Show Review by: Michael Gazzola

Images captured on Olympus E-520

As in previous years, and again this year Kodak put in a big appearance at the Imaging Technology Show with a stand that could be seen from every corner of the venue. The floor space was definately pushing for title of the biggest with plenty of room for visitors to move around and a very clean white finish, with few hints of yellow.

I was given the royal treatment by Kodak, hosted by Georgina Wain and David Santer as we spent time going through their range of digital cameras, digital photo frames and new range of printers.

The first item we looked at was Kodak's flagship digital compact, the V1073 (see our review). This camera has many great functions, with a technogical first in Smart Capture where the focus point can lock onto a moving subject to keep your image in focus - great for photographic ever moving children! We also went through a range of other functions but one worth mentioning is the auto macro feature - where the user can simply step right up close to a subject and not have to change any settings as the camera automatically shifts into macro mode.

A second digital camera looked at was the Z8612. With a unique, more squarer looking shape this model also has a couple of great features such as a motor drive, which is useful for capturing a series of quick snaps, plus an in-camera automatic panorama stitching setting and an anti-ghosting feature.

Kodak have also entered the digital photo frame market and released two great models in the M1020 and the M820. Each come with 3 changeable matts that allow you to better match the frame to its enviroment. The M1020 has some excellent features. For starters, and probably the most important is the very wide viewing angle of the screen which is a great match for the HD format (16:9 aspect ratio) which produces vivid colours and a very sharp image. And a great little feature iPod lovers will appreciate is the illuminated Quick Touch Border and Kodak's unique scrolling feature, which allows you to easily scroll through images with a simple slide action of your finger along the lower border.

Finally we looked at the new printer range with the ESP5 and the ESP3, along with their new super cheap ink cartridges & paper sets. Until now I had been a little skeptical but the quality of the sample images I was shown were excellent and they felt & looked like traditional photo lab paper. A demonstration was given to me using a good quality image they had on file - taking 30 seconds from start to finish - handing over a dry and ready for framing glossy borderless print! And at a total print cost of just 20c per print there are real savings to be had!

The printers rrp are $199 and $159 respectively.