Kodak DC4800 Zoom

Placing the command dial in the Review position puts the DC4800 into playback mode. It displays the last picture captured full-frame on the LCD.

Pressing the MENU button brings up a display like this. Here you can quickly search through the stored images and select an image to be displayed full screen.

You can also select menu options displayed along the left side of the screen which are: Magnify, Delete, Protect, Slide Show, Print Order or Picture Info. Each option is shown below.

Magnify:  Allows you to zoom into the current image in two steps; 2x or 4x magnification.

Delete:  a submenu that lets you delete the current image or all stored images.

Slide Show:  Starts a slide show with a specified time delay between the pictures. This views all of the images stored on the card. Used when you the camera is connected to a TV for playback or a VCR to record your slideshow for someone else to playback on their TV set.

Print Order:   Mark image(s) on the memory card for printing using the standard DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) standards.

Picture Info:  Displays on-screen all of the embedded information stored in the image file. The above animated image shows all of the information available.

Steve's Conclusion

The ergonomics of the DC4800 are excellent. The camera has a very secure feeling in your hand thanks to a wide finger grip area. The controls are logically positioned, easy to operate and clearly labeled. It is the only camera we've seen yet with a dedicated exposure compensation dial that makes it a snap to make either a minor or major adjustment in your exposure. The command dial makes it quick and easy to go from Program AE to any one of three aperture priority modes or to Review your captured images.

The rechargeable battery supplied with the camera holds up well as long as you don't go crazy using the color LCD. I would still recommend that the first thing you buy is a second battery because it is proprietary. Kodak, Fuji, Ricoh and Toshiba are all using the same battery now so it should be pretty easy to find that needed spare. And speaking of color LCDs, the one on the DC4800 is definitely a step up from the DC290. It is nearly realtime with no herky-jerky refresh or streaking and is fairly useable outdoors in the bright light.

I like the side-loading CompactFlash card which is easily ejected using the lever on the bottom of the camera. In fact you have to be careful not to push that eject lever to hard or else you will have to chase your CF card across the floor.

In all of the usual shooting conditions the DC4800 performs beautifully. Indoor flash pictures are properly exposed and the skin tones look about as natural as any I've ever seen. Outdoor pics are well balanced between highlit and shadow areas and the colors are ultra-rich in the default Saturated setting. One of the strong suits of this camera are low-light and long exposure shots. Where other cameras dot the picture with their own "stars" the DC4800 will only show you the real stars in the night sky when you open the shutter for up to 8 seconds at ISO 100.

Using the DC4800 was a pleasure. You switch it on and it's ready to capture the first shot in about four seconds. Shot to shot time is down around a second even at full resolution and it has enough buffer RAM to handle about four images before you notice any slow down. It stores the uncompressed TIFF images in four seconds or less which is respectable for any 3-megapixel camera. The menu system is intuitive and well laid out and it's easy to figure out with little or no manual-reading time involved. The only thing "strange" about the user interface is Kodak's reference to the image sizes in "megapixel" values instead of the usual type of "pixels x pixels" value that everyone else uses.

The bottom line is always image quality and the DC4800 delivers very good images. In the same resolution class I would say that the Olympus C-3030 or Nikon 990 would yield better images but at considerably more money. With the recent price reduction and the current mailin rebate the DC4800 can be had for less than $500. It can be operated in fully automatic or you can jump in with both feet and use as little or as much manual exposure control as you want. I don't see Kodak having any problem selling these digicams, the dealers might have a hard time keeping them in stock though. It's much smaller and lighter than the DC290 and will therefore get taken along more often -- and isn't that what we buy a digicam for in the first place?

Firmware Upgrade for DC4800 Camera

Kodak DC4800 V1.04 Firmware, November 2000 has the following enhancements to the original V1.0 camera firmware:

• Improved Auto Focus (AF) in dim lighting situations
• Alarms if not in AF range
• Displaying Landscape/Closeup icon and Exposure Compensation icon on color LCD screen
• PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) improvements (For future compatibility)
• Minor bug fixes