Kodak DC290

Once you enter the highly graphical menu system, the DC290's extended features instantly become apparent. Take a look at the screen captures of some of the menu options below and you'll see what I mean !

But that's not all, the DC290 is quite powerful out of the box but it can be taught new tricks as easily as downloading new Digita Scripts . Intelligent Digita Scripts and Applications run inside your Digita-enabled DC290 camera to simplify complex tasks, automate repetitive routines and customize your camera settings. Digita enables enthusiasts and novices alike, to optimize digital photography.

The Capture Preferences menu lets you change the Quickview time (amount of time that the last picture taken is displayed on the color LCD). Enable or disable the Auto Rotate feature (when you take a picture in Portrait mode it is rotated for proper viewing on the LCD or more importantly, on the Tv screen). Turn the Sounds on or off - the DC290 can sound like a 35mm camera with a motor drive when snapping a picture. It also controls the sounds when pushing a button or selecting a menu option. Adjust the Sleep Timeout (auto turn off) value. Or enable or disable the Remote Shutter option (Kodak has an optional cable release that hooks up to the USB port).

The Picture Type menu is probably the one you'll use the most, it lets you change the values for the three different methods (Still, Burst or Timelapse) of capturing images as shown by the next three menu screens.

The Still Picture menu lets you set the Flash mode (Auto, Fill, Redeye, Off), Image Quality (Good, Better or Best JPEG or Uncompressed TIF), and the Image Resolution (Standard 720x480, Medium 1440x960, High 1792x1200 or Ultra 2240x1500).

The Burst Mode menu lets you set the Image Quality (Good, Better, Best), Resolution (Standard, Medium, High) and the Burst Rate (0.5 - 3fps depending on image size).

The Timelapse menu lets you set the time interval between pictures and how many pictures it should take.

The Focus Modes menu lets you control how the DC290 will perform its focusing functions. Multi-Spot is the default, Single-Spot (better known as just Spot) does its focusing only on the center of the field of view, and Manual is manual... you change the focus manually using the left and right parts of the 4-way jog switch.

The Advanced Exposure Modes menu lets you put the camera in Programmed AE (default), Long Time Exposure (see next menu screen), Exposure Lock (for shooting panoramas), or set a given aperture f/stop value for use with an External Flash (menu shown below).

Sets the shutter speed for long time exposures from 0.5 to 16 seconds. Also be sure to see the info below about the firmware upgrade and the new Exposure script that is available.

If using an external flash, you can set the aperture value to F3.5, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, or F16.  The internal flash can be completely disabled.

The Watermark menu lets you place a date, time, text or logo on your pictures.

This is a typical Record mode screen with the Overlay data enabled.

In Review (Play) mode the DC290 can display small thumbnails of the stored images to allow you quickly find any one for fullscreen display.

This is a typical Review (Play) screen with the overlay data enabled. The options appearing along the bottom of all of these menus relates to those three unmarked buttons below the color LCD on the back of the camera. The functions of those buttons change depending on what menu is onscreen at the time.

Steve's Conclusion

Turn on time from a cold start is about 7-8 seconds as the Digita OS boots up and the lens (noisily) cycles to the fully extended position. Both the zoom and autofocus mechanisms emit quite a bit of noise, there's little doubt when they are working. I thought the zoom was too quick, pressing the switch to "W" or "T" resulted in very fast movement from one position to the other. I had to bump the switch quickly to move it in small focal length increments. The autofocus had little trouble finding its mark and even works in the darkness thanks to a light-assisted focusing aid.

Physically the DC290 looks the same as the DC260 and DC265, a shape and size that many like and others don't. I'm not crazy about the thumb and forefinger grip for your left hand, it just feels strange. There's a really large grip on the right side of the camera that is very functional. I kept wanting to grab more of the camera with my left hand and ended up with my fingers wrapped around the top. Hopefully the DC290's replacement is going to have a different look and feel as many have remarked that Kodak seems to be going backwards as the rest of the industry moves forward.

Image quality is typical Kodak, well saturated colors that some say are too well saturated. I see it as if Kodak is trying to digitally reproduce what their old Kodachrome 25 slide film used to capture, vivid and deep color. To me the images are a little on the soft side as far as sharpness goes. This is not a bad thing as it leaves you room for software sharpening when you manipulate the images later. Many people like to see razor-sharp pictures come right out of the camera though and they'll probably complain that the DC290's pictures aren't sharp enough.

This information came to me by way of Rommel Feria:

"The DC290 allows people to adjust the Sharpness of the images - the range of Sharpness (Unsharp Mask) values are from -25 to -1 (soft), 0 (none), 1-50 (standard) and 51-100 (sharp). The default setting is at 50, standard. People don't know this and I keep on telling them that it is user configurable - via a supplied script (options: soft, none, standard and sharp) OR via my Unsharp Mask script available at DigitaCamera.com (which also allows Sharpness parameters such as pixel radius and threshold to be set)."

My biggest complaint is with the color LCD. It still isn't running at realtime refresh (30fps) rate and tends to blur somewhat when rapidly panned.   It's better than what was on the DC260 but they still have room for improvement. Common to most LCDs, it isn't very useful out in the sunshine. Of course there is an optical viewfinder thats lets you frame all but the closeup shots where parallax becomes a problem. There is no diopter adjustment on the viewfinder and this really isn't acceptable on a $1000 camera. It looks big but you need to keep your eye pressed tightly to the finder as it has a relatively narrow field of view.

I'm not totally negative on the DC290 it does have some nice features. The external flash PC sync connector and camera settings for the aperture value works very well. It allows you to completely disable the onboard flash and dial-in an aperture value to match an external strobe or studio light setup. It worked well when used with my Vivitar 285 strobe set on the F8 Auto position and the DC290 locked on an aperture of F8. Shutter lag time is about average (0.5 sec) when shooting with the builtin flash turned on or off but did become noticeably longer when using an external flash.

I really liked the feature of auto-rotating picture shot in portrait mode. How many times have you had to turn your head sideways when watching a slideshow on the TV set from another camera that didn't rotate portrait shots?   The exposure lock works great for creating extreme wideangle shots or complete 360-degree panorama shots from a series of pictures. Without some way of locking the exposure you will never be able to "stitch" your photos together without ending up with drastic changes in brightness, contrast and white balance.

Kodak is up to date with the high-speed USB port on the DC290. And before you email me -- no, I haven't seen or used the remote shutter option that Kodak has for the USB port.  The ability to upgrade the camera firmware over the Internet or from a disk or CD is ultra-handy and is something that ALL of the camera makers should offer. Kodak has been doing this on all of their cameras all the way back to the DC40.

All things considered Kodak has got a good camera that could be great if they added, changed or improved a few things. We'll see what they do when the next model comes out, a DC295 perhaps?  For those that need the Digita features to automate their picture-taking tasks such as real estate appraisers or agents, insurance adjusters, police investigators and the like, it's in there!  If you're a regular user who just likes to "fiddle" with things you'll also like the Digita difference.

Firmware Upgrade

After you load the new firmware then be sure to download the Special Exposure Script which gives the user additional access to shutter speeds faster than 0.5 seconds (vs the Long Time Exposure mode of 0.5 seconds and slower) and allows the adjustment of exposure as the user sees fit for special shooting requirements such as macrophotography, copy stand work, special effects, etc. The SpecExp.csm script follows the camera's shutter and aperture control program and allows the photographer to pick from the list of shutter speed/lens aperture combinations as displayed on the color LCD panel. The script limits selections to those which can be accomodated by the camera's exposure program in order not to exceed the program's capabilities.