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Cameras Page
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(Review first posted 28 April, 1999) |
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Inexpensive entry-level megapixel camera |
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1152 x 864 resolution | |
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LCD and optical viewfinders | |
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Fixed focus, moderate wide-angle lens | |
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Built-in flash | |
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Bundled with "Picture Easy" software to use right out of the box. |
Preface
Long a "power player" in the world of digital cameras,
Kodak has one of the broadest product lines of anyone in the business,
spanning the range from inexpensive consumer units to high-end
professional cameras used by commercial photographers and photojournalists.
The DC200 Plus covered in this review is an updated version of
Kodak's entry-level offering, the DC200, with improved battery
life and faster response times. Providing full megapixel resolution,
with 1152x864 pixel files, it boasts excellent color, and pictures
that can be printed at sizes as large as 5x7 inches without image
degradation. Consistent with it's entry-level target, it's easy
to use, presenting a "friendly" face to even novice
digital photographers.
High Points
Camera Design
The Kodak DC200 Plus has the same ergonomic design as many of
the more expensive cameras in Kodak's digital camera line, but
it still maintains the look and feel of a traditional camera.
At 11.6 ounces (330 g), it's relatively lightweight, but at 5.2
x 1.9 x 3.2 inches (132 x 48 x 81 mm) doesn't quite pass the "shirt-pocket"
test. All-in-all, it's an easy-to-use design with a fair amount
of flexibility.
The DC200's body is made of metallized plastic with a nice
"grip" area on the right side of the camera, and a small
curvature in which to place your thumb while snapping pictures.
As do most cameras, whether conventional or digital, the DC200
caters to right-handed users, with the major controls located
on the right-hand side of the unit. The power switch is easily
activated with your forefinger, as is the shutter button which
sits just in front of the power button on the top of the camera.
The placement of these two buttons alone makes one-handed image
capture easy. The Mode Dial on the rear of the camera is also
easily rotated with the thumb of your right hand, reinforcing
the one-hand use paradigm. (Although we felt much more comfortable
holding onto the camera with both hands while rotating this control.)
The picture card compartment is easy to access on the left-hand
side of the camera, allowing loading or ejection of the standard
4 MB picture card even with the camera mounted on a tripod. The
lens is designed with 37mm internal threads meaning that it can
be fitted with optional accessories, such as close-up lenses,
etc.
The blue DO-IT button--which enables the LCD viewfinder in Capture
Mode and confirms highlighted menu options--is easily accessible
just to the right of the LCD on the back of the camera. The up/down
and left/right buttons used for setting preferences and for scrolling
through images are also located on the camera's back side next
to the LCD. These buttons are equally easy to maneuver. On top
of the camera you'll find the Status display, which is small but
easily readable, as well as the Flash and the Self-Timer buttons,
each of which are functional, but on the small side.
Batteries load easily in the battery compartment in the bottom
of the camera, and the AC adapter, video out, and serial ports
are neatly tucked into the left-hand side of the camera, protected
by small plastic flaps, but readily accessible.
Viewfinder
The DC200 Plus is equipped with both an optical viewfinder, and
a color LCD viewfinder on the rear of the camera. The optical
viewfinder is clear and bright, provides good "eye relief",
making it easier to use with eyeglasses, and is relatively unaffected
by eye position. Our one gripe is that it is not equipped with
a Diopter Adjustment, a feature eyeglass-wearers like ourselves
miss when absent.
The 1.8-inch LCD can be used to preview an image in Capture
mode, or review previously-captured images in Review mode. The
LCD is equipped with a brightness adjustment-accessed through
the LCD menus in Preferences mode-to adjust LCD viewing for your
particular needs. (This is a "true" brightness adjustment,
varying the brightness of the LCD backlight, rather than just
adjusting the contrast of the LCD screen itself.) The "live"
images on the LCD are fairly sharp, although the panel clearly
has a lower pixel-count than you'll find on higher-end digital
cameras. In "viewfinder mode", the display's refresh
rate is reasonably high, about typical for most cameras we've
reviewed. Like all LCDs, the one on the DC200 is quite prone to
wash-out in direct sun, meaning you'll doubtless want to use the
optical viewfinder on sunny days.
When in Review mode, three icons
appear on the left of the LCD. You can select these icons to view
the current image full-size, delete images, or to turn the icon
menu itself on and off. The Index screen (our term for it) includes
the three icons mentioned above, and smaller, thumbnail versions
of the stored images at the bottom. The left/right buttons under
the display screen allow you to scroll through the captured images.
