The EasyShare P880 is a high-end bridge digital camera

Bridge digital camera

Bridge cameras are cameras which fill the niche between the single-lens reflex cameras and the Point-and-shoot camera. They are often comparable in size and weight to the smallest Digital SLRs , but almost all digital bridge cameras lack an optical viewfinder system...

 from Kodak. It was announced August 2, 2005 within the Performance series. Its siblings are the P850 and the P712. The P880, however, possesses the largest optical sensor of all three models, with a size of 1/1.8 inches. Distinguishing features include a wide angle coverage of 24mm (35 mm equivalent

35 mm equivalent focal length

In photography, the 35 mm equivalent focal length is a measure that indicates the angle of view of a particular combination of a camera lens and film or sensor size...

), on screen histogram display, and focus-by-wire. In terms of the Kodak product line and price the Performance series are the most sophisticated EasyShare cameras, just below the considerably more expensive Kodak professional DCS pro SLR

Kodak DCS Pro SLR/c

The Kodak Professional DCS Pro SLR/c is a 13.5 megapixel digital SLR camera produced by Eastman Kodak. Unlike most DSLRs, it is full frame—it uses an image sensor that is the full size of a 35 mm frame. It is compatible with Canon EOS lenses...

 digital cameras that were discontinued in May 2005.

Specifications

• f/2.8-f/4.1 24 – 140 mm (35 mm equivalent
  35 mm equivalent focal length
  In photography, the 35 mm equivalent focal length is a measure that indicates the angle of view of a particular combination of a camera lens and film or sensor size...
  
  ) wide-angle to telephoto zoom lens
• 1/1.8" (7.18 x 5.32 mm) 8.3MP 4:3 CCD sensor
• 640x480, 320x240 30fps Quicktime Movie video capture.
• Auto, Scene, Programmed Mode, Aperture priority, Shutter priority, Manual exposure - allows (B)ulb, Custom modes (stores 3 profiles)
• Manual zoom ring and optional use of manual focus ring (fly-by-wire). Autofocus uses hybrid phase detection system (sensors above the lens) for quick focus assist followed by contrast detection system (TTL) for fine focus. Phase detection system should be switched off in the menu when accessory lenses are mounted.
• 2.5" 480x240 (115k) pixel LCD Panel
• EVF with 237k pixel
• Dioptre adjustment for EVF
• Built-in manual pop up Electronic Flash (GN 9 @ ISO 100) with external Hot shoe and classic flash connector. Special external Kodak flash P20 unit available works with TTL exposure metering. External flash units should not exceed 500v contact requirement.
• Proprietary RAW file format
  RAW image format
  A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor...
  
   - In-camera conversion to JPEG is possible or the .KDC can be converted with Kodak Easyshare software.
• Histogram display with highlight and shadow clipping emphasis on Review
• Hybrid focusing system uses TTL-AF and external passive sensor, low light AF: high performance with AF assist light
• 52mm filter screw mount on the lens - use this for screw-on filters that will not vignette the 24mm wide angle view (not higher than 5mm). Also for single element macro close up filters. For mounting heavier add-on lenses like the Kodak Xenar 1.4x tele converter (Kodak #8756488), use the 55mm adapter tube (Kodak #8480485) - this attaches to a thread hidden by a chromed ring around the lens. This adapter cannot be left on permanently because it will cut off the angle of view for most of the zoom range.
• Uses KLIC-5001 Kodak Lithium Ion batteries (4 hour full charge with supplied external charger), also KLIC-5000 lower capacity ones.
• Dedicated buttons for Focus mode, Digital Zoom, ISO, White Balance, Flash, Review mode. One custom button.
• Command Wheel and Set button supplements Joystick pad for menu and settings.
• Firmware Update adds Hot pixel
  Hot Pixel
  Hot Pixel is a puzzle video game for the Sony PlayStation Portable released on 22 June 2007 in Europe and 2 October 2007 in the North America by Atari....
  
   and Dead pixel re-calibration, improves focusing speed.
• Uses SD card for storage (Max 2Gb capacity)
• Drive modes include 10 sec Self Timer, 2 sec Delay (in the absence of remote shutter release), First Burst, Last Burst, 3 shot Exposure Bracketing, 5 shot Exposure Bracketing, Time Lapse. There is no remote shutter release. Exposure Bracketing cannot be used with Self Timer modes.

