Kodak DC4800 ZoomKodak's first true 3 megapixel consumer camera has excellent color and *amazing* low-light capability!<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 7/31/2000 |
Exposure
Exposure control on the DC4800 works a little differently than most other digicams, determined by the way the mode dial is set up. Instead of offering a variety of operating modes, the DC4800's mode dial lets you shoot in straight Program AE mode or select from three aperture settings (f/2.8, f/5.6 and f/8.0). Although we're used to seeing a shutter priority and aperture priority selection on the dial, this setup may actually be a little simpler. You still have to go into the LCD menu to change the shutter speed, but the ability to set the aperture and exposure compensation (through another topside dial) without resorting to the LCD does save time. While shooting in Program AE (the 'P' setting on the mode dial), the camera controls both the aperture and shutter speed, but you can make adjustments to the white balance, metering mode, special image effects, ISO setting, exposure compensation, sharpness and flash mode. Turning the mode dial to one of the aperture settings gives you the same controls, with the addition of a manually-selectable shutter speed from 16 to 1/1,000 seconds.
As we mentioned above, aperture is selected by simply turning the mode dial to the desired setting. Shutter speed is changed through the Record menu and you can select Auto, Manual or Long Time Exposure. Remember that you must have the mode dial set to one of the aperture values to be able to actually change the shutter speed. Choosing the Manual setting lets you scroll through a variety of speed settings, from 1/2 to 1/1,000 seconds. While it is rather time consuming to scroll through so many settings, the advantage is that you get to see all of the available settings, a helpful feature. Selecting the Long Time Exposure option gives you another scrolling list, with speeds from 0.7 to 16 seconds available.
Thanks to the wide range of slow shutter speeds, the camera's low light capabilities are truly exceptional, as we obtained bright, clear images as low as 1/16 foot-candles (0.7 lux) in our testing. This low light performance deserves special comment: We were absolutely amazed by how well the DC4800 did shooting time-exposure shots in very dim light. For comparison, a typical city night scene lit by modern street lights corresponds to a light level of about 1 foot-candle (11 lux). The lowest light levels we test at are so dim we literally have a hard time finding our way around the studio. At these levels, virtually all digicams we've tested tend to (a) introduce significant color shifts in the pictures, and (b) show tremendous amounts of image noise, "stuck" pixels (bright spots in the image), and poor color saturation. The DC4800's low light images were almost entirely devoid of such undesirable artifacts, and the pictures it took under these conditions stood out head and shoulders above those from virtually every other camera we've tested to date. (July 2000) It appears that part of what the DC4800 is doing in its time exposures is taking a "black calibration" shot right after the actual image, of the same duration as the main exposure. That is, if you take a 16 second exposure, the camera will actually take 32 seconds to respond, because it immediately takes another shot of the backside of the shutter so it can compensate for "stuck" pixels and image noise. If you need to take long time-exposure pictures under very low light conditions, the DC4800 is definitely a camera you should consider carefully! One practical limitation though: The DC4800's autofocus only appears to be usable down to 1 foot-candle (11 lux) or so, so you'll need to shoot with focus locked at infinity and forego subjects close at hand. (If it's possible given your shooting situation though, you could work around this by selecting a fixed white balance setting, turning on brighter room lights, half-press the shutter button to focus, and then turn the lights off again before you actually snap the picture. Not optimal, but a possible workaround for some situations.)
Exposure compensation is conveniently controlled by a small lever on top of the camera, with adjustments available from -2 to +2 in 0.5 EV increments. We liked this method of adjustment because it's quick and easy, and less draining on the battery since you don't have to utilize the LCD monitor to make the selection. With the exception of the self-timer, zoom, burst mode, macro / infinity and flash mode, the remaining exposure controls are accessed through the LCD menu system. Although we like to see less reliance on the LCD menu, we feel compelled to note that the DC4800's menu system is very concise and straightforward. You simply press the Menu button to access the menu screen, scroll through options with the rocker toggle button and confirm selections with the Display (OK) button. User friendly icons provide a quick reference to each menu option.
The DC4800 gives you several white balance options: Automatic, Daylight, Flash, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Manual and Color Temperature. All of these modes are relatively self-explanatory in that they match the white value to the selected light source, but we would like to explain the Manual and Color Temperature settings a little further.
Selecting the Manual white balance option brings up a screen with four arrows (one in each cardinal direction and color coded as blue, green, red and yellow). In this mode, you initially set the white balance by pointing the camera at a white card or other white object and pressing the shutter button. The camera analyzes what it sees, and adjusts its color balance so that whatever it was looking at when you pressed the shutter button will be forced to pure white. This is a very nice feature that we're seeing on more consumer-level cameras these days. Where the DC4800 goes one step further though, is in the four colored arrows on-screen, corresponding to the four cardinal directions of the rocker control. These let you fine-tune the manual white balance setting that the camera calculated, allowing you to either further correct the color cast, or add a little color cast back into the image. This is a really great feature we've often found ourselves wishing for on cameras with conventional manual white balance options. Kudos to Kodak on this one!
The Color Temperature white balance option lets you select from a range of explicit color temperature values, from a very reddish 2,500 to a very bluish 10,000 Kelvin. A total of 15 different color temperature options are provided, allowing very fine control over the white balance. This is great for studio work, in that you can exactly match the color temperature of the lights you're using. At other times, it allows very fine control over the color cast of your images when you're trying for a particular effect.