The image in the center of the scroll area is the image that is
displayed in larger view on the LCD when you stop scrolling. The
different icons displayed on the LCD are easily viewable and easy
to navigate. If you turn on the Template feature in Preferences
mode, the LCD itself is framed with the template you selected.
This is helpful when you want to add a template to an image, but
you want to make sure that the image looks good in the template
before you capture it, or need to make sure that no important
subject matter is hidden by the template.
When in Capture mode, menu options on the LCD allow you
to adjust the camera's exposure value, or lock the exposure to
capture a consistent exposure for a sequence of shots.
Like most other cameras, using the LCD for preview and
review of images uses up battery power fairly quickly. You should
limit continuous use of the LCD during your picture-taking sessions
for this reason. For continuous preview and review, power the
camera with the optional AC adapter.
The optical viewfinder on the DC200 Plus is more accurate
than most, displaying about 90% of the actual image taken. The
LCD viewfinder is 100% accurate, a trait common among Kodak's
digital cameras, but found only infrequently elsewhere.
Optics
The DC200 uses a "focus-free" (fixed focus) optical-glass
lens, with a focal length equivalent to a 39mm lens on a 35mm
camera (a slight wide-angle), and a maximum aperture of f/4.0.
The focus-free design provides good sharpness from 27 inches (0.7m)
to infinity. Although it lacks a "macro" mode for shooting
close-ups, the DC200 does sport 37mm filter threads, which can
be used to attach close-up lenses or other accessories. The lens
aperture varies from f/4.0 to f/13.5 under control of the autoexposure
system.
Exposure
Kodak rates the DC200 Plus at an equivalent ISO speed of 140,
and the shutter speed range is from 1/2 to 1/362 of a second.
Combined with the f/4.0 to f/13.5 lens aperture range, this should
result in a range of usable lighting from EV 9.5 to EV 20. This
agreed fairly well with our own test results, although we found
that we could extend the lower end of the exposure range somewhat
by using the exposure-compensation adjustment (see below) to boost
the camera's sensitivity a bit. Using this method, we obtained
a very good exposure at EV 9, and a passable one at EV 8. (This
would correspond to a fairly dim residential interior, although
our indoor portrait test results suggest that attempts to boost
the exposure too far will have only limited success under typical
household incandescent lighting, due to the strong color cast
of that light source.)
The DC200 has a fairly good automatic white-balance capability,
allowing it to function well under a wide variety of lighting
conditions. In our tough "indoor portrait" test shot,
it did a good job of removing enough of the yellowish cast of
the lighting to produce natural-looking colors.
As mentioned above, an LCD menu option in Capture Mode
allows you to dial in exposure compensation from -2EV to +2EV
in .5EV increments. The exposure compensation adjustment essentially
tells the camera to give the shot a little more or a little less
exposure than the automatic metering system calls for. This is
very handy if you have a backlit subject, or a small bright subject
against a dark background. (It's also the way to get good, bright
white snow in winter scenes: Dial in about +1.0 EV exposure compensation.)
Another feature accessible via an LCD menu option in Capture
mode is the exposure lock function. This "locks" the
exposure on the first shot taken after the setting is made, and
then keeps the same exposure setting until the "lock"
is reset. This is very useful for capturing sequences of images
to be used for stitching together into a wide (or tall) panorama.
After an image is captured, the QuickView feature optionally
displays the image on the LCD for a few seconds. At that point,
you can choose to delete the image immediately and re-shoot, or
do nothing, and let the image be stored on the camera's picture
card.
Flash
The built-in flash of the DC200 Plus has an effective range from
2.2 feet to 9.8 feet, and has 5 available flash settings including
Auto, Auto Red-Eye, Fill, Red-Eye Fill, and Off. The flash settings
are fairly flexible in that you can choose a different setting
for each shot using the small Flash button on the top of the camera
when in Capture mode. The camera automatically returns to the
default Auto flash setting when you turn it off.
Shutter Lag Time/Cycle Times
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually
a lag time before the shutter actually fires. This time is to
allow the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their
work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations.
Since this number is almost never reported on, and can significantly
affect the picture-taking experience, we now routinely measure
it, using a little Windows utility developed by Digital
Eyes.
We measured the DC200's shutter lag time at a rather speedy
0.35 seconds. (Most cameras we've tested come out at around 0.7-0.9
seconds.) The speedy shutter response of the DC200 is undoubtedly
because there's no need to wait for an autofocus mechanism to
work. Half-pressing the shutter button to preset the exposure
further reduces the lag time to 0.2 seconds. On the DC200 Plus,
the shot-to-shot cycle time averages about 9.5 seconds in the
highest resolution, best quality capture mode, and about 8 seconds
in standard resolution, good quality mode.
