DPexpert reviews the Kodak EasyShare V570 and although skeptical at first, they seemed to really like it – ‘Parting shot: The dual lens system looks like a gimmick, as though Kodak is straining to create some distinguishing feature for the camera. In fact it works well. For anyone planning a trip that will take in the cramped cities of Europe where it is hard to get back far enough to take in an entire building the V570 will be a boon. We like it!’

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Let’s Go Digital reviews the Canon PowerShot A700 and writes – ‘May the results of our tests be clear. The remarks made about the slightly more negative sides of the Canon PowerShot A700 are generously outweighed – and even erased – by the camera’s strong points and assets. The Canon PowerShot A700 is an excellent digital camera with major potential. A camera that suits a very broad group of consumers, not to mention a perfect first step to a more advanced camera. Its compact size and light weight encourage the user to carry the camera along often. The Canon A700 evolved from a strong concept, and will without question continue the success of the Canon PowerShot A series digital cameras. ‘

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Photography Blog reviews the Kodak EasyShare V570 and writes – ‘Image quality is only average, with noticeable noise and blurring at ISOs 200 and 400, which means that the V570 is best suited to situations with adequate lighting, especially if you want to make larger prints. The Kodak Easyshare V570 is just a simple point and shoot camera in terms of creativity, with no control over aperture or shutter speeds, but Kodak have gone to great lengths to make the V570 easy to use, with a wealth of playback and sharing options available. Overall, despite only average image quality and some elements of slow operation, the Kodak Easyshare V570 is an intriguing and fun to use digital camera.’

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Digital Camera Resource Page reviews the Canon Powershot SD30 and writes – ‘The SD30’s photo quality is good in most respects. Outdoors it takes smooth-looking photos with accurate color and low noise levels. Corner softness i was an issue in some of my real world photos. Indoors you’ll be disappointed with the camera’s weak flash and high redeye, which is why this camera is best suited to the outdoors. Noise levels in long exposures were a bit higher than I would’ve liked. Also disappointing was the camera’s movie mode, which isn’t nearly as good as those on the other cameras in the SD series.
A few other minor quibbles: the camera’s battery life is okay, but the competition seems to be pulling away. Also, the included 16MB card is very small for a 5 Megapixel camera.’

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The Imaging Resource reviews the Olympus SP-310 and has this to say – ‘The 7.1-megapixel, 3x-zoom Olympus SP-310 is an excellent performer where it counts: printed image quality. It has a wealth of features in a surprisingly compact body; and though it’s not the most attractive design (in our eyes, anyway) you’ll start to like it right away when you shoot with it. Featuring a full range of exposure control, in addition to 24 preset Scene modes, the SP-310 caters to a large audience. Novices will appreciate the availability of pure point-and-shoot operation, while more experienced users will enjoy the option of full manual exposure control. A large 2.5-inch LCD monitor provides accurate framing, and a great place to view pictures, with a real-image optical viewfinder available to save battery power, a feature disappearing from most digicams with a large LCD. Though the camera’s Auto white balance setting tends toward a warmer color cast, overall color is generally pretty good, and exposure is usually about right. (It does tend to produce contrasty images under harsh lighting though.) Though the slow shutter lag numbers could have been better, the printed image quality of the SP-310 really surprised us, and it’s an excellent bargain at the roughly $250 street price it’s selling for as of this review date in mid-April, 2006. Even at high ISO, its images were usable at larger print sizes than most competing models.’

It sounds like, for the price, this camera is hard to beat. Get the best price on the Olympus SP-310.

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Digital Camera Resource Page reviews the Olympus Stylus 710 and has this to say – ‘Photo quality is the Stylus 710’s weak spot. While it took well-exposed photos with accurate color and low purple fringing levels, fine details in my photos were quite muddy, even at the lowest ISO setting. In addition, there was noticeable corner softness in many of my sample photos. While this may not matter to the typical buyer of a camera like this, those who want to make larger prints or view them at full size on their computer screen will see this and will likely be disappointed. One thing that will get you no matter what size the print is redeye, which is quite bad on the camera. The built-in redeye reduction feature did not improve the situation, at least in my testing.
There are a few other things that I want to mention. While nearly all cameras in this class are point-and-shoot, most offer at least manual white balance and slow shutter speed options. The latter feature would’ve really helped on this camera, as the night shot was quite lousy since I was forced to use a scene mode. Second, the camera lacks an AF-assist lamp, which led to just average low light focusing. Third, you cannot swap memory cards while the camera is on a tripod, which may or may not bother you. And finally, the included 19MB of memory is very little for a 7.1 Megapixel camera.’

They sure don’t sound impressed. Image quality should be much better on a 7.1 megapixel camera, in my opinion.