By default, the DC4800 utilizes a multi-pattern exposure metering system that averages values from a number of points throughout the frame to determine the proper exposure. Through the Record menu, you can change this to Center Weighted, which takes a reading from a large area in the center, or to Center Spot, which reads just the very center of the image. You can also adjust the sharpness, with options for Sharp, Standard or Soft. The camera's light sensitivity can be set to Automatic, or the ISO equivalents of 100, 200 and 400, giving the camera a little more flexibility in low light situations (we found that the higher ISO settings do increase the camera's sensitivity, but also significantly increase the noise level). A 10 second self-timer is accessed by pressing the Self-Timer / Burst button. Once the shutter button is pressed in this mode, the LCD monitor goes blank and the small red LED on the front of the camera lights solid for the first eight seconds and then flashes during the remaining two. The camera exits the self-timer mode after firing the shutter.
FlashThe DC4800 is equipped with a built-in popup flash, featuring four shooting modes controlled by the Flash button: Automatic, Fill, Red-Eye Reduction and Off. The Automatic setting puts the camera in charge of whether or not to fire the flash, based on the existing light levels. Setting the flash to Fill tells the camera to fire the flash with every exposure. The Redeye Reduction setting operates similarly to Automatic, but in addition fires a small pre-flash before firing the full flash, to reduce the occurrence of the Redeye Effect. As you'd expect, the Off setting simply means that the flash never fires, regardless of the lighting conditions. The flash is released from its housing by sliding the small switch directly to its left. Closing the flash automatically turns it off. When you re-open the flash though, the camera remembers the previous mode setting and resets the flash to that mode. Kodak estimates the DC4800's flash power as effective all the way to 10 feet (3.2 m) at the wide angle setting and to 6.5 feet (2 m) at the furthest telephoto setting. In our own tests, we found the internal flash to be reasonably effective all the way out to 14 feet, with just a slight bluish tint in the highlights starting around eight feet and a slight magenta cast starting at 12 feet. An external flash sync connection is present on the data port side of the camera, which helps out when you need extra power or the flexibility of an off-camera flash. Kodak recommends setting the white balance to the Flash setting when working with an external flash.
Burst Mode
The DC4800 features a Burst photography mode, accessed by pressing the Self-Timer / Burst button. This mode allows you to capture up to 16 images at a maximum speed of five frames per second (depending on image quality and size, as well as the amount of CompactFlash space). While the camera's built-in flash is unavailable in this mode, you can still use an external flash. (Provided of course, that you have a flash system that will cycle quickly enough.)
Color Mode
Through the Record menu, you can significantly alter the camera's color settings, with choices of Saturated Color, Neutral Color, Black and White, Black and White (Y filter), Black and White (R filter) and Sepia. Selecting Saturated Color heightens the brightness of the colors in the image without altering the white value (especially noticeable in reds, greens and blues), making images more vibrant. We found this to be a useful tool in some of our test shots, particularly the Indoor Portrait Without Flash, which many cameras leave a little washed out, and in the Davebox. The Neutral Color setting simply sets the color brightness to normal, without muting the tones too much. The black and white settings let you shoot in straight black and white tones, or apply a red or yellow filter. Shooting with a yellow filter lightens the yellow tones and darkens the blues, good for capturing dramatic skies or water scenes. Shooting with a red filter lightens the red tones and darkens blues and greens. The red filter works well with portrait shots by hiding blemishes, and also produces interesting sky images. Finally, the Sepia setting simply captures the image in sepia monotones, creating an "antique" look.
As we mentioned in our overview of the DC4800, we particularly like seeing the "neutral" and "saturated" color options: In the past, color rendering in digicams was pretty well fixed, and you bought one camera or an other in part based on which one's color handling you liked the best. We've seen some attempts at providing a "saturated" option for color, but the results were generally more in the "special effects" category, rather than a useful extension of camera abilities. With the DC4800 though, the "saturated" color mode is a nice enhancement to the camera's color capabilities, usable in a wide range of circumstances, and in fact it's the default setting for the camera. (That is, the one that the camera returns to if you use the setup menu option to restore the cameras settings to their factory defaults.)
Macro / Landscape Mode
The Macro / Landscape button on the top of the DC4800's back panel controls the camera's focusing modes. One press of the button puts you in Macro mode, which sets the focal range from 7.8 inches to 1.6 feet (0.2 to 0.5 m) for close-up subjects. A second press puts you in Landscape mode, which sets the focus at infinity. This setting is most useful for landscapes and far away subjects like sporting events. Landscape mode is also a time-saver, in that you don't have to wait around for the camera to set the focus. The DC4800 does a good job in the macro category, capturing a minimum area of 3.65 x 2.43 inches (92.77 x 61.84 mm). This places it about in the middle range of current consumer digicams for macro shooting. Very nice color and detail, although resolution still appears a little soft. We picked up only the slightest hint of distortion, as the edge of the dollar bill seems to curve a little. The DC4800's onboard flash does a very nice job of throttling down (some digicams are tricked by the shiny coin). The large silver coin does reflect a lot of light, but overall, the illumination looks very good.
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