Photo Club

Kodak at drupa 2008 : Kodak is making its mark at the world’s largest show for the graphic communications market. Drupa 2008 opens this week in Dusseldorf, Germany, and with 26 new product and service introductions, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group is presenting a full suite of integrated, tailored solutions to help customers in all segments of the graphic market capitalize on the power of print to drive profitable growth. Through the theme “Print is Powerful,” Kodak will spotlight at drupa the unmatched versatility and effectiveness of print in reaching audiences and achieving results through media campaigns. Kodak’s exhibit is organized around solutions by commercial, packaging, publishing and data printing segments.

Kodak print solutions
In addition to the company’s highly anticipated inkjet technologies, Kodak will display its comprehensive portfolio of products and services, including electrophotographic, flexographic, and lithographic options for offset-class output, prepress products that optimize productivity and quality, Kodak Unified Workflow Solutions to enable the highest levels of production and enterprise efficiencies, and business development services that expand customers’ revenue potential. The company’s solutions also will appear in partner booths across two-thirds of the show’s presentation halls, illustrating the breadth of Kodak’s impact in the industry.

Drupa 2008
“Drupa is an important event for the printing industry, and offers the perfect stage to powerfully present the breadth of Kodak’s solutions and illustrate our commitment to working with our customers to grow their businesses,” said Phil Faraci, President and Chief Operating Officer, Eastman Kodak Company. “Kodak offers the broadest array of solutions, and effectively addresses the needs of today’s blended conventional and digital production environments, while maximizing opportunities in both established and developing markets across the globe.”

KODAK Gallery and Slide announced today they have teamed up, making it easy for people to use Gallery photos on social networks. Kodak Gallery’s 60 million members can now share their stories on the web, including MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo and other popular social sites. With a combined Web audience of more than 200 million the partnership brings together the world’s largest online photo service and personal media company. 

Starting today, KODAK Gallery members will be able to transform their Gallery photos into portable slideshows with music and share them widely on the Web, including popular social networks and blog sites MySpace and Blogger. The co-branded service, located at www.slide.com/kodakgallery, is the first phase of a deeper Slideshow product integration that will be rolled out throughout the year.

“KODAK Gallery is committed to making it easy for our 60 million members to share their stories anywhere, whether it’s through photo gifts, on kodakgallery.com or on social networks,” said Madhav Mehra, chief operating officer and vice president of product marketing and management, KODAK Gallery. “We partnered with Slide because they’re pioneers in turning photos into tools for self expression and storytelling on social networks. We’re very excited that we can extend all the great sharing benefits of the Gallery to include this new product.”

Here’s how the service works: 

1.       Go to www.slide.com/kodak to view and choose Gallery photos
2.       Personalize Slideshows with frames, backgrounds, music and other features
3.       Share on MySpace or other social networks with one click

“Slide‘s mission has always been about helping people express themselves through shared media across the Web,” said Keith Rabois, vice president of strategy and business development at Slide. “Kodak is well-known as an imaging innovator. We’re excited to partner with such an amazing brand to enable their members to share their pictures more broadly.”

Kodak EasyShare V1273 : Kodak used the CES 2008 show in Las Vegas to announce nine digital compact camera introductions. Unfortunately Kodak did not put a lot effort in providing full specifications or a decent press release, but for now we can give you the following information. The Kodak V1273 is a combination of 12 Megapixels and a 3x zoom lens with optical image stabilization. According to Kodak the camera incorporates an all-glass Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon lens which delivers high quality sharpness and remarkable precision. The optical image stabilization automatically minimizes camera shake to deliver sharper pictures. The Kodak EasyShare V1273 is available in February at $279.95.
Kodak V1273 camera – High Definition
The new Kodak V1273 features a large 3-inch format LCD touch screen. This large monitor puts viewing, editing and organizing pictures right at your fingertips. You can make editing and organizing simple with the touch screen display and the intuitive user interface. With the Kodak EasyShare V1273 you are able to capture HD picture quality in 16:9 format. Via the HD interface you can view your picture in High Definition on an HDTV or other HDTV devices.

Kodak EasyShare V1273 – MPEG-4 compression and HDTV dock
But it is not only capturing HD still images, the Kodak V1273 is also able to capture HD quality video with MPEG-4 compression. The compression is using less memory giving you a long video capture time. The optional Kodak EasyShare HDTV dock lets you view your photos on your HDTV and elevate your high definition experience. Connect to your KODAK HDTV Dock however you want; place your Kodak EasyShare V1273 camera on it, use an SD card, USB flash drive, or card reader attached to the USB port The camera can playback HD video at 720p and 1080i resolution.

Kodak EasyShare V1273 digital camera – Perfect Touch technology
When the perfect picture taking opportunity arises, Kodak make sure you’re ready – with features like smart capture, scene modes, face detection, Kodak Perfect Touch Technology and much more. And after you take the shot, do even more. Turn your pictures into a multimedia slideshow, complete with music and effects. Innovative smart capture adjusts camera settings for great pictures in just about any environment. Capture the details in low light conditions and fast action situations with high ISO (up to 3200).

