Kodak DC280 2MP Digital Camera w/ 2x Optical Zoom

I am a photographic and computer enthusiast and having these two elements come together is a delight for me. So, I have all the very expensive stuff, including KODAK's $20m commercial digital cameras. So, I know what quality is and how much it costs. Bottom-Line as starters, the DC280 makes great color shots with very suprising Hi-detail. The Advertisments say "good" for 8x10 photos, however, as a very picky guy, when you get past 5x7 print sizes, the pictures start to turn fuzzy. But the 5x7 prints are shockingly clear with brilliant colors. But, so what, how many prints does one make larger than 5x7 anyway. This camera is easy to use & small, and I carry it on vacation locations, when I don't want to carry my larger and heavier commercial camera. I was truly shocked at the excellent picture quality of the 280. ALSO, KODAK includes great software, so after a picture taking day/nite, one can easily connect to the yellow video plug on your TV (or Hotel TV) for a slide show of the days activities. I would recommend purchasing a 64MB memory card with the camera purchase, so you'll get plenty of picture opportunities (75+ shots) without having to worry about using up memory. In other words, since you can erase shots you don't like, take MANY, MANY shots and pick the best ones you like for printing or e-mailing. I bring my laptop with me on trips, so in the evening, I can copy the photo-files to the hard disk, and erase the camera memory card, in preparation for the next days photo activities. KODAK provides serial, USB cables, and software to accomplish this simply. Definitely do NOT buy a digital camera with less than 2,000,000 pixels. (The older models, presently having good sale prices, are technology of 2/3 years ago, and you'll wish you spent the extra money for this camera). Since KODAK has been the color business for 100 years, (well...50+years) its no surprise that they have created an electronic imager (the CCD Chip) with the BEST Color quality and detail. This is a must have, you'll not be dissappointed. If you have another few hundred dollars, check out the SONY or OLYMPUS dye-sublimation printers, which produce actual photo quality continuous tone prints up to 4x5 sizes; These printers are not dot-matrix's with all the little dots. The camera and the printer makes for a great combo family gift for under $2m, that anyone in the family can use without having to even turn on a computer, as the printer prints directly off the camera memory card. SO that you don't make yourself craze, and since its slightly different than a typical film point and shoot camera, be sure to read the instruciton booklet, before pushing all the buttons. The documentation KODAK gives you is very easy to understand, so take it slow when you open the Box for the first time. It's so intuitive to use, after the first 2 outings, you NOT need to keep going back to the booklets. JLW/991203.

For the money you just simply will not beat the performance of the Kodak DC280. I have had mine for a couple of months now, and it has literaly replaced my regular 35 mm camera. I love the convience of taking pictures then making any edits i need from my computer. The software is easy to install, and only has about a one hour learning curve to master. Very good and fast usb connection. With a fully charged set of NI-MH, AA batteries it gets fantastic long life. And the 2.0 Megapixel image is nothing less than photo film perfect, must be seen to belive. I also like the smart card memory media included, I have upgraded the 8 mb, to a 24 mb card, and on the 24 mb, I can snap over 100 photos in the best quality mode on the lower size setting, and 34 of the highest quality photos in the huge mega resolution setting. Another great feature is that this camera is very easy to use compared to the other brands I have tried. I did not even have to read the instructions, (though I would read them if I were a beginer). Try the Kodak DC280 out if your in the market for a fantastic digital camera!

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Although it sometimes feels like we're all still beta testing various digital imaging technologies, including digital cameras, products like the Kodak DC280 make me believe the "dark ages" might be coming to an end.

This is a good mid-range digital camera, perfect for those who want to capture images that will look very good on the Web. The biggest plus of the camera is image quality; this is the best camera in this price range that I tested, with two-megapixel resolution. Having quite a bit of hands-on experience with various Sony cameras, I and my partner were actually stunned by how clear the DC280's images were in a variety of lighting conditions.

There is very little to complain about in terms of interface and usability. I scanned the manual, and then just started using the DC280. The menu system and buttons are quite intuitive. One minor quibble is that one is pretty much forced to use the DC280's viewfinder left-eyed; otherwise the LCD screen smudge factor so common to digital camera will rear its ugly head. However, I use the LCD for the majority of my shooting, so this isn't a huge factor.

The DC280 uses a USB connection to transfer images to your computer. The camera mounts as if it were a hard drive, and one can preview large thumbnails of images before copying them over to your hard drive. While I was able to open the images directly into Photoshop, Fireworks couldn't get into the camera; this may have been a problem with how I have my file associations set up, however.

The camera comes with a number of features and extras. The bundled software, Adobe's PhotoDeluxe and Pagemill, are more than adequate for editing images and creating Web pages. Various simple visual effects and borders can be applied in-camera, and you can run a slide-show right out of the camera using the supplied video cable.

The DC280 includes four rechargeable AA batteries, a recharger, and four AA alkaline batteries. You can get started right out of the box. My camera sucked the alkalines dry after about 50 photos and a couple of downloads; I would suggest buying an extra set of rechargeables to carry around with you, and an AC adaptor.

This is not the perfect camera for all applications. For one thing, there are few manual controls on the camera for focus, aperture or shutter priority, and the optical zoom limited to 2X. This will mean that photo enthusiasts might want to look at something the next step up, such as the wacky-looking Nikon Coolpix 950. As others have reported, low-light shooting is not at the quality that one would hope for from a camera at this level.

All-in-all, the DC280 is an excellent camera for the price, perfect for Web photos.

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With this camera, you will get great colors on your screen. I tryed the same picture with the three different qualities and with all I got excellent pictures. It has all the basic features you might need in any camera. It has a good zoom, the 'physical zoom' is not that good, then I discovered the digital zoom which is great.

It consumes a lot of batteries, but you have more than enough with the rechargable batteries and of course, the battery charger included in the camera. I bought an additional charger because I never found that the camera came with its own, so don't buy another charger.

I'm more than satisfied with the 8MB flash card. It is true that you can only take 12 pictures with the highest resolution (1800x1600) and higest quality, but with standard resolution(800x600) and the medium quality you still have very good pictures and can get about 52 pictures, which is good for a weekend. If you have a long trip and don't have a pc to download the pictures, then you might consider another flash card.

BAD THINGS: It weights a little bit more than a traditional camera of the same size, but still, it's much better that other big cameras. It doesn't come with a camera bag. You have to buy it appart.

In summary, a great camera.

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I finally upgraded from my original 2 year old Digital Camera a Casio 5000SX that was great except for a poorly designed battery door. The Kodak DC280 Zoom is better in every category clarity, features, memory capability, analog zoom, except for one the delay in the time from pressing the shutter until it snaps the picture. Keep in mind, that the processing time is quite fast the Kodak is ready to take your next picture quite quickly, thanks to some in-memory processing, but the delay from when you click the button until the action is captured is quite lengthy. I find it nearly impossible to get good action shots with this camera. For example, I take quite a few pictures of sand volleyball on my weekends. Only the highest flyers the guys that can jump out of the sand and hang like Vince Carter were captured in the air, and only with me clicking the shutter button at least 2-3 seconds *before* they jumped. However, if you don't have to take a lot of action shots, well this this is an excellent camera for the money for both amateur and professional alike.