Panoramic bliss in a compact digital may reinvigorate your creative juices...

Taking into account this cameras intended audience (point and shooters & likely Realtors), this camera offers a very big bang for the price! While its shots do lean toward being a bit on the soft side (a little noisy in darker areas and not quite as crisp as some other 5MP cameras in its range), the color depth, saturation and overall image quality are respectable and can often surprise (in a good way).

If you've never had the pleasure of taking panorama's or even wide angle shots, the Kodak V570 may reinvigorate your desire to carry a pocket camera and shoot creatively at every turn.

I'm not going to give an in-depth review here as there are numerous sites out there with thorough coverage of this unique camera, but after about two weeks use with the V570, I must give credit to Kodak for its innovative thinking and fine product.

Clearly, if you want a small, pocketable, and highly flexible consumer digital (without a great deal of manual options), this camera may be just the thing for you. Especially if you like shooting well lit interiors, groups and panoramic shots (you'll quickly become addicted to it, I assure you). It's like having a wide screen TV when compared to standard 4:3 style formats.

I'm going to sum up my thoughts on this camera through my recommendations to Kodak for future versions which I truly hope to see. They would be as follows:

1. While the style of the V570 is nice with a bit of retro thrown in for good measure, as a pocket camera, consider rounding off the edges, please! You did an excellent job of keeping this camera small (and thin) and that is one reason I purchased it, but more rounded edges would make it far more "pocketable" and therefor even better for its intended purpose.

2. Please consider bumping up the resolution to at least six and preferably 7MP. This would not only make this camera immensely more useful for producing enlargements of the wide angle and panoramic shots, but hopefully in the process would resolve some of the picture softness (hopefully) that sometimes is evident. Please don't reduce the Panoramic resolution quality if possible! We want to be able to produce full size shots and 3.1MP severely hinders that option. Also, try and improve on the low light sensitivity! I realize that's a lot to ask in such a small imager, but hey, like my dad always said, "if you don't ask..."

3. Stop compressing the video so much. Hey, I didn't buy this camera for shooting video, but with this camera it's unlikely I ever will simply because the resultant video has too many artifacts and also doesn't focus on the fly so you get (in this owners opinion) heavily crippled video when compared to many other point and shoot still cameras that I've owned and reviewed.

All in all, I believe (and hope) that this camera inspires a whole new approach by camera manufacturers to begin offering small wide angle enabled products (the stitching feature should be included in all of your cameras by the way). While many people may see this as a specialized camera for the exclusive domain of real estate sales people and the occasional beach photo, you would be sorely mistaken at that. From cityscapes to group pictures, this camera is serious fun and never fails to generate a "WOW" from people that see the results.

As such, I heartily recommend it! So long as you keep in mind that this is a first generation product aimed at the entry level user market, you won't be disappointed and may in fact be happily surprised!

The only thing remaining now is to print out some of the panoramas on my new Epson R1800 wide carriage photo printer to see if the resolution can hold up to printed scrutiny. Thanks to this camera, I've now spent about an extra $600 (substantially more than the camera cost me), so that I can print my own panoramic shots. Thanks Kodak!

FYI, I purchased this camera for $350 at CUSA on sale (a very good price considering it was a brand new model that retails for $399).