Kodak EasyShare V570 Digital Camera

I'm no pro, but I really like taking photos and you learn by doing.. Went from a simple point-and-shoot compact as my first digicam to a high-zoom DSLR wannabe because I was itching to get closer to the subjects I was taking photos of. I really like the latter camera, it has served me well, but it came at a price: portability.

To remedy this, I've begun considering buying a much smaller camera. Not as a replacement but to complement my high-zoom camera with an alternative I could carry around anywhere.

Another thing I've learned by doing is that having a big zoom is not enough since there are so many situations where the (telephoto) lens of the vast majority of all digicams on the market makes it difficult to fit everything you want to capture in one frame. I had to recognize that I needed a wide angle lens, most probably as an accessory that would make my big camera even bigger.

But along came Kodak with a novel idea and just in the nick of time: an ultra-compact camera with a wide angle lens built-in along with a standard 3X telephoto lens, all in the same tiny package. The V570 is the camera I didn't know existed, the V570 is the very camera I needed.

At first glance, this new entry in the digital market certainly looks unique. The front immediately catches your eye with its dual lenses, giving it an almost alien appearance. The back has a large 2.5-inch LCD and a generally retro look, reminiscent of those VCR remotes from the 80's. All of this in a black, grey metal and hard plastic frame. I think I like this combination, but aesthetics are subjective and I suspect others will feel otherwise about those superficial details.

I was initially intimidated by this ultra compact's small boxy frame and light weight, not sure how to hold it or if my fingers would inadvertedly show up in pictures. It clearly doesn't offer the firm handgrip you'd expect from a bigger model, but once I played around with it, I found my preferred way of holding it and shooting soon became second nature.

After you turn it on, you notice no lens is coming out of the camera, the V570 keeps everything inside. Following a trend in the digicam market, there's no viewfinder, either optical or digital; All is displayed on the large LCD screen. I give it kudos for being so bright, but in broad daylight, I found it difficult to shoot in some situations.

Given the large LCD and relative small frame of the camera, the V570's 12-button set-up is a bit cramped. This is another thing to get used to. I don't think any one of those buttons is misplaced, but for greater portability, this is a compromise you have to adapt to.

The dual lens works great. The fixed, wide-angle, 23mm lens is the default one you start with every time you turn on the camera. It makes a pretty big difference allowing you to cram in much more in every shot than any other camera I've seen. This is particularly handy indoors or trying to capture landscapes.

Complementing the wide angle lens is the panorama mode, allowing to shoot up to 3 shots in succession and then the camera stitches them together for a big photo with close to a 180-degree view. It may take little bit of practice to get it right, but if you let the camera guide you through it, the pay-off is completely worth it. I managed to do my first panorama photo on my first try and under 30 seconds.

On top of this, the camera gives you over 20 other scene modes to play with. Those are all pre-sets, giving you a chance to take pictures fast in almost any situation without worrying about manual controls. Those range from the rather standard macro and landscape to the more exotic sunset and candle light. It goes without saying that most ultra compact cameras have limited manual controls to begin with and the V570 follows that convention.

In fact, I'd say this camera is very easy and intuitive to use in general and the included Easyshare software makes transferring pictures to your PC a breeze.

That's all fine and dandy, but if the camera can't deliver decent photo quality, it really isn't worth paying money for. In that all important category, I'd rank this camera as average. The colors are bright but the images tend to be a bit soft. The camera uses aggressive compression for its images. It does so quite effectively, allowing you to squeeze in more photos than most camera brands but this can come at the cost of tiny details, evident if you do big photo prints or zoom in a lot on the pictures on your computer. For normal photo prints (4x6 or 6x8), I'd say the V570 is just fine.

The V570 also comes with its own movie mode. It can capture movies in VGA mode at 640 x 480 and this can go on from 54 seconds with the included 32 megs of internal memory to close to 40 minutes on one of those bigger memory cards. You get even more movie time if you lower the resolution in the setup menu. Sound can be on the low quality side no matter the resolution.

If I'd level criticism for the V570, I'd say it's better to do it in two categories. As an ultra compact, the V570 shares flaws with many cameras in its category and any would-be owner has to be aware of the typical trade-offs. For example, this camera can falter in low-light situations and the fact the flash is, as expected, weak, doesn't help. For the sake of portability, you're also stuck with a tiny proprietary battery with little juice in it. Taking over a 100 photos or just using that bright LCD screen a lot will deplete it fairly quickly. Again, those are not problems uncommon to ultra compacts.

As for flaws unique to this camera, I'd say the big one is that the camera is mislabeled. This is not a 5X zoom camera as advertised. It has a fixed wide angle lens and a 3X zoom lens, but there is a gap in the field of view between the two lenses. By default, the camera uses its digital zoom the bridge the two, but should you start taking pictures within that gap, picture quality will be noticeably compromised. If you turn off the digital zoom (that option is easily available) and take this camera as it really is, a 3X optical zoom camera with a bonus wide-angle lens, then there is really no problem.

I am also not a fan of having to use the included camera dock for recharging the battery and transferring photos, I prefer using a separate battery charger and USB cable accordingly for that purpose. But that's just me.

And perhaps not a flaw, but simply a gripe, this little bugger is a bit pricey at close to 400 American dollars (at the time of the writing of this review, March 2006). I'm sure the price will drop in the next few months though.

So, would I recommend this camera? Yes, I would. If you are looking for a pocket camera, this should be given serious consideration as there's no other one quite like it.. The wide angle lens is the obvious selling point and even if you are not even sure you need such a lens, trying it might just show you why you can't settle for a normal (telephoto) lens.

If you own a V570, a lot of possibilities are opened up to you and you are not likely to look back.