Kodak EasyShare V1273 box content
• Kodak V1273
• Kodak Li-Ion battery
• USB Charging adapter and cable
• Carry strap
• Camera pouch
• Guide with EasyShare software
• Custom camera insert for optional Kodak EasyShare dock

EasyShare V1273 compact camera – Face detection and Organize
Create panoramic shots by combining up to three shots together into one large picture with panorama stitch mode. For great shots of friends and family, face detection technology locates faces and automatically adjusts camera settings. Add text or voice tags to your pictures, so you can easily find and organize them later.

Kodak EasyShare V1273 digicam – Share and Internal memory
The Kodak V1273 is part of the Kodak EasyShare System, so sharing your pictures is amazingly simple. Just press Share. Sharing starts right on the back of the camera. Have a picture you want to share? Tag it using the exclusive on-camera Share button and it will be ready to print or e-mail later. Use the Favorites feature to keep your special pictures close without filling up your internal memory.

Kodak EasyShare Z650 digital camera review : The Kodak EasyShare Z650, a new super zoom digital camera was launched at the beginning of the year. The camera is a new model in the EasyShare Z series of digital camera. The Kodak Z650 is equipped with a Schneider Kreuznach optical zoom lens. The zoom lens has a 10x zoom range with an optical range of 38 – 380 mm (comparable to a 35 mm format camera). In practice it is great to work with: a fantastic wide-angle and generous tele range. An all round optical range, in fact.

Kodak Z650 – 6,1 Megapixel CCD sensor
De Kodak Z650 is equipped with a 1/2.5 inch 6.1 Megapixel CCD image sensor. Although Kodak has more or less provided a description of pixel formats in the manual, in fact it just means that the X factor has been neatly rounded off and might come in handy. Kodak has also left out the lowest resolution that is still common in other brands – this producer is going for quality rather than quality. Of course, it is still nice to be able to save more than 400 shots in a decent resolution with a 256MB memory card. It’s fun to compare this to the equivalent miniature film format: 11.5 x 36 exposure films!

Kodak EasyShare Z650 – 2″ LCD display
The Kodak Z650 digital camera is equipped with a 2 inch LCD display that gives a fresh, clear picture. The viewfinder is a so-called EFV (electronic viewfinder) that is actually a miniature LCD display. Users must choose between the LCD display at the rear of the Kodak Z650 camera, or the EVF on top because it is not possible to use them both simultaneously.

Kodak Z650 digital camera – Built-in flash
The Kodak Z650′s built in flash is certainly not large, and it can generally not be seen when closed. The flash routinely works in the A Setting, but can be set however you choose: auto, auxiliary, red-eye, and of course, off. The flash’s range is more than enough for normal use: the wide-angle setting is 60 cm to almost 5 meters and the tele setting runs from 2 meters to almost 4 metres. It gives very good results.

Kodak EasyShare Z650 – Focus modes & Aperture
The focussing system has various modes. Of course there are the different auto modes as well as multi-zone and centre-spot modes. The shutter speed varies from 1/8 to 1/1700. The ISO settings are set automatically at 80 – 160. There is also a choice of settings from 60 to 800 ISO, the latter only in the 1.7MP (1496 x 1122 pixels) resolution. The aperture runs from f/2.8 to f/8 in seven steps and allows many possible combinations. Once more, you can set everything yourself. Via the P/A/S/M mode you can adjust the Program, Aperture priority, Shutter speed and Manual mode.

Kodak Z650 – Fixed program & Scene modes
As well as the fixed program modes like Auto, Portrait, Sport, etc, there are 14 other Scene modes to choose from. This in addition to the previously mentioned Manual mode is clear proof that the Kodak EasyShare Z650 offers its users a host of possibilities. The self timer can be set in 2 or 10 seconds and you can choose to take 2 pictures in this setting.

Kodak EasyShare Z650 – Internal memory
Internally, the Kodak Z650 has a storage capacity of 32MB, 28MB of which is available for saving pictures. It is advisable to buy an extra memory card. For communication with the computer you use a USB 2.0 connection. For the Video output you can choose between NTSC or PAL, and the Kodak EasyShare Z650 is also equipped with PictBridge support, a global standard in printing and exchanging recorded information between compatible cameras, printers etc. Naturally, this is in addition to the Share Program for sharing and processing recordings.

Kodak EasyShare Z650 review
We tried out the Kodak EasyShare Z650 for a while. The camera’s specifications promise a lot; a 10x optical zoom lens with a range of 38 – 380 mm (equivalent to a 35 mm camera) and a resolution of 6 Megapixels. The review of the Kodak EasyShare Z650 gives a picture of its possibilities and how it works in practice. Just how our judgement turned out can be read in the following Kodak EasyShare Z650 digital camera review.