Camera startup time is fairly fast at about 5 seconds and
shutdown is just about a second. Switching from Capture to Review
mode takes just under 2 seconds while switching back to Capture
mode is instantaneous. (You won't even know that time has gone
by.) The DC200 Plus literature boasts much faster response and
cycle times for the camera than its predecessor, the DC200, and
we found operation to be quite fast, for such a low-cost camera.
Operation and User Interface
For a low-cost, introductory digital camera, the DC200 Plus is
easy-to-use and should be quickly mastered by even novice digital
photographers. If you are at all familiar with digital cameras,
it takes just a few short minutes to work through the operation
of the camera, and check out the available features and options.
If you've never used a digital camera before, you may find yourself
using the manual at first. Once you start experimenting, however,
you'll see how easy it is to teach yourself how to capture high-quality
digital images.
The camera operates in one
of four different modes: Capture, Review, Connect, and Preferences.
You select which mode you want with the Mode Dial on the rear
of the camera. Pressing the blue DO-IT button or the left/right
scroll buttons on the back of the camera displays various picture-taking
and camera set-up options on the LCD. Use the up/down and left/right
arrow buttons to scroll through the different menus and options,
and press the DO-IT button a second time to confirm and save your
selections.
The LCD doesn't automatically turn on when in Capture mode.
You need to turn it on manually using the DO-IT button. In contrast,
the LCD is always on in Review mode and you don't need to enable
it. If you need to adjust the LCD brightness, you can do it in
Preferences mode through an LCD menu option. The LCD shuts itself
down after 60 seconds of inactivity to save battery power.
While in Capture mode, available LCD menu options include
Exposure Compensation and Exposure Lock.
Review mode provides you with a series of functions that
you can perform using images already captured and stored to the
camera's picture card. By switching from what we call Full-View
mode to Index mode, you can view and scroll through thumbnails
of all the images stored to the camera card. Once in Index mode,
you can delete images, or expand them to full-screen for closer
examination. (The Index-mode screen was shown earlier.)
Connect mode lets you connect the camera to a PC using
the serial cable packaged in the camera box. You can connect to
Windows '95 or '98 computers fairly quickly and easily. Before
you can download images, however, you first need to install the
DC200 Plus software on your computer. The DC200 ships with software
only for the Windows platforms: An accessory kit is sold with
cable and software for connecting to Macintosh computers, as Kodak
product number 1661552. The Mac interface kit costs $24.95, and
may be ordered on-line from Kodak, at their on-line
store.
Other control buttons are placed very similarly to other cameras
we've tested: On the top of the camera, you'll find the Status
Display which shows icons for various camera settings. It's an
easy reminder of which menu options you have enabled, the battery
power status, and pictures remaining on the picture card, among
other things. Also easily accessed atop the camera are the Shutter
Button, the Self-Timer Button, and the Flash Button to change
flash settings for different exposures. The left-hand side of
the camera contains easily accessible ports for the AC Adapter,
Video Out, and Serial connections.
Control Enumeration
Self-Timer Mode
The Self-Timer mode has its own button on
the top of the camera. You can use the self-timer in conjunction
with any of the camera settings you've enabled. Depressing the
self-timer button provides a 10 second delay between when you
press the shutter button and when the camera fires.
Capture Mode
With the Mode Dial set to Capture, pressing the DO-IT Button enables
the LCD for viewing. Pressing the right arrow button once displays
the Exposure Compensation option on the LCD, pressing it twice
displays the Exposure Lock option:
Exposure Compensation: Exposure adjustments range
from +2 EV to -2 EV, in .5 EV steps. Each +1 adjustment doubles
the amount of light that comes in contact with the LCD when capturing
the image. Every -1 adjustment cuts the amount of light in half.
Use this control if your images appear too light or too dark.
Exposure Lock: Lets you lock the exposure setting currently in
effect when you are capturing a series of images consecutively,
where each requires the same exposure setting. (This feature is
useful for taking a sequence of shots that will be stitched-together
into a panorama later.)
After you capture an image in Capture mode, the image appears
briefly in the LCD (if the QuickView feature is enabled). In the
bottom left corner, a trash can icon appears. Pressing the left
arrow button displays the Delete Picture screen where you can
choose to delete the picture prior to it being stored to the picture
card.
