Kodak Easyshare V570 Review

Review Date: May 2nd 2006

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Introduction

The Kodak Easyshare V570 looks to all intents and purposes like any other compact digital camera, until you turn it on and notice that it has not one but two lenses. Its official title is Kodak Retina Dual Lens Technology, and it allows Kodak to offer both an ultra wide-angle lens of 23mm and a more standard zoom lens of 39mm-117mm in the same camera. The Kodak V570 actually has two 1/2.5 inch, 5 megapixel sensors inside it, one for each lens. All of this advanced technology is housed in a very stylish and expensive looking black metal body that is just 20.4mm thick. As well as offering a wide range of scene modes for every possible shooting situation, the Kodak V570 also has an advanced video mode. You can zoom when shooting up to 640x480 video at 30fps with sound, turn on the digital stabilizer to reduce the effects of camera-shake, and even split the video in-camera after you have shot it. Other stand-out features include the high resolution 2.5 inch LCD screen, panorama stitch mode featuring up to 180º of wide-angle coverage and the usual Kodak emphasis on simple sharing and printing of your photos. So is the Kodak Easyshare V570 a technological whizz-kid, or should it go to the back of the class? Carry on reading to find out.

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Features

The Kodak Easyshare V570 has a 5.36 MP megapixel, 1/2.5 inch CCD that delivers 5.0 effective megapixels. There are a range of image sizes (2576x1932, 2576x1716, 2304x1728, 2048x1536, 1552x1164) which are recorded as JPEGs. The camera has two lenses rather than the standard one. The first is a fixed ultra wide-angle lens equivalent to 23mm on a 35mm format camera. The second is a 3x optical zoom lens equivalent to 39-117 mm. There is also a 4x digital zoom should you feel the need to use it. The camera has 32Mb of built-in memory, of which 28Mb is available for picture storage - it is not supplied with either a SD Memory Card or MultiMedia Card.

The Kodak V570 offers an Auto exposure mode plus 21 different scene modes (portrait, panorama stitch, sport, landscape, close-up, night portrait, night landscape, snow, beach, text, fireworks, flower, manner/museum, self-portrait, party, children, backlight, panning shot, candlelight, sunset, custom). The maximum aperture is f2.8 for the 23mm lens and f3.9 (wide) – f4.4 (tele) for the zoom lens, and the shutter speed range is 8 secs. – 1/1448th sec. There are 5 ISO speeds ranging from 64 to 800 ( ISO 800 is available only with 1.8 MP setting) and an Auto option. There are 4 different White Balance presets to choose from (daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, open shade), plus an Auto setting. The camera offers exposure compensation in ± 2 in 1/3 EV steps.

The Kodak Easyshare V570 has a normal shooting mode, 10 second Self-timer and a Continuous modes of 2.8 fps with a maximum of 4 images in any quality mode. There are 5 different colour effects available (High Color, Natural Color, Low Color, Black and White and Sepia) and 3 sharpness adjustments (High, Normal and Low). The Macro setting allows you to focus on subjects that are as close as 5cms at the 39mm wide-angle lens setting (macro is not available with the 23mm lens). The camera offers 3 auto-focus systems - TTL-AF, multi-zone AF and center zone AF - and you can choose from Single, Continuous, Macro or Landscape focus. 3 exposure metering systems are available - multipattern, center-weighted, and center-spot - plus an auto TTL-AE system. There is an AF assist lamp to help achieve focus in low-light situations. The built-in flash offers 4 different modes (auto, off, fill, digital red-eye reduction) and the range at ISO 200 is 0.8 m-3.1 m for the 23mm lens, 0.6-2.2 m for the 39mm lens setting, and 0.6-2.0 m for the 117mm lens setting.

To compose your images, you can use the LCD monitor - there is no optical or electronic viewfinder. The Kodak V570 has a 2.5 inch LCD Display which has 230,000 pixels and a wide angle of view. The Kodak Easyshare V570 can record movies at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 pixels at 30 fps with sound. Video is recorded in the Quicktime with audio format. The length of the video is only limited by the size of the memory card that you are using. 3X zoom is available when shooting video, complete with digital image stabilization, and there is split video on-camera editing. A histogram is available in both shooting and playback modes. The Kodak V570 supports the ImageLink and PictBridge printing standards, and it connects to a computer via USB 2.0.

The Kodak Easyshare V570's dimensions are 101 (W) × 49.8 (H) × 20.4 mm (D) mm, and it weighs 125g without the battery and storage card fitted. The camera is powered by a rechargeable Li-ion Battery Pack (3.7V, 720mAh). There is a metal tripod mount in the middle of the bottom of the camera.

Finally, the standard box kit contains a Photo Frame Dock 2 with insert, USB and AV cables, Rechargeable Li-Ion Digital Camera Battery, 5V AC adapter with power cord for in-camera battery charging, Carry strap, Camera case, KODAK EASYSHARE Software, Getting Started Kit and a custom camera insert for the optional KODAK EASYSHARE Camera and Printer Docks. Note that you can only store 17 images at the highest quality JPEG setting on the 32Mb built-in memory. You will therefore need to invest in some memory cards to store your images on.

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Kodak Easyshare V570 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.

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