When are two lenses better than one? When you can have both a 3x zoom and an extreme wide-angle lens in one camera – equivalent to a 5x zoom when combined.
The stylish, mobile phone-sized Kodak EasyShare V570 is that camera, and manages to squeeze both into dimensions less than an inch thick.
The V570 not only has dual optics, but also two sensors, with a resolution of five megapixels.
The theory is that this set-up will aid your picture-taking creativity, allowing funky fish-eye effects alongside your standard snapshots. The wide-angle facility is also great for group shots, landscapes and panoramas, enabling a full 180 degree scene to be captured in just three photos; and a feature within the camera’s menu system will stitch them together into a single image.
With a press of the power button, the camera is quick to get going, with a wait of barely a second before it’s ready to take the first shot. Images are framed using the large, bright 2.5” screen on the camera’s back, with an on-screen indicator revealing which lens is being used. As is normal for most compacts at this level, there are 22 scene modes allowing you to simply point and shoot common subject matters such as sports shots or portraits at night.
As the EasyShare name suggests, the V570 is simple to operate, and taking photos quickly becomes second nature. The only real moan is that just 32Mb of internal memory is included with the camera, so you’ll need to factor in the cost of a removable SD or MMC memory card to be able to save a decent number of images in one go.
Video clips can be captured in the high-quality MPEG-4 video format at a smooth 30 frames per second. Budding Spielbergs will be pleased that the zoom can be used in this mode, and that individual frames from moving images can be printed out as stills – especially easy to do if you invest in an optional Kodak Printer Dock.
The images the V570 delivered were pleasingly colourful and natural. The camera’s performance in low light could have been better – there was some noise visible when the flash wasn’t used. Still, this is common for digital compacts. In addition, watch out for fingertips creeping into photos when using that wide-angle lens.
However, overcome these slight obstacles and images rich in colour and detail will be your reward.
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