User Notes

• P20 flash is fully automatic with the P880. You can bounce the flash of ceilings and the camera will automatically compensate; perfect exposure all the time. The P880s flash and P20 use a pre-flash that fires before the main flash, this lets the camera meter for perfect exposure. The pre-flash is faster on the P20 so it's harder to see it. The P20 is much more powerful than the built in flash, and is the number one recommended add on for the P880 to extend its usability.
• It is a matter of popular opinion that at discounted prices, the P880 scores highly in having a very good 24mm (35mm equivalent) wide angle lens. An entry level DSLR with a third party lens capable of the same image quality at 24mm and above would be two or three times the cost of the P880.
• The SD card file system is FAT16. 4Gb capacity is not supported.
• Does not have remote control. However provides an additional 2 second delayed timed shutter release in addition to the 10 second self timer.
• Not really compatible with the Olympus teleconverter model tcon-17 due to some vignetting, best to use Kodak's 1.4x teleconverter
  Teleconverter
  A teleconverter is a secondary lens which is mounted between the camera and a photographic lens. Its job is to enlarge the central part of an image obtained by the objective lens...
  
  . Not compatible with any wide angle converters; really does not need it due to excellent 24mm wide angle lens.
• KDC is directly supported by
  • Kodak Easyshare
    Kodak EasyShare
    Kodak EasyShare is a sub brand of Eastman Kodak Company products identifying a consumer photography system of digital cameras, snapshot thermal printers, snapshot thermal printer docks, all-in-one inkjet printers, accessories, camera docks, software, and online print services. The brand was...
    
     software - comes with the camera
  • SilkyPix Developer Studio (Windows only)
  • Adobe Lightroom
    Adobe Lightroom
    Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a photography software program developed by Adobe Systems for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, designed to assist Adobe Photoshop users in managing large quantities of digital images and doing post production work...
    
     (Windows and Mac)
  • Picasa
    Picasa
    Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
    
     (Windows)
  • newer versions of Adobe Photoshop
    Adobe Photoshop
    Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
    
     and Photoshop Elements - there is an Adobe Camera Raw 3.6 plugin. (Windows and Mac)
  • Adobe DNG Converter (available for Windows and Mac) which implies that once the .DNG file is created, any program that can process .DNG files can be used.
  • Vuescan (Windows and Mac)
  • dcraw
    Dcraw
    dcraw is an open-source computer program which is able to read numerous raw image formats, typically produced by high-end digital cameras. dcraw converts these images into the standard PPM and TIFF image formats...
    
     command line tool (Windows, Mac, Linux) The UFRaw
    UFRaw
    UFRaw is an application which can read and manipulate photographs in raw image formats, as created by many digital cameras. UFRaw is available both as a stand-alone utility, as a GIMP and CinePaint plugin, and in F-Spot via the DevelopInUFRaw extension...
    
     plugin for The Gimp relies on dcraw.
  • IrfanView
    IrfanView
    IrfanView is a freeware/shareware image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view, edit, and convert image files and play video/audio files. It is noted for its small size, speed, ease of use, and ability to handle a wide variety of graphic file formats, and has some image creation and painting...
    
     3.98t - the interim-version 3.98t. (Windows)
  • graphic converter 5.9.3 (Mac - shareware)
  • XnView
    XnView
    XnView is a cross-platform image viewer used for viewing, converting, organising and editing graphical & video files. It is free of charge for private, educational and non-profit organisations...
    
     1.90 Beta http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10749&highlight=kdc (Windows)
  • Helicon Filter
    Helicon Filter
    Helicon Filter, also referred to as Helicon, Filter, or as HF, is a proprietary commercial and shareware photo editing software program for Microsoft Windows, similar to such programs as Adobe Photoshop and GIMP, developed and published by Helicon Soft Ltd...
    
     http://www.heliconfilter.com/pages/ (Windows)
  • Raw Therapee
    Raw Therapee
    RawTherapee is a cross-platform raw image processing application, recently released under the GPLv3. It is written in C++ using a GTK+ front-end and dcraw by Gábor Horváth of Budapest, Hungary. It is notable in that it was one of the first raw converters available for Linux with a reasonably usable...
    
     http://www.rawtherapee.com/ (Windows)
  • RAW Photo Processor (Andrey Tverdokhleb) http://www.lexa.ru/andyt/RPP/ (Mac)
• Manual focus feature is hampered by relatively coarse resolution EVF
  EVF
  EVF may refer to:*Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation*Electronic viewfinder*Erythrocyte volume fraction or hematocrit*Embryonic ventral forebrain-2...
  
  and LCD screen.
• Visual estimation of contrasty outdoor scenes can be unreliable using the LCD screen. The LCD screen tends to show a pale, bright interpretation of the scene or the captured image. Either switch on the info for histogram and shadow/highlight clipping emphasis or use the EVF for better visual estimation.
• Continuous Auto Focus mode is quite noisy. Use the Single AF option.