I Bought a Digital Camera! Kodak DC215 Product Review by: Clark Anderson Manufacturer: Eastman Kodak Kodak DC215 Installer Software System Requirements: * A PC Pentium 90MHz or faster recommended. * Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0 Operating System. or * PowerPC-equipped Macintosh-compatible * System 7.6.1 or later Operating System. and * CD-ROM drive. * Color display monitor with 256 color (thousands of colors recommended) * 16 Megabytes or more available RAM (32 Megabytes for Windows NT). * At least 60 Megabytes of free space on your disk drive. * Available serial port or COMPACTFLASH reader (Windows 98 can use USB port) Product Type: Digital Camera and PC Support Utilities. List Price: $299 Hardware Rating: **** out of ***** Software Rating: ** out of ***** Software Test Platform: DELL Latitude CPt Celeron 463MHz with 64 Megabytes RAM and an 11 Gigabyte hard drive, partitioned into FAT and NTFS, running NT 4.0 service pack 4. I wanted a ‘low cost’, well moderate cost, digital camera to document personal property and maybe for some snapshots. Here are my reasons for choosing a Kodak DC215 digital camera. It uses the COMPACTFLASH Picture Card memory. They come in many sizes and are used by several well-known brands of digital camera. My camera came with a 4MB COMPACTFLASH (about 10 pictures on the DC215). Recently, I bought a 128MB COMPACTFLASH (about 450 pictures on the 1 Mega Pixel DC215). The price per capacity was a pretty good buy ($160 made by SanDisk). I had not expected to buy this big of a memory module for the camera. Since battery life is precious, I have found it very important to have the AC adapter. I bought a Digipower Solutions AC Adapter for $30. The Input ratings on it are 100V-240V 50-60Hz/0.8A. I will not need a transformer when traveling abroad! My original AA Kodak Photo Life alkaline batteries ran out pretty quickly because the camera needed to display a preview of the picture whenever I wanted to take a close-up (8 inches). When using the AC adapter, it is important to remove the batteries. My primary use for the AC adapter is previewing and removing pictures stored on the COMPACTFLASH in the camera. The secondary use is for shooting pictures around the house. I also found it very important to switch to AA NI-MH rechargeable batteries and charger. I bought a Quantaray charger and batteries for $25. The Input ratings on the back are AC100V-260V 50/60HZ. This will also work abroad without any additional transformers! On my first use in the field, I took 23 pictures before the camera batteries ran down. Some of this was from zooming the lens in and out with the camera’s motor. I do not think they had the full 4 hour charge. Later on, after an overnight recharge, I took 49 pictures before the zooming feature started to balk. Another feature, important to me, was the ability to use a standard Serial Cable to send the pictures from the camera to my PC. My PCs operating system has that limitation. Most PCs do not have that limitation. A PC, running Windows98 does not. There are a number of Kodak Digital Cameras that use a USB connection. USB is a newer type of connection (Universal Serial Bus). It may be faster and works with most newer Windows98 PCs. Many PCs have this USB connection. There are usually 2 small (1/8 inch by 3/8 inch) openings next to each other in the back of the PC. They have next to them, what looks to me, like a simple cartoon of a saguaro cactus lying down I also bought a Kodak PICTURE CARD PCMCIA Type II ATA Compatible Adapter for $15. Kodak’s web site and the first part of the instruction pamphlet said it worked with Windows NT4, but elsewhere in the pamphlet, it recommended another product with a cable and Parallel (printer) port connector. A call to Kodak Help desk directed me to purchase some software from Microsoft. WHOA! I inserted my plugged 128MB COMPACTFLASH into the adapter and inserted it into my DELL Laptop PC’s spare PCMCIA socket. A little window opened, I clicked OK a few times, then I opened Windows Explorer. There was an additional Removable Drive. I opened it and there were my pictures! IT WORKED! I do not know who to thank for that required software, DELL or the COMPACTFLASH manufacturer. I copied the picture files to the Laptop’s fixed hard drive. THIS WAS GREAT! I did learn that it is important to right click the PCMCIA socket Icon, in the extreme right end of the task bar, to Stop the PICTURE CARD Adapter before removing it. My PCMCIA network interface adapter was not working until after couple of reboots, but all is well now and I have reinstalled the NT Service Pack for good measure. With more hindsight, the COMPACTFLASH/ PICTURE CARD adapter is far more important than the serial connection. First, Kodak does indicate 50-60 times faster for the adapter. Second, I had some difficulty installing some of the software. The Camera Control software was no problem and was kind of neat, but you can do the same thing from the camera itself. The Mounter Software was not intuitive. It appears in the My Computer folder and double clicking opens a window that eventually lists all of the pictures on the COMPACTFLASH that is in the camera, with thumbnail views available. It is VERY SLOW. The other Kodak cameras may have better lens systems for clearer pictures and more Zoom (enlargement of distant objects). The cameras with better lenses, that can achieve higher resolution, save more pixels (tiny color dots)and therefore, can only save 120 pictures on the 128MB COMPACTFLASH. Their web site, http://www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/cameras/comparisons/ can provide information about all of their Digital Cameras and accessories. OK, so my ‘low cost’ digital camera ended up costing about $480 plus tax and shipping with all of the ‘necessary’ attachments. I hope this makes some sense and is of some help. Oh, by the way the Camera Specifications are available at http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/digCam/dc215/ownerManual/10appendix.shtml #105517 Happy Shooting!