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KODAK DIGITAL SCIENCE™ DC220/DC260 Zoom Camera
Your camera display

On the top of the camera a display shows the current settings. Take a minute to become familiar with the various entries on the display. The following subsections briefly describe each entry.

Note: The camera must be turned on to view the Status Display. You must also be in the Capture mode to view and interact with this display.

Note: For information on how to define settings refer to the Capture Mode menus and through the SCROLL and SELECT buttons.

Flash

Your camera is equipped with a built-in flash that offers a red-eye reduction feature. The flash has an effective range of approximately 1.6 to 9.8 ft. (0.68 to 3 m). There are four Flash settings:

Auto—The flash fires automatically when you press the SHUTTER button and the camera determines that there is not enough light.

Red-eye— If the camera determines that there is not enough light, the flash fires once when you press the SHUTTER button to reduce the chance of red-eye and then flashes a second time, 600 milliseconds later, when the picture is taken.

Fill—The flash fires every time you press the SHUTTER button. Use this setting when the lighting is poor or when your subject is lit from behind.

Off—The flash is turned off and will not fire. If you turn the flash off, the next time you turn the camera on, the camera defaults to the Auto flash setting.

Exposure Compensation

The camera's exposure can be adjusted from -2.0 to +2.0 exposure value (EV) in 0.5 EV increments while in Capture mode.

If your pictures are:

• correctly exposed—maintain the AUTO default setting which will automatically choose the correct exposure for the lighting conditions.
• too dark—increase (+) the exposure compensation setting
• too light—decrease (-) the exposure compensation setting

Picture Type

The Picture Type icon changes to indicate the type of picture you are taking. There are three picture types:

Still—A single still picture is taken. The Still picture type is the default; whenever you turn the camera on, Still pictures is the selected picture type.

Burst—A series of pictures are taken in quick succession.

Timelapse—A series of pictures are taken with a time delay between each picture. You can set the time delay through Capture Preferences.

Note: Refer to Setting camera properties for more information about each picture type and their preference settings.

Quality

You may set your camera to take pictures with a Good, Better, or Best Quality setting. The Quality setting indicates how much the picture is compressed to save space on the memory card.

A brief detour to discuss quality and resolution... 

Keep in mind that with your DC220 and DC260 Cameras you're generally going to get beautiful digital pictures. But based on two factors, resolution and compression, some pictures will be of a higher quality than others.

It's basically quality versus quantity when it comes to pictures.

Instead of film, a digital camera places your pictures on a memory card. The pictures are made up of pixels. Stand really close to your TV—so close that your mother would yell at you if she saw you. Those little dots that make up the picture are pixels. It's the more the merrier when it comes to pixels and the quality of your digital pictures. But everything has its price. The more pixels you have (or the better the resolution in other words) the more space you use on the camera memory card.

To save space, you can compress each picture. When a picture is compressed, some color and detail information is discarded. More compression means a lower quality picture. Less compression means a better quality picture.

Together, compression (or quality) and resolution dictate how many pictures you can fit on your memory card.

• If the quality of your pictures is most important, use high quality (which results in little compression) and high resolution. You may want to do this if you will be printing your pictures on a high quality printer.
• If space on your memory card is most important, use a lower quality (which results in more compression) and standard resolution. You may want to do this if you will be using your pictures in a Web page.

  Note: Remember that Resolution and Quality are two different things. Resolution is the number of pixels in the picture. Quality is how much you compress them.

We now return to our Quality discussion... 

You may switch freely between the three settings when taking pictures. The number of pictures the camera is able to store will vary accordingly. The Quality and Resolutions settings combine to dictate how many pictures you can store on your memory card. Higher Quality and Resolution settings mean you save more picture information, making for higher quality pictures, but use more space of your memory card.

The three Quality setting icons are:

Best—Use this setting when image quality is very important for maximum picture quality, especially for larger sized or zoom prints.

Better—use this setting for general picture taking, good quality pictures, and to store a large number of pictures.

Good—use this setting to store the greatest number of pictures.

Self-Timer

Activating the Self-Timer option creates a 10-second delay between the time you press the SHUTTER button and when the picture is taken. This allows enough time for you to include yourself in the picture.

Close Up (DC220 only)

The camera offers a Close Up setting which allows you to focus as close as 8 in. (20 cm).

Note: The viewfinder does not accurately display the subject in close up mode. To accurately capture the picture close up, the Preview option automatically starts when the CLOSE UP button is pressed.

Batteries

Note: This is a display icon only. You cannot select or change this icon.

The camera comes equipped with four AA batteries. You can use standard 1.5 V alkaline, 1.7 V lithium, rechargeable 1.2 NiMH, or rechargeable 1.2 V NiCad batteries. NiMH tend to give the best overall performance of rechargeable batteries.

Note: Battery life will be reduced when Preview, Review, or Close-up Mode are in use.

The battery power icon changes automatically.

Full—Batteries are fully charged.

Low—Batteries need to be replaced soon.

Blinking—Batteries are insufficient to run camera and need to be replaced.

Note: Pictures stored in the card's memory are not lost if the batteries are depleted.

Pictures Remaining

Note: This is a display icon only. You cannot select or change this icon.

The Pictures Remaining icon changes automatically to indicate the remaining number of pictures that can be stored at the current quality and resolution setting. You may not select or change the Pictures Remaining icon.

Note: The Pictures Remaining number does not always change when a picture is taken if the picture content is easily compressed.

When the card's memory is full, the Status Display indicates Full. You must delete existing pictures or change the memory card to take additional pictures. For more information on how to delete pictures, refer to the Deleting pictures section.

Manual Mode

The DC260 Camera supports two advanced capture modes—the external flash mode and the long time mode. The DC220 Camera supports only the long time mode.

The two manual mode icons are:

External flash mode—The DC260 camera's built-in flash is disabled and the external flash sync is used to provide flash. You set the camera aperture setting (or f/stop). Choose from 1.8, 2.4, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, or 22. The default value is 5.6 and provides an appropriate depth of field for many identification or portraiture applications.

Long time mode—The camera's flash is disabled as it is assumed that a long exposure time is necessary to obtain a proper exposure within the current ambient lighting environment. You set the exposure time between 0.5 and 4 seconds in 0.5 second increments.

Infrared Communication

In a camera to camera connection in the Review mode, two cameras can communicate with each other through an infrared connection. The Infrared Communication icon appears and changes to indicate the state of the camera's communication with its infrared partner camera.

The infrared communication icons are:

Initiating communication—Infrared communication has been initiated.

Searching for communication partner—The camera is looking for an infrared communication partner.

Communicating—The camera is communicating with its infrared partner. The alphanumeric display also indicates the number of pictures that have yet to be transmitted.

Communication timed out—A problem has occurred that has caused the communication to time out. The icon continues to blink until you respond to the LCD dialog or turn the camera off.

Owner's Manual Contents
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Your Camera
Camera identification | Controls | Display | Removable memory card | Power management