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Digital Camera Resource Page reviews the Canon PowerShot A700 and writes – ‘The PowerShot A700 features both automatic and manual controls. For those just starting out you’ll find an auto shooting mode, plus numerous scene modes. While you won’t use them often, the My Colors features are fun to play around with. When you’re ready to use manual controls, you’ll find that the A700 has a full set of them, from exposure to white balance to focus. There’s also a nice burst mode, which can take 2 pictures per second until the memory card is full (high speed card required). The movie mode is also very good, though you’ll hit the 1GB file size limit in just eight minutes.
Camera performance was good in most areas. The A700 turns on quickly, focuses without much of a wait (it seemed faster than the A540), and shutter lag wasn’t a problem. Low light focusing was very good, thanks to the camera’s AF-assist lamp. Battery life was above average, with the A700 squeezing out 400 shots using two 2500 mAh NiMH batteries (using the CIPA standard).
Photo quality was very good. The A700 took well-exposed photos with accurate color, low purple fringing, and reasonable noise levels. The A700’s 6 Megapixel sensor has pretty good ISO performance, allowing you to print 4 x 6’s through ISO 400. The ISO 800 isn’t terribly useful, though you may be able to squeeze out a smaller print after running the image through something like NeatImage. The one area in which the A700 ran into trouble was with regard to “redeye” in flash photos.’

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Cool Tech Zone reviews the Kodak EasyShare V570 and writes – ‘The Kodak EasyShare V570 is definitely targeted at beginners. It provides impressive results if used in auto mode as a simple point-and-shoot camera. At the same time, as consumers become more familiar with this camera, they would obviously want to tweak a few settings. The V570 will let them do that as well, albeit to a limited extent. It will let you set exposure compensation, white balance, color mode, sharpness as well as ISO speeds to allow select flexibility. Unlike some of the cameras with a complicated menu system, the V570 lets you set these pretty easily and without much fuss.
At $400, this camera is no doubt a bit expensive, but then you do get the charm of owning the only dual lens camera in the world. To be fair to Kodak, while the camera definitely has some issues, the wide angle lens is amazingly good. If you want to take wide photos at close range (family portraits or group photos) you really can’t do much better than this. The ultrawide angle lens coupled with the 5x optical zoom telephoto lens yields great results.’

It sounds like Cool Tech Zone likes the Kodak V570, just as more of a beginner model. Quite frankly this is a camera that I really like – I’m not a big fan of cameras that are hard to use. Simple, easy, and high quality are the things I look for in my personal digital camera.

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Steve’s Digicams reviews the Canon PowerShot A700 and writes – ‘I was very pleased with the overall image quality of the A700’s 6-megapixel Large SuperFine mode. Our outdoor samples were beautiful, showing good exposure and color saturation. Thanks in part to the Canon 6x optical zoom lens, just about every single shot I took was nice and sharp from edge to edge. In fact i saw almost no signs of edge blurring or softness; a common trait of consumer models. Noise is nonexistent at the lower ISO settings (80 or 100), but does become more noticeable as the sensitivity is increased. While ISO 800 is filled with visible imager noise, I feel the ability to use higher than normal shutter speeds in marginal lighting conditions makes up for the decrease in image quality.’

It sounds like Steve was impressed, and his word carries a lot in the digital camera world these days. Kudos to the A700.

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Steve’s Digicams recently reviewed the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W50 and had this to say – ‘The Sony Cyber-shot W50 is a good all-around performer. Weighing-in at just under 6 ounces (including battery and Memory Stick Duo), the W50 is both pocketable and stylish while still providing the optical viewfinder that its competitors frequently omit. With very good image quality, 6-megapixels of resolution, versatile sensitivity range, high-quality movies and an MSRP of under $250, the Sony DSC-W50 is a very good value. If you like the W50’s features and image quality but prefer to spend a bit less, consider the W30; it sports a smaller 2-inch LCD without brightness adjustment for about $20 less.’

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CNET reviews the Canon PowerShot SD430 Digital Elph Wireless and writes – ‘Using Canon’s RemoteCapture utility, which currently runs only on Windows XP SP2 (Mac OS X support is due this spring), a PowerShot SD430 user can remotely control zoom, image size and compression level, ISO speed, white balance, metering mode, color mode, focus point, macro mode, autofocus type, and flash mode. There is a live image preview that can be turned off to preserve the camera’s battery (though an optional AC adapter is recommended for remote shooting), and images can be saved to the memory card, the computer, or both. In automatic interval shooting mode, the number of images that can be saved is limited only by disk space, up to 99,999 shots.’

Remote controlled digital camera. Cool.

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