Almost a year and 2500 pictures later I continue to be amazed and
delighted by what can be done with it. One of the things that I
especially love is the ability to capture a lot of great images on
a reasonably sized memory card thanks to that aggressive
compression. I can count the shots in which I would say the
quality of the image has suffered in a way I would care about on
the fingers of one hand and yes i do crop aggressively on some
shots and like to make 8X10 pronts.
I have discovered ways in which it isn't perfect - not all of which
were in what I read before hand, but it is still (and probably will
remain for a long time to come) a much better camera than I am a
photographer. I don't believe that any of you can seriously
suggest that the 6490 is a defective product or fails to provide
what was promised when it was sold. Several newer Kodak models
have now been released including responses to things that 6490
owners said should be improved. Why would you expect Kodak to
spend money issuing a free upgrade (especially one of questionable
value to many users) for an outdated product rather than on
developing the next generation of products that will allow them to
remain in business?
If this is really critical to you, suggest to them that you'd be
interesting in purchasing such a product and suggest a value you
would place on it. To suggest that you won't buy a Kodak in the
future because you don't get an upgrade for free seems like a real
example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. I must
presume that you bought the 6490 because it was at that time the
best value for your money considering all aspects of its
performance and your budget. Wouldn't it be folly to make your
choice on your next camera contrary to that basic value judgement?
Enjoy the great things you can do with your camera until you are
ready to get a better one.
Sorry, Leon, but I think Kodak want you to buy its new camera
instead of just updating the old one.
I had expectations at first, but now I lost them all. Anyway, I
swear my next camera won't be a Kodak.
Sounds like you bought the camera in the expectation of a firmware
upgrade?
Juan, a DX6490 owner since almost six months now who was waiting
for a firmware update just in order to reduce the compression of
the jpg.
Actually, you should be happy they didn't give you the reduced
compression. Instead, they proved with the new Kodak cameras that
this option did not solve anything: We have seen that the
artifacts are the same in Normal and Fine compression mode.
Differences in sharpness or detail could not be noticed either.
The only difference we found was the file size. Now, how bad do
you want bigger file sizes?
Bas
this camera is also well over a year old, can't see a firmware upgrade for it now, given if anything was that bad none would have sold and Kodak would have had to have addressed any weaknesses.