and the piercing red AF assist annoys in the extreme. Unlike at least one other reviewer, I have no issues with the layout or operation of the numerous control buttons, but I have long skinny fingers, which could be a factor.
I think it's pretty slick that I can turn the main control dial to "C" for custom, and call up two different personal black and white modes, as well as one for saturated color, with loads of parameters I can set however I want (they're easy to modify, as well).
I think movie modes on still cameras are plain goofy, so that's all I have to say about that.
I musn't forget the single most brilliant design element--a MANUAL zoom lens, which gives infinite control and zero frustration. It has taken camera designers a long time to undo those stupid power zooms. Power zooms are for the kind of people who won't use turn signals in their cars. Please, could you all join a cult and vanish into a cave? Oh yeah, don't forget the Kool-Aid.
One reviewer mentioned this camera's only direct competition by virtue of the 24mm EFL, the Nikon 8400, lauding it for its magnesium body. Please. Magnesium is junk metal, used because it's cheap, has a low melting point, and is therefore easy to work with. You wanna impress me? Bring back titanium. So, yeah, it's yet another plastic globlet, but it feels tight and doesn't look cheap--at least, no cheaper than the ubiquitous Digital Rebels.
Right now there isn't ONE DSLR I'd take for free. I'm waiting for somebody to get it right. Maybe it'll happen next February when Panasonic shows their new one.
What do I want? A Digital OM4-Ti. Until then, don't bother me with these elephantine monstrosities.
I still can't believe I bought a Kodak. But it has no serious weaknesses, and does have a few cute tricks. One could do a lot worse.
One last observation--at 24mm EFL, this lens has less barrel distortion than my Panasonic FZ 15 at 35mm EFL. That is no small accomplishment.
UPDATE (11/29/05)
Time for some clarifications and de-bunking, but first, the results from the P880 continue to impress. I used the camera at a street rod show in Daytona, and once I had the sense to change the white balance from "Auto" to "Daylight", this thing nailed every single color, no matter how odd or unusual.
I'd like to point out that I checked the lens for flare by shooting directly into the sun, and there were the usual tiny reflections of a pinpoint nature you'll see with any zoom lens, but there was a total absence of veiling glare or loss of contrast.
I mention this because in some of my shots with sun glinting off chrome, there is more of a glow than a pinpoint reflection.
This is where I tear into the reviewers at EVERY digicam site. They all talk about "chromatic aberration" and "purple fringing". These guys know computers, but they DON'T know optics. Chromatic aberration is one of several primary faults found to some degree in all lenses. The problem is there's lateral, and longitudinal chromatic aberration. And NEITHER of these accounts for what these reviewers mention.
The problem of purple fringing in digital cameras is NOT optical. There's an old term you never see used any more called "blooming". This is what happens when intense light overwhelms a CCD in a localized area (remember that these imaging chips in our digital cameras are still analog).
The problem I saw in my photos was caused by blooming, and not by lens flare, just as the purple fringing the reviewers ramble on about is a type of blooming affecting only the red and blue of affected pixels.
Now, just to complicate things, many digital cameras may actually exhibit one or both of the chromatic aberrations.
Longitudinal (or axial) chromatic is a change in color as the lens is focused, and can be improved by using smaller apertures (this doesn't correct the problem, it merely hides it behind the added depth of field).
Lateral (or transverse) chromatic occurs when the three primary components of light fail to converge at the same point, causing a smearing of color which cannot be improved by changing camera settings.
Hey, I think you need a drink...

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The EasyShare Flagship..., February 22, 2006
Reviewer: S. Reddick "sredd68"

This is the best of the current line of EasyShare cameras. The 8 megapixels, RAW, Manual Zoom and Focus rings. I've been using this camera for the past two to three months and I have to say it's one heck of a camera. This camera is read to go almost as soon as you turn it on because it's manual zoom there's no need for the camera to run a check on the zoom motor. That check delays the readiness of most zoom cameras. It has multiple scene modes and the PASM manual modes plus three C (custom modes) in which you can save your favorite settings. It also has an improved video mode. This camera even has a "Bulb" mode (this is where you can set how long the shutter stays open by holding the shutter button up to 60 secs, helpful when the 16 maximum programmed shutter opening isn't long enough). It has a hotshoe for an external flash gun (P20 Zoom Flash) which gives you more flexibility and power when the ambient light and the onboard flash isn't good enough. Kodak has placed buttons on the back and top of the camera that control the most of the main functions of the camera with out having to bring up the main menu and search for them, they are White Balance, ISO, Metering, Flash, Focus, and Digital Zoom. This camera has so many options that I could spend the next hour writing about them. I really recommend going to the Kodak website and checking out the specs.

Let's get to the most important feature of this machine...the pictures. The quality is very good, the lens captures a lot of detail and is really sharp. My wife and I just had our second child, I brought the camera to the hospital and took some pictures of out newborn, some color and some black & white, they came out so well that we didn't order the usual hospital photos. The results were so good that when visitors come to our home they find it hard to believe that the photos were not professionally done. I've also taken landscapes and macros with this camera and I must say I have not been disappointed yet.

Now for the bad news... The auto focus sometimes hunts in low light and low contrast situations which is not really a major problem because you can just turn the manual focus ring and adjust it until you're satisfied. There's a lot of noise over ISO 200 (can be corrected with a good noise reduction program i.e. Noise Ninja) and you only have ISO 800 and 1600 at 0.8 megs setting, which is really only good for the web. Slow write times for RAW and Tiff modes and the camera is pretty much inoperable while the camera writes to the memory card. No burst mode when shooting RAW and Tiff modes.

All in all this is one of the best cameras out now. It's really a flexible piece of equipment and a very capable backup for DSLR users thathave tired of carrying all the extra equipment that goes with owning a DSLR. It is also a very good camera for those not quite ready to make the jump to a DSLR but find they are ready to spread their photographic wings. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

****EDIT**** Kodak has recently released a firmware upgrade for this camera that decreases shutter lag, improves the auto focus and exposure and adds a pixel remapping program to remove any malfunctioning pixels on the sensor. I upgraded mine and I highly recommend anyone that owns this camera to do the same. It makes a world of difference in its operation.
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