Kodak Easyshare V705 Review

Review Date: October 24th 2006

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Introduction

The Kodak Easyshare V705 is a modest upgrade of the innovative Kodak V570, which was the first camera to feature not one but two lenses when it was released last year. The official name 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 V705 actually has two 1/2.5 inch, 7 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. Kodak have improved on the older Easyshare V570 by increasing the megapixel count from 5 to 7 and extending the ISO range from 50-1000 (available for all image sizes). As well as offering 22 scene modes for every possible shooting situation, the Kodak V705 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. So have the relatively modest upgrades made the Kodak Easyshare V705 a worthy successor to the V570? Find out now by reading our latest in-depth review.

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Features

The Kodak Easyshare V705 has a 7.3 MP megapixel, 1/2.5 inch CCD that delivers 7.1 effective megapixels. There are a range of image sizes (3072 × 2304, 3072 × 2048, 2576 × 1932, 2048x1536, 1200 × 900) 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 V705 offers an Auto exposure mode plus 22 different scene modes (portrait, panorama left-right, panorama right-left, 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 6 ISO speeds ranging from 50 to 1000 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 V705 has a normal shooting mode, 10 second or 18 second single Self-timer, two-shot Self-timer, 2 second Delay Shutter, and a Continuous modes of 2 fps with a maximum of 7 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 (Sharp, Normal and Soft). 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 2 auto-focus systems - TTL multi-zone AF and center zone AF - and you can choose from Single, Continuous, Macro or Infinity 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, 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 V705 has a 2.5 inch LCD Display which has 230,000 pixels, 2 levels of brightness adjustment and a wide angle of view. The Kodak Easyshare V705 can record movies at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 pixels at 30 fps with sound. Video is recorded in the Quicktime MPEG4 with audio format. The length of the video is up to 80 minutes based on memory capacity. 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 V705 supports the ImageLink and PictBridge printing standards, and it connects to a computer via USB 2.0.

The Kodak Easyshare V705'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 12 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 V705 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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