6490?

[mrkablooey]

I posted in the Nikon section about my interest in either the CoolPix 5700 or 8700.... mostly for the zoom and obviously for the image quality. My boss has a Kodak 6490 and other than his thoughts, I was looking for the thoughts of anyone else who has experience with this model. The zoom is intriguing as 3x really isn't that much. The cost of the 6490 is a lot more appealing than the Nikons but I'm wondering if the quality difference would be enough.

Looking at sample images at steves-digicams.com, the camera looks pretty sharp, especially his famous Werther's shot. :wink:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Heh, an armchair review of the camera shows some heavy noise removal system at work. There's definitely some loss of resolution (areas of fine detail look muddy), but I think it's not really unacceptable when printed out to sizes under 8x10.

[mrkablooey]

One of the things that bothered me in the steves-digicams review was this:

I do feel that Kodak's JPEG compression is too aggressive. You'll see that the average file size for our sample photos is less than a megabyte and some images are as small as 411Kb. These are very small file sizes for four-megabyte images, other 4- megapixel camera images in fine quality are around 1.8 to 2.6 megabytes.

8O

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

wow, that is some serious compression at work.

[Gary Sheynkman]

kodak programmers: "well, I cant see why would anyone need the color red in their photos." :lol:

[mrkablooey]

ha! :lol:

[pradike]

I have this camera now for 2 months, and I love it. It is both powerful and easy to use. The Schneider lense is outstanding.

I spent 4 months looking at Digital Cameras, and wanted something that was in the 4-5 Mexgapixel range and also had a decent Zoom (the 6490 has a 10X lens zoom and 3X digital zoom for a total of 30X).

One additional feature that sold me on this camera was the dual light sensors - regular light and another separate low light sensor. For indoor pictures, the lower light sensor is fantasic, and allows for realistic colors and crisp photos. I notice the Olympus, Canon, and even Nikon models in the same $500 price range did NOT have this great feature.

The two weaknesses of most digital cameras is the ability to photograph in low light and also quick motion shots. The specs on this camera show that the 6490 excels in both these areas.

One final thought. With my 256MB SD card, I get about 236 top resolution photos stored - and the software that comes witht he camera is terrific.

I can highly recommend this camera to anyone who wants something that takes great photos but doesn't require an MIT Engineering degree to operate.

[pradike]

One of the things that bothered me in the steves-digicams review was this:

I do feel that Kodak's JPEG compression is too aggressive. You'll see that the average file size for our sample photos is less than a megabyte and some images are as small as 411Kb. These are very small file sizes for four-megabyte images, other 4- megapixel camera images in fine quality are around 1.8 to 2.6 megabytes.

8O
That's a plus, not a minus - you get excellent results without cramming up your SD card with ridiculously huge 2MB jpg files.

[mrkablooey]

Thanks for the advice, pradike.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Uh, it is a minus. That much compression can cause JPEG artifacts, which can be quite ugly.

OTOH maybe it's not JPEG compression, but due to the noise reducing alogrithms which I mentioned earlier. The results of the agressive noise reduction results in better compression in JPEG.

[pradike]

Uh, it is a minus. That much compression can cause JPEG artifacts, which can be quite ugly.

OTOH maybe it's not JPEG compression, but due to the noise reducing alogrithms which I mentioned earlier. The results of the agressive noise reduction results in better compression in JPEG.
That's true, but almost ANY software can adjust this IF and WHEN its needed.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Err, no, you can't. Lost detail can't be made magically to reappear.

[pradike]

Err, no, you can't. Lost detail can't be made magically to reappear.
Noise is not just an issue of details "magically reappearing", they can also be pixelization distortion, wich can be recoverable. I just haven't seen any signs of this kind of issue at all with this camera. The reviewer also made mention of 2 other items which have never been the case with this camera.

All my photos come out crisp, clear, with excellent color and white balance. The default settings on this camera are superior to custom settings I have seen on my brothers Nikon & Canon after he played with them for over 2 hours.

When I searched and tested 6 different cameras, I found that the Digicam site data was inaccurate and distorted compared to "real world" comparisons of the cameras. For example, he rated one Olympus model very high, which ended up taking the most contrast-flat photos of the bunch. The ONLY WAY to really test these things is to try them yourself.

To me, the Kodak 6490 is the best banf for the buck in that price range.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I think we're talking about two different things here.. I was referring to strong JPEG compression methods.

Noise is pixelisation distortion?

[colinkhalid]

I have been using a 6490 for a year now and really can't complain about any visible JPEG arifacts or any other distortion. The file size issue mentioned earlier in this thread says that the file size's are small but I have found that it depends on what you are taking a picture of ie ranging from about 400k up tp 1.5mb