Review Mode
Use Review Mode after you capture images to review them. When
you change from Capture to Review Mode, the LCD automatically
activates and displays your images. When the LCD first turns on,
the "Index" screen (our term) appears. At the bottom
of the LCD you'll see smaller versions of the images that you
have captured (if there's more than 1, of course). You can use
the left/right scroll buttons to quickly scroll through the images
that you have captured to find a particular image. Once you find
it and center it, that image appears larger in the LCD. In this
"Index" mode, very rapid browsing of the stored images
is facilitated by the camera's initial display of only a very
low-resolution image. While very low res, it's generally enough
to tell what the content of the image is, and decide whether that's
the one you're looking for. If you linger on a given picture,
it fills-in to a high-resolution version in about two seconds.
This approach makes it very easy to scroll through a large number
of pictures to find the one you want.
To the left of the LCD is
a set of three icons. Each of these icons represents an operation
that you can perform on the selected image, as described below:
Index/Full:
Delete:
Magnify:
Slide
Show: This review-mode option doesn't appear as an icon on
the Index screen, but is accessed by pressing the DO-IT button.
The camera will cycle through all the images stored in the memory
card, one every 5 seconds, for 5 minutes, or forever, if it's
powered by the AC power adapter.
Connect Mode
When you want to connect the camera to a PC for downloading of
images, you first need to put the camera into Connect Mode. Connect
Mode enables the different ports on the side of the camera for
image transfer. The ports include a standard RS-232 connection
for downloading images to Windows-based computers with an available
serial COM port.
Preferences Mode
Preferences Mode offers a number of options you can use to customize
the camera for your own picture-taking needs. (Most of the camera's
operating parameters are set via the Preferences mode.)
Picture
Quality:
Resolution:
Template:
Date/Time
Stamp: 
File
Type: 
QuickView:
Date
and Time: 
LCD
Brightness: 
Format
Memory Card: 
Video
Out: 
Language
Default: 
About
the Camera:
Memory and Interface
The DC200 Plus comes equipped with
an ATA-compatible 4MB CompactFlash memory card (which Kodak calls
a "picture card"), but can take cards up to 48MB in
size. The picture card compartment is easily accessible on the
left-side of the camera. Open the compartment door, insert the
picture card into the slot, push it all the way in, and you're
all set to capture images. All images are captured and stored
in standard JPEG format, unless you've set a different file type
in Preferences mode.
When you first turn on the camera, the status display shows the number of pictures for which space remains on the picture card. This "Pictures Remaining" number is displayed in the upper-right hand corner of the status display. Of course, this number will vary depending on the Quality setting (Best, Better, Good), and the Resolution level setting (High, Standard). At the high-resolution level, images are stored at 1152 x 864 pixels. At the standard level, images are stored at 640 x 480 pixels. The following table shows the approximate number of images stored for each available camera setting, on the included 4 MB card:
|
Resolution |
Resolution |
|
| Best Quality |
|
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| Better Quality |
|
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| Good Quality |
|
|
Of course, as with all cameras, the number of images stored
on each card may vary depending on the density of the image being
captured. At the high resolution, best quality setting, the average
file size is about 250K. At the high resolution, good quality
setting, the file size is about 94K, and at the standard resolution,
good quality setting, the average file size is about 48K.
The DC200 Plus is equipped with an RS-232 serial adapter
for transferring images to Windows-based systems. A serial connection
kit for Macintosh computers is also available from Kodak for $24.95,
as of this writing (April, 1999). Alternatively, there are a number
of third-party accessory card readers available on the market
that connect to either parallel, USB, or SCSI ports, which transfer
image files MUCH more rapidly. In our timings (on a 350 MHz PentiumII
computer) transferring a 305K "Best/High" (maximum-quality)
file took 46 seconds using the "Mounter" application,
for a transfer rate of about 6.6 Kbytes/second. Using the "TWAIN"
driver supplied with the camera and Photoshop, the transfer time
for the same file dropped to 36 seconds, for a transfer rate of
about 8.4 Kbytes per second. This is about as fast as serial connections
get in practice, although the PC serial port should be able to
support rates as high as 11-12 Kbytes/second. Serial transfers
are fine if you have the patience, but anyone dealing with large
quantities of pictures will probably find a parallel-port card
reader a useful addition.
Video Out
The DC200 Plus supports playback of images to a television set
through a video out cable supplied with the camera. The video
out port is easily located on the left-hand side of the camera,
hidden under a plastic flap. Both the NTSC signal format for U.S.
and Canadian use, and the PAL signal format for European use are
supported. A menu option in Preferences mode is available to switch
between these signal formats if needed.
