Product Reviews

Kodak's DC290 Zoom is the latest in a long line of digital cameras from the imaging giant. While the recent DC280 (reviewed issue 63, p128) is a capable camera, Kodak has pulled out all the stops with the DC290, which is designed to appeal particularly to the photographic enthusiast and even satisfy many professional needs.

A digital camera's most important specification is its resolution, and most seem to have peaked at around the 2.3 megapixel mark, which is sufficient to produce a good-looking A4 colour inkjet print. Kodak, however, describes its DC290 as boasting a 3.3 megapixel resolution, with 2,240 « 1,500 pixels to play with. Before you get too excited, this is a hardware-interpolated figure. In practice, this can be useful for smoothing edges, but it will never create detail that wasn't captured in the first place. Kodak is quite honest about this fact, and only briefly mentions the 3.3 megapixel figure on the packaging.

While the competition continues to supply 4Mb or 8Mb of memory, Kodak generously includes a massive 20Mb CompactFlash card. That's sufficient to store between 19 and 225 images at three different levels of JPEG compression; there's also the option of capturing raw uncompressed TIFFs, measuring just over 6Mb each, but not at the interpolated resolution. Lower 1,440 « 960 and 720 « 480 pixel settings are also on offer.

The DC290 has a 3x optical zoom lens, equivalent in coverage to 38-115mm on a 35mm film camera. This level of optical zoom is common on higher-end cameras like the Nikon CoolPix 950 (reviewed issue 63, p130), but Sony boasts a 5x optical zoom on its Cyber-shot DSC-F505 (reviewed issue 63, p135). The Kodak also boasts a 2x digital zoom, but this only crops the image and enlarges the central portion.

There's no dedicated macro setting on the DC290, but with a minimum focusing distance of 30cm you can pretty much fill the frame with small subjects. You can also switch to manual focusing, although there's only nine steps and the minimum focusing distance is extended to 50cm.

Kodak uses AA batteries in its digital cameras. These are slightly bigger and heavier than their lithium ion counterparts, and often don't last as long either. However, AA batteries do have one big advantage: their cheap price and high availability. Considering most digital cameras peter out after a couple of hours' use, you

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should think about carrying a spare, and an extra lithium ion battery could be as much as £50. Kodak supplies a set of four NiMH AA batteries and a charger, along with a pack of alkalines to get you started. The rechargeables will last for around an hour of average use.

Round the back of the DC290 is a 2in LCD display, which appears considerably larger than the 1.8in panels of lesser cameras, although it can't rival the clarity of the Canon PowerShot S10 (reviewed p174). Kodak should be commended for its simple menu system with friendly icons, along with the ability to switch between common flash and image quality modes direct from the small status LCD on top of the camera rather than having to use the main screen.

Unique to the DC290 are scripts, which allow you to program your own macro-style functions, or download prewritten ones from Kodak's Web site - great for, say, bracketing exposures. Other features include four white balance settings (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent and auto), three watermark options, multi-spot, single spot and manual focus, long exposures (up to 16 seconds), time lapse (with one-minute to 24-hour intervals), exposure lock, three flash settings, and the facility to record audio notes with each picture.

A new burst mode can capture up to four high- or 16 medium-resolution images at up to three frames per second. Manual control of the aperture is also possible in half-stop intervals down to F16, but only through the external flash menu. You can also set exposure compensation to +/-2EV in half stops. Composite video output is offered for TV slide shows, and there's even infrared for wireless connectivity. Probably best of all, though, is the USB interface, which rushes images across in as little as three seconds, compared to around a minute over a conventional serial connection.

The highest-quality JPEG setting on the DC290 reduces native image file sizes of over 6Mb to an average of around 500Kb, with complex images peaking at just under 1Mb. In JPEG terms, this isn't particularly harsh compression, and you'll need to look very closely at this setting to spot any artefacts. In our tests, the DC290 picked up all the detail we'd expect and demonstrated superb colour saturation. It's certainly on a par with both the Sony DSC-F505 and Nikon CoolPix 950. However, one advantage both the DC290 and CoolPix 950 have over Sony is an uncompressed TIFF mode. You may not get many images to the pound - only three in the DC290's case - but for the ultimate quality they're unsurpassed.

The USB connectivity, 20Mb of memory and all the other features make the DC290 an extremely attractive proposition. At this level of quality and features, the choice boils down to personal preference of design, handling and brand loyalty. Two other cameras worth investigating are the gadget-tastic Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F505, and the discounted Nikon CoolPix 950. However, whichever you choose, none of these cameras will disappoint.