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At first glance, the sleek and slender 5-megapixel Kodak EasyShareOne V570's good looks will catch your eye. But press the power button and the silver disk on the point-and-shoot camera's face opens to reveal dual lenses, an unorthodox approach to the problem of equipping compact cameras with a wide-angle field of view. It's not a perfect solution, but given that there are few other options out there, this works for us.
Slightly larger than most sub-compact cameras, the classy matte black V570 is still small enough to slip into a pocket or purse. With its large, bright and beautiful 2.5" LCD, there's no room—and no need—for an optical viewfinder. Tiny buttons line the top of the camera, with access to the shutter, power, a large selection of scene modes, the movie mode and a button to add pictures to your favorites list. While these controls are easily accessible, the buttons are very small and flush with the top of the camera, and some people may have problems operating the camera.
A set of rectangular buttons to the left of the LCD are convenient, although in the dark it's tough to read the identifying markers, so if you're a low-light shooter, be sure to memorize the location of each button—you'll literally be operating in the dark. A round zoom control sits above a joystick to the right of the LCD, leaving little room to rest your thumb. But we managed to find a comfortable position, with our thumb partially covering the zoom control.
Although the zoom control switches the lenses from wide angle to zoom, it's important to keep in mind that the wide-angle lens is fixed at 23mm (35mm equivalent). The second, 3x optical zoom lens, has a typical focal length of 39-117mm (35mm equivalent). What this means is that unless you use the digital zoom, you don't have access to the focal lengths in between (24mm-38mm). Still, we highly recommend that you turn off the digital zoom and leave it off; otherwise the image quality will suffer.
That said, the common problem of wide-angle distortion isn't much of an issue and the 23mm lens—in conjunction with the camera's photostitching capabilities—is perfect for shooting panoramas. If you're into shooting landscapes, you definitely need to check out this camera.
As is true with all of Kodak's EasyShare cameras and software, the V570 is easy to use. It comes equipped with enough internal memory to hold 17 5-megapixel images, so you'll want to buy an SD card right away (we recommend at least 256MB). We love the cool-looking Photo Frame Dock 2—for charging and transferring images—that comes with the camera, although it's not particularly convenient for traveling.
The V570's feature set is pretty much point-andshoot simple, with a few choices for sharpness, metering and focus (including continuous focus). There's no control over image compression; rather, image resolution is determined by size (in other words, five megapixels, four megapixels, etc.). ISO starts at a respectable 64 and goes up from there, but if you stretch it to ISO 800, you'll end up with a 1.8-megapixel image, so don't do it unless you absolutely have to.
If you like to shoot movies, you'll enjoy the camera's high-resolution movie mode, with image stabilization. You can also do some editing in-camera and/or pull a frame for a small print.
This isn't the fastest camera on the block, but it's comparable to much of the competition—which means it's about average. Shutter lag is minimal, however and under bright conditions, autofocus is relatively quick. Not surprisingly, the flash—like those on most small cameras—won't light up your life, so make sure to get close to your subjects.
Our test shots exhibited well-saturated colors that were bright and lively. On the other hand, the V570 had a tendency to blow out highlights in high contrast shots and occasionally it had a hard time hanging onto shadow detail. We recommend setting the ISO below 400 in order to keep noise at bay. Nonetheless, the camera more than compensated for its shortcomings (and price) with its wide-angle field of view and very cool design.
–THEANO NIKITAS
Kodak EasyShare V570: 
Eastman Kodak | www.kodak.com | 888-368-6600 | $400
Pros: Super wide-angle lens, produces great panorama shots, easy to use, cool and sleek design, great color reproduction, dock included, above average video mode. video mode.
Cons: No SD card, generally average performance, visible noise at higher ISOs, images are less than razor sharp.
Requires: G3 or better with built-in USB; OS 10.3 or higher, Safari 1.0 or higher
macHOME recommends: SD card (256MB recommended)
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