Kodak Easyshare DX6490 4 MP Digital Camera with 10xOptical Zoom
by Kodak
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Our Price: $55.00
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: KodakAudio: English (Original Language)
Model: 8500282
Product features:
- 4.0-megapixel sensor captures enough detail to create photo-quality 11-by-15-inch prints
- 10x optical zoom, 3x digital zoom (30x total)
- Store images on 16MB internal memory, with MMC/SD card expansion slot
- Powered by lithium-ion rechargeable battery
- Adobe Photoshop CS5 Upgrade [Old Version]
- Serif PhotoPlus X3
- Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade [OLD VERSION]
- Aperture 3
- Pixelmator [Old Version]
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kodak Easyshare DX6490 4 MP Digital Camera with 10xOptical Zoom
Customer Review: This review is VERY long and detailed.
Summary: 5 Stars
My fiance and I are getting married in June and we wanted to make sure that we had a nice digital camera before the wedding so that we can document stuff leading up to the big day and honeymoon. We had seriously considered getting a less flashy camera and then save up for a nicer one for later on (with a big zoom etc...). We got this one for several reasons. If you are just interested in a "is it good or not?", my short answer is yes and it will be worth your money spent. If you would like a more detailed analysis, read on.
We were looking for a digital camera with lots of automatic functions, the ability to do things manually if we choose, and a nice zoom. We wanted four megapixels, not really more or less. It will be really rare for us to print any pictures larger than 4X6, but we wanted to be sure that we had the option of 8X10 (hence higher than 3.2 megapixel). The difference between a 4 MP and a 5MP camera as of 9/04 is about a hundred USD, so we decided that we didn't need to spend an extra hundred for one more megapixel. We are both biologists (me a teacher, she in environmental biology). It is really important for us to be able to zoom in when at a zoo or in natural areas. We ARE NOT professional photographers and are just getting into understanding manually setting the shutter speed, ISO etc.
We looked at the Canon S1 IS, the Panasonic FZ15 or FZ20, the Minolta Z series, and the Fuji E550. All of these, PLUS this camera (the KODAK DX6490) had cons that we didn't like. It really frustrates us that the current state of the digi cam market within our price range ($400 USD) does not have a combination of all the features we want. So, if you are shopping around, don't necessarily expect to find a camera that has all the features you want.
A brief list of the cons of the cameras above: Canon: only 3.2 megapixel and confusing menus, Panasonic: most of the features really great, but not available at any of the retail stores where we could get the no interest financing that we really needed, Minolta Z series: very small (1.5") LCD screens, Fuji E550: only 3X optical zoom, expensive picture cards, movie format is AVI, not quicktime. I'll give a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of the Kodak 6490 below.
Now, all of those cameras above are really nice cameras within that price range. The Panasonic and the Fuji E550 were top choices for a while. We did a lot of internet research into a lot of different cameras, some lacking zoom, some with, some in a much lower or higher price range. So, our choice was a choice of what we considered to be the best combination of what we wanted, not because the Kodak was unbelievably better than any of the others.
We have now had the camera for about a week and are very pleased with it. The camera is very easy to use in many ways. The buttons on the actual camera are obvious in terms of their use. It takes a very short read of a few pages of the manual to understand what the very few "not so obvious" buttons do. The menu navigation is incredibly simple. Every option selected has a message in the upper right hand corner of the screen telling you what that menu selection does. The screen has the capability of showing you a lot of info about your settings, or you can turn it off. The choice is nice. The software is also really easy to use. Its not like high quality software that you buy, but it does its job. The software is very similar to iPhoto, and unlike my version of iPhoto (which is very new), the Kodak software will find and catalog every picture on your computer. The other nice thing about the Easyshare system is that you can upload picture directory names (called albums) to your camera and then tag pictures with those album names so that your pictures will automatically be sorted to the directory you want. Today I noticed that the Easyshare software will "auto-detect" other digital cameras and download the pictures for you. This is a great aspect to those that have another digital camera with bad software. Olympus' software is horrible and it took me one tenth of the time to download my last pics from the old camera before I sold it to someone!
Feel free to read other reviews about the "share" button. It is a nice feature, but since I don't have an internet ready computer at home (only at work) and since I can't afford a nice photo printer (or even the Dock after buying this : ) ), the feature is kind of useless to me. It doesn't surprise me that Kodak has developed features to streamline photo printing, but you have to have the equipment to email, photo print, etc, and on my salary and with a wedding coming up I just can't afford those accessories.
This camera has an awesome zoom. I'll discuss more of the cons of a zoom this big later on during the "cons" section. The 10X is really nice and you can and should turn off the digital zoom as it reduces picture quality.
I really like that the camera allows you to select picture quality settings. You can save pictures as 4MP, 3.5MP, 2 MP or 1.1 MP. Each is good for different applications and is nice to be able to choose. A real bonus is that if you KNOW that a picture you are taking will only ever be printed in 4X6, you can reduce the quality to 3.5MP, still get photo quality printing, but save space on the memory card.
The movie mode with sound is great. It takes movies at 320X240 at 24 FPS (movie theatre frame rate is EXCELLENT), which is not big enough for a TV screen, but a great size for the computer. Honestly, if you want to take video and project it on your TV screen, I recommend just buying a digital camcorder. Movies are saved as Quicktimes. With my 512 MB card that I stuck in it, I can get 30 minutes. The movies are ultra smooth and the microphone picks up sound at a decent range. It's nice to be able to take some nice quality video, even if that is not the point of a digital camera.
This camera has the largest LCD currently available on the market at 2.2". Its great to have a big picture of what you just captured. On a quick side note, the camera does have an electronic viewfinder that you can look through and conserve battery power while still reviewing.
We have had the camera for a while and the picture quality looks good to me. I haven't printed anything yet so I can't really comment on that yet.
Probably one of the best features is the rechargeable Li battery. My previous camera (an Olympus D-380) had great battery life with CRV3 lithiums, but those batteries are $20 USD a piece! It is awesome to not have to buy separate batteries and will practically pay off the camera over the years. We have taken over 60 pictures so far with LCD on and with the flash and so far the battery is still going. The manual says to expect to get 160-210 pictures before you need a charge. I assume the 160 is if you use the LCD and flash every time. That's pretty good! I know spare batteries are available, but I have no idea what they cost. The battery charged up in just over 2.5 hours.
The camera has 16 MB of internal memory. Many people would say "Foul, it should have more memory than that!" I sympathize with this viewpoint but I think it is important to remember that most cameras don't even come with ANY internal memory. Having the internal memory allowed me to still play with the camera while saving money by buying a separate card online. SD/MMC memory are the more affordable memory types as well. CompactFlash and xD-picture cards are retail almost double the price at Best Buy. The manual only gives storage estimates up to 256 MB, but you can put any size card in it you want. My 512 MB card holds 384 pictures on highest quality. I plan to always split that between pictures and video.
The negatives of this camera are few. My first problem is that the images can look really blurry at 10X zoom. I haven't had many problems with taking pictures at 10X so far but they looked horrible when I tried it at Best Buy. I plan on getting a tripod. I hear this is a standard way of going about things for large zoom on ANY camera. The image stabilization that Canon and Panasonic have on the cameras mentioned above would make this one near perfect.
My fiancé does not like the "color enhancement" feature that is on the camera. Basically, the chip enhances all of the colors so they look really bright. My fiancé thinks that sometimes the pictures look unnaturally colorful as a result of this. You CAN turn this feature off by setting it to "neutral color", but you have to do this every time you turn on the camera. The manual claims there is a way that you can set it to PASM mode and always keep the "neutral color", but this is one of the very few things I haven't been able to figure out how to do. I personally don't think the color enhancement looks unnatural, but I also have really poor vision. I did a test with "saturated" and "neutral" color of my fiancé, and her lips look rosier with the color enhancement. I don't think they look freakishly rosy.
One minor gripe that could be fixed is that while in movie mode, you cannot use the zoom feature. You can set the zoom ahead of time and then capture the video, but some cameras (like the Canon S1 IS) allow you to zoom while shooting video.
I want to echo the reviewer above that the plastic door to the USB port looks like it will eventually break. Not a big deal, but worth noting.
One thing to note about digital cameras in general, is that different cameras have different chips that convert the optical image in the lens to digital pixels in a file. They are called CCDs (Charge Coupled Device) and have ratings of 1/some number. Basically, the lower the number, the smaller the pixels put in the file. The smaller the pixels, the more crisp the image. Most digital cameras on the market have a rating of 1/2.5. The DX6490 has that rating. Fuji has just finished some "super" chip that has a CCD of 1/1.7. That is the best we have been able to find in the $400 USD price range. So, the CCD on this Kodak camera isn't the best, but it is no different than most other cameras, and the pictures look fine.
I think that this is a great camera and a great product. The cons that I have mentioned are more annoyances than real problems. Kodak has just come out with a 5.0 MP version of this camera that may be worth checking out if you want higher resolution pictures. I would buy this camera again.
Description of Kodak Easyshare DX6490 4 MP Digital Camera with 10xOptical Zoom
MD) CL) AA) EK DX6490 Easyshare DIGDigital Cameras
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