you use the LCD as your main viewfinder (this eats battery life and the display resolution makes it hard to make critical shot decisions). However, the image quality is quite excellent for most outdoor/lighted conditions.

The interaction and placement of the controls are quite good. There are a few key rubber finger and grip affordances to make the shooter feel in control. The only cheap part is the zoom lever. It's a small horizontal lever, that has to be kicked way over to one side or the other, and the time delay to lens movement is sluggish. The overall construction of the entire body and finish is very nice. There's plenty of standard features like burst, time-lapse, etc. to keep most digital camera enthusiasts happy. A real nice package bonus was the 4, AA NiMH rechargeable batteries and charger + 16MB storage card. At least Kodak was thinking about the entire user experience.

Oh, the PC software interface is rather silly. The childlike icons and metaphors for album creation, etc. makes you create a parallel cognitive hierarchy model for what is essentially folders/files on your computer. Something more straight forward with clear icons and interface is all we want. Use the quick access download near the clock once you've installed the software.