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109 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great features for the price -- near-pro quality, super easy, February 19, 2002
Digital cameras in general are getting better, but you can't beat quality like this. Though I was initially looking at the more talked-about Olympuses and Canons, this camera gives excellent color fidelity, great resolution, and point-and-click ease of use coupled with advanced features.I use Mac OS X, and no software installation is required to use the camera -- it works seamlessly with ImageCapture and the new iPhoto, including being able to control the camera (erase pics from the card, etc) from the iPhoto app. The direct USB connectivity is great. I was able to quickly and seamlessly download the photos without having to use a compactflash adapter, which I suspect will result in longer media life due to the lack of the physical stresses of jamming the card in and out. It looks like a film camera (as opposed to some of the Nikons which twist), and feels comfortable, with a nice weight to it. The body is plastic, but feels fairly solid, though it doesn't feel quite like the most expensve cameras. It feels like the most expensive camera you could buy at a drugstore -- well-put-together, but not top-of-the-line. The ergonomics are very well-designed and easy to understand -- the buttons are well placed for easy operation without any accidental activations. The camera has a built-in battery save feature you can enable which turns it off after a minute of inactivity, and has easy-to-navigate hierarchal menus to control many aspects, like date/time stamp, image quality, and sounds. The image quality is really excellent, better than I expected. Though the 3.1 megapixels is certainly impressive, what's more important is that the quality in those few million pixels is right on, with good range in lights and shadows, good detail (the camera includes macro and distance modes for customizing focus), and very good color fidelity. There are white-balance controls for different lighting (flourescent, tungsten, flash etc) which enhance the color fidelity in usually-tough lighting situations. There is a hint of jaggedness in high-contrast areas, but it's not too distracting. Overall, there is none of the graininess that I've seen with other digital cameras. The camera can take pictures in only 3 modes -- color, sepia, or black and white (some cameras have lots of built-in effects.) For cropping and sharing, it's nice anyway to have a program like Adobe Photoshop Elements, which will let you use all the filters you might want. One of the best parts of this camera is the lens -- you can buy accessories like a telephoto attatchment or a wide-angle, for even more flexibility. I am thrilled with this camera. As an art student, it suits my needs perfectly -- optical zoom and enough pixels to play with were very important to me. However, there are a few cons, which can be expected for all these features at the price. Unlike the top-of-the-line digicams, there's a separate viewfinder (as opposed to true through-the-lens -- parallax problems are slight, but there.) And maybe it's just me, but you can't seem to frame your picture on the LCD screen -- it seems to work only for reviewing photos. I wish there were a power adapter included for seamless recharging. The 8mb included memory is pretty skimpy considering historically-low memory prices -- it holds only 8 hi-res photos. The construction feels solid, but not tops. We'll see how it holds up. All in all, this is a wonderful camera for the price, and Kodak didn't sacrifice image quality to cram in more effective pixels -- the images that come off the camera are ready to go. The additional lenses, ISO and white-balance adjustments mean you can take it further, but it functions as a point-and-shoot easy camera, and with Mac OS X anyway, there's no software you need to install at all. I highly recommend it for everyone from the first-timer who needs room to grow to the advanced amateur without unlimited funds.
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