AmigActive 10/AACD 10.iso/AACD/Information/Guides/AIOIssue35/data/ur1

Text File | 2000-04-21 | 7KB | 144 lines

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{subhead} Kodak DC215 Digital Camera On The Amiga{def}{p}
Review by Chris Seward
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{bold}The Background:{nobold}
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Digital Cameras have come a long way since the very first products
and prices have continued to drop all the time. I have never actually
bought a Digital Camera before and am not a big camera user on a
whole, the whole operation of a camera to me should be point, click
and the picture is taken, i'm not one for the fancy gadgets with all
bells and whistles.
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I had been looking around for the best camera in a low budget price
range for quite a while deciding to buy certain cameras and at the
last moment changing my mind or finding them cheaper somewhere else.
In the end I came across a camera that looked like it would suit me
and was within what I was prepared to spend on a digital camera. I
posted a message to the Just-Amiga mailing list asking if anyone had
experience with the digital camera I was planing to buy, this was the
Kodak DC215 and to my suprise a very helpful person named
Richard Lane ([e-mail]) owned the camera I was
thinking about purchasing. After a few emails and lots of help from
him I decided to part with my money and buy the camera.
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{bold}The Camera:{nobold}
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The Camera itself is a metal case in silver colour with black rubber
type sections for grips. There are three rubber flaps which cover
various ports to connect the required leads etc for transfering
pictures to and from computer/T.V.
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There is an LCD screen (1.8 in.) on the back if the camera with
optional view finder a little higher up. The on/off switch a zoom
in/out controller and some other functions on the back of the camera.
On top is another LCD display showing the settings, battery life and
other important details. Three options buttons and the main button
to actually take pictures.
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The camera is not too heavy too hold but you have to be careful
where you put your fingers or risk having a finger print on one of
the numerous screens or main lens. The built in place to hold the
camera is well place but where your finger falls on the front of the
camera takes a bit of practise without covering the lens. It also
has a built in wrist strap and lens cover which are tied into the
camera.
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The right side of the camera has three connections for transfering
picteres, power adaptor and the last being to connect it to your
television. In front of those is a section where the changeable
memory card sits, allowing an unlimited number of pictures to be
stored if you buy aditional cards, the camera comes with a 4mb
memory card.
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On the left hand side of the camera it is mostly plain apart from
the bottom which has a sliding piece to release the battery holder
which is located along the base of the camera. The camera requires
4 AA type batteries which are the most commonly used in such items
as Personal Stereos, Radios, Remote control cars etc. I found that
although these are common pretty cheap batteries they have a VERY
poor life. The batteries that came with the camera I had used up
in about 15 minutes of switching it on. Don't worry it isn't that
poor but I had the LCD screen switched on which is like a home
video camera the picture updates as you move the camera around,
although this is fantastic it does eat up batteries very quickly
and after the initial amazement I suggest turning this off and
only using it for very short periods of time otherwise you'll need
a backpack full of batteries to use it worthwhile.
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The camera comes with the following inside the box,
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· Kodak DC215{p}
· 4mb CompactFlash removable memory card{p}
· 9pin serial cable with macintosh cable adapter for Macs.{p}
· 4 AA Alkaline batteries{p}
· PC software (CD based){p}
· Documentation and other writen pieces
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What you will need to use this with the Amiga,
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· 9>25 pin adaptor{p}
· dc210wizard12.lha (aminet:comm/misc/dc210wizard12.lha)
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You can buy a pin adaptor from most places. I bought mine from
Tandy, United Kingdom for around £8. I'm sure there are other software
options available but the DC210 Wizard works with this camera and
does the basic job, see a review of it near the end of this article.
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{bold}Preferences:{nobold}
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There are three quality types being Best, Better and Good. All are
quite similar although on best you get sharpest corners and with
Good you can get some slightly fussy edges to objects. Overall there
isn't alot of difference but for those who are keen on best quality
i'd keep to Best as I have done. It does mean you can take less
photos but for the best picture quality it is worth it. You need to
weight up if you want to store more pictures or are happy to have
less pictures in best quality.
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You can also choose from two picture sizes, titled Standard and
High. High being 1152x864 in 24 bit true colour with Standard being
640x480 in 24 bit true color. The High resolution seems a bit washed
in colour and sharpness, a fact pointed out to me by Richard Lane
who orginally helped me in my decision to purchase the camera, a
fact I totally agree with. I personally choose Standard which although
a smaller format gives the best picture quality but also allows more
pictures to be stored on the memory card.
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Next you can choose if you would like the camera to put an automatic
frame around the picture. If you are taking a whole family shot then
you may which to have it taken with this built in border although
I personally haven't had much use for this function, it may be useful
occationally though. You can also date stamp your pictures automatically
with three styles of date stamping, YY/MM/DD, DD/MM/YY and MM/DD/YY.
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You can then choose to have your pictures stored in JPEG or Flashpix,
I have choosen JPEG as it is most common and also the fact that i'm
not sure what format Flashpix actually is. Quickview is the next option
which allows you to see in the LCD screen the picture you have just
taken for a few seconds with the option to delete if you are not
entirely happy with it.
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Next you can set the time and date which is useful for the datestamp
although these are reset when you change batteries which is slightly
annoying. You can then set the brightness of the display in the LCD
screen. If you are in a particularly sunny location then it may be hard
to see the LCD screen and so lowering or highering the brightness may
help.
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There is next an option to format the whole card although you can
delete indivual and all images in another part of the camera which I
will come to shortly.
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The video out can be set to NTSC or Pal (Europe). You can also set the
language you wish the cameras options to be in from English, French,
German, Japanease (I think), Portugease, Spanish and Italian.
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Lastly you have a small piece of information about the camera, the
version of Firmware installed on the camera aswell as telling you how
many pictures have been taken and how many flashes have been fired.
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{link ur2}Continue to Part 2{end}