Power
The DC200 Plus is powered by a set of four AA batteries, 1.5v
Alkaline or Lithium batteries, or rechargeable 1.2v nickel metal
hydride (NiMH) or nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries. Four AA 1.5v
alkaline batteries are supplied with the camera. The DC200 Plus
literature boasts 20% more battery life than its predecessor,
the DC200. While we don't conduct explicit tests for battery life,
we found the DC200 Plus to be fairly efficient in its use of battery
power. (With the LCD turned off, batteries seemed to last a VERY
long time.) Despite this, we strongly recommend purchasing a set
or two of rechargeable NiMH batteries and a charger as standard
equipment for any digital camera.
When the camera is placed in Capture, Review, or Camera
Set-Up Mode, the Battery Status Symbol is displayed on the Control
Panel on the top of the camera to tell you how much battery power
is remaining. The battery compartments on the right side of the
camera are easily accessible for battery changing.
Besides battery power, the DC200 Plus can use an optional
AC adapter to power the camera from a common AC wall outlet. Simply
plug the AC adapter into the AC adapter connector under the connector
cover on the left-side of the camera and you're ready for extended
operation.
Use the Power Save feature on the camera to shorten the
amount of time that the camera stays on when not in use to save
battery power. Kodak also recommends that when you use the LCD
on the camera, you should limit usage to less than 10 continuous
minutes. Longer continuous usage places a severe strain on the
batteries, and will drastically shorten their useful life. If
more than 10 minutes is required, purchase the optional AC Adapter.
Included Software
The DC200 Plus is packaged with a several different software packages
for you to use on your Windows-based PC. (As noted earlier, Mac
users can purchase an optional Mac connection kit, including software
and cable, for $24.95.) The furnished software is conveniently
bundled on a single Installer CD: Simply place the CD in the CD
ROM drive of your computer and follow a few simple instructions
to install the software. Bundled software includes the following:
Mounter Software: Lets you view pictures on the picture
card and copy selected pictures to your computer.
TWAIN Acquire Software: Lets you copy images from the picture
card into TWAIN-compliant software programs such as Adobe PhotoDeluxe,
Adobe Photoshop, Corel PhotoPaint, etc.
Picture Easy Software: Lets you copy, edit and enhance,
organize and print pictures from your picture card.
To keep the overall camera cost down, Kodak doesn't include
any third-party image-manipulation software with the DC200. The
PictureEasy software provides for basic image manipulation, albuming,
and printing the photos from your camera. If your needs don't
include extensive image modifications, PictureEasy is probably
all the software you'll need.
Test Results
In keeping with our standard policy, our comments here are rather
condensed, summarizing our key findings: For a full commentary
on each of the test images, see the DC 200 Plus' "pictures"
page.
As with all Imaging Resource camera tests, we encourage
you to let your own eyes be the judge of how well the devices
performed: Explore the images on the pictures page, to see how
well the DC200 Plus performed, and how its images compare to other
cameras you may be considering buying.
Overall, we were very impressed with the image quality
from the DC200 Plus, particularly in light of its low price point:
Exposure was consistently accurate, with bright, clean colors,
and good detail. "Kodak color" has become a hallmark
of the Kodak digital camera line, and the DC200 Plus shows its
heritage in this respect, having some of the best color we've
found to date in a digital camera, regardless of price. We also
found the exposure metering to be quite accurate at normal light
levels, although it did underexpose somewhat in very dim conditions.
The DC200 Plus' resolution tested-out at a solid 600 lines
per picture height, a pretty typical value for cameras of this
resolution level. We felt it was a little bit "softer"
shooting objects at infinity, as revealed in the "far field"
shot, but the loss of sharpness there is slight.
The viewfinder systems are quite accurate, the optical
viewfinder showing fully 90% of the final image area, and the
LCD finder exactly 100%. The optical finder's view is well-centered
in the final image area, particularly at moderate distances.
As you'd expect from a camera with a fixed-focus, slightly
wide-angle lens, the DC200 Plus doesn't excel at macro shooting
(an understatement), but the provision of 37mm filter threads
makes adding accessory macro lenses a simple affair.
All in all, the DC200 Plus turned in a very respectable
performance, despite it's "low end" cost and feature
set.
Conclusion
In the DC200, Kodak has created a simple, easy-to-use megapixel-class
digital camera with excellent color and good image quality. By
foregoing more-elaborate features such as autofocus and zoom lens,
it offers both simplicity and long battery life (provided you
minimize use of the LCD display). While not up to the resolution
levels of the latest 2 megapixel cameras, it's quite able
to create good-looking images up to 5x7 inches with a minimum
of hassle. We expect it to find a ready market among people looking
for a basic digital camera at a bargain price.
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other Imaging Resource readers have had to say about the DC200, or add
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