Not a name you instantly think of when talking about quality digital cameras. Obviously when thinking of film cameras Kodak is a big name, although they have made digitals for years, here at last they make a giant leap forward.
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Unlike a lot of oblong boxes that a lot of digital cameras are today this looks like a conventional film camera. It is 10x9x7.5cm maximum dimensions with the zoom lens contracted. The weight is around 400grams with everything attached.
This has a 10x optical zoom and is a 5megapixel offering. The quality of images - even in auto mode - is excellent and anyone with a little knowledge cannot fail to take great images with the DX7590.
Like so many cameras it is made for use in the right hand, however, even though I am left handed it is something I have grown accustomed to. It has an excellent 4.5x3.5cm TFT display that works well in all lighting conditions. You can take images using this or should you prefer it a single press of a button beside the viewfinder toggles the TFT off and activates the viewfinder.
I am not going to describe the eleven buttons (of various shapes) that control the camera or the eleven position wheel, just to say they are all logical and you probably will be able to fathom most actions out without recourse to documentation. There is a user guide and this should enable anyone to get going. There is more info in a .PDF file.
With a recent PC you should just be able to connect the supplied USB lead and download images. The 32MB of supplied memory is internal but the camera can also accept SD cards. The battery is solid and rechargeable, the charger is supplied.
Kodak some years ago introduced the docking station that allows cameras just to be dropped into it and for this a sleeve is provided but not the docking station. You can of course quite easily use the supplied USB lead and if you use an SD card this can be removed from the camera and read into the PC via card reader.
A fairly substantial neck strap is supplied and I felt a lot more comfortable using the camera around my neck, whereas a lot of compact cameras fell fine coming from a pocket. This would need a bulky pocket or bag to store it in.
The 35mm lens equivalent is 38-380mm and I suppose I must mention the fact that apart from 10x optical there is 3x digital but do not ask me to multiply the two to give a fanciful figure and I am pleased to say Kodak do not make a big song and dance of that figure on the box.
The unit is 5megapixel can take images at 5, 4.4, 4, 3.1 and 1.8megapixels. There are two compression modes fine and standard so as you can mix modes and giving an accurate capacity is almost impossible, the camera makes it's best guess, just to say 8 images in fine mode should fit into the provided 32MB of internal storage and at the other extreme 43 images in standard at 1.8megapixel. The box states that you should be able to get 30x20inch prints from the unit, this I did not try but everything I produced at A4 borderless was fine even at some of the lesser resolutions. An excellent camera at a not exceptional price, currently www.Jessops.com have it for £349.90.
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