First Look review posted for Kodak EasyShare V570
By
Shawn Barnett
(Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 11:05 EST)
At first blush the V570 is just another small, stylish digital camera with a 5.0 megapixel imager.
It's when you power the camera up and that lens cover slides out of the way that you're surprised to see not one lens but two, each with its own 5.0 megapixel sensor. The bottom lens is wide angle, fixed at 23mm, and the top lens is a 39-117mm zoom. This answers a need that has gone un-met in the point-and-shoot camera world since before the advent of digital: true wide-angle photography in a small space.
An impressive in-camera panorama stitching mode enhances its wide capture ability, making it an ideal choice for realtors. The V570 does a surprisingly good job of stitching, removing the need to fiddle with images on a computer. The V570's images are a little softer than we hoped, from both the wide and zoom optics; for its part, the wide-angle lens is hyperfocal, meaning it does not actually focus.
Integrating both digital and optical zoom, the V570's stated 5x zoom range also doesn't always deliver the camera's best optical performance. Still, we like the concept of the V570 and think it will serve a certain group of enthusiast photographers well. See our preview to delve a little deeper into Kodak's ambitious EasyShare V570.
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