Dye-sub a 290 print, and you'll be throwing your classic camera away!
Written: Oct 02 '02
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Pros: sharp images, great color reproduction, neat features, intuitive interface
Cons: battery gauge needs re-written.
The Bottom Line: No matter what you're doing, the 290 will be a great camera. There are a few out there that match it, but it blows most of the competition away.
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| nbostaph's Full Review: Kodak DC290 Zoom Digital Camera |
Overview
The DC290 is a 2.1 Megapixel camera (meaning it can take optical pictures at a high enough resolution to store 2.1 million pixels) which was top of the line for Kodak's personal digital cameras when we bought it. I feel that it is important to notate before beginning that digital photography is a relatively new area. Although it is progressing quickly and digital methods have always had many advantages over analog systems, classic photography has been around in it's current form for decades. Digital photographs will not be able to rival a truly high-end classical camera if it's film is professionally developed.
That being said, I have found the Kodak cameras to be about the best for digital photography. The 290 is an excellent camera for the price, and just an excellent camera period. Though we have had a few minor problems, there were none that I wouldn't expect on any camera that we had purchased.
Features
The 290 is 2.1 mpix optically, but will digitally enhance your pictures at up to 3.1. This is an excellent feature but I believe it uses a bi-linear expansion filter, so if you have a copy of Photoshop you will probably want to just use it with a bi-cubic filter to increase the image size. However, for those without an advanced image editing program, the bi-linear method will work well enough for increasing image size. The clarity and smooth gradients remain in the image although the edges end up a little blurry.
The internal menus are, in my opinion, extremely intuitive. I had no trouble working my way around and setting the entire camera up without ever touching the instruction manual. They do seem to cater to the less technical types. For instance, instead of listing resolution as "1200x1600", they will list it as "high". This makes it a little more cryptic for techies (though it's a shallow learning curve and you pick up quick), but makes it much easier on the mass populace.
As for the optical zoom, I've found it to be of excellent quality. You cannot tell when the zoom was used to take a picture. The clarity and definition remain as good as ever.
I have tried to stay away from the digital zoom. Digital zooming on digital cameras is much different than optical. Basically, the camera zooms in as far as it can optically. Then it picks out a part of what it sees, takes the picture at a lower resolution, and then blows it up using the same expansion method listed above. All digital cameras do it this way, that's why it's called 'digital' zoom. Pictures taken like this will come out at lesser quality on all cameras. I've found that the ones I've taken with the 290 remain relatively clear, but there seems to be a light bit of color shifting occurring.
The one feature that needs worked on is the batter meter. It constantly is telling me that my batteries are low, and then will eventually shut the camera off on me (this has happened with several different sets of batteries). Of course, I can turn it back on and continue taking pictures for a few minutes. It will eventually stop working like that when the batteries get low enough, but I've found that when that happens, I can still use the batteries for other things as they still report about a 50% charge left. Strange...
Image Quality
We'll start with uncompressed images and move to the jpegs later. I take most images as uncompressed Tiffs at maximum resolution. These images take about 8 MB of storage on the flash card (as they will on all cameras, Tiff is uncompressed and therefore unaffected by the camera). I find that the pictures will come out very clear and the colors crisp. However, I notice that if you get down to the pixel level, you find what looks almost like a kind of dithering. It does not appear on lesser resolutions. For instance, some pixels are shifted slightly bluer while others may be slightly yellower. All together, they make up the appropriate color, and this will not affect an inkjet or laser print, but you may notice it upon close inspection on a dye-sub print (as I have). However, unless you're extremely discriminating and scrutinize prints (or blow them up really big) I wouldn't worry about this. All in all, I give the image quality here a 9/10
The jpeg compression is actually pretty decent. You can get a good 7:1 ratio on the lowest compression (meaning just over a MB per image) and have little effect. At this level there are no jpeg artifacts, and you only have the slight color shift on the pixel level as described above...though it's slightly worse after being dropped into jpeg format. On the medium level you can cut the size down another 50% (down to about 1/2 MB), though you may start to see some jpeg artifacts here. In comparison, I'd say that the camera does a wonderful job of compressing. Your best bet will, of course, be to take the pictures uncompressed and use ImageReady to convert them to jpeg. However, if you're out on vacation and need to get 30+ images on a card, you can be confident with the 290.
Comparisons
Of course, I didn't just go out and pick this camera up and say "I want this one!". I took the time to look at a few other cameras. When I narrowed it down to this one and two others, I checked around and got some sample pictures from each camera both from the manufacturer's website and from people who I knew who owned them. I scrutinized these pictures first on screen and then on a dye-sub print (check out my review on the Alps MD1300 printer for details on dye-sub prints). Here's what I've found.
Olympus had a great name behind it and I expected this to come out the best. However, I was disappointed. I was looking at Olympus' highest end camera at the time, though I do not remember the model number. However, it was priced at $950 retail and was a 2.1 Mpix. The Olympus image showed the same color shift that I mentioned above for the 290, but the Olympus showed this to extremes. It appeared that the majority of the problem was due to massive degradation in the blue color channel, which could be relatively easily cleaned up in Photoshop if you had a half hour to spend on each image. I would normally attribute this to a faulty component, but two separate cameras exhibited this behavior. Otherwise, the colors came out decent, though not as vibrant as the 290. The 290 clearly won here.
The other camera I tested was an Epson 850Z. Although Epson has a spotty history in some eyes, I've always found their imaging products to be superb. Their camera was no disappointment. The images were as sharp as the 290 and the colors came out vibrant and true-to-life. Actually, I'd say this camera is comparable to the 290. The main difference is how the color levels are interpreted. The 290 seems to be more subdued (and I guess more realistic) in the way it sees colors. Epson products have a habit of making images brighter and more vibrant without loosing contrast. I prefer the Epson look myself, but most people I know prefer the 290 look. Since it was a present for my dad, we went with the 290 ;). However, don't skip this one over if you're looking. Check out both the 850 and the 290.
Conclusion
No matter what you're doing, the 290 will be a great camera. There are a few out there that match it, but it blows most of the competition away. If you are seriously looking, I'd like to suggest that you check out the Epson 850Z as well. They're both wonderful cameras and it comes down to the user preference. Best of luck...
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 920
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
nbostaph
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Member: Nicholas Bostaph
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